After weeks of preparations and planning I am actually here at the Lilongwe Wildlife Center in Malawi (“the Warm Heart of Africa”). Unfortunately, one of my fellow volunteers is using the wi-fi spot for a long (and loud) telephone call to some work colleague in England who seems to be in some sort of trouble, so it’s not so easy to write at the moment. Plus I am pretty exhausted from a mega journey. So I’ll keep it short: I left Liz and David’s (my much-loved Uncle and Aunt) house in Putney, London yesterday afternoon to Heathrow airport; night flight to Nairobi, Kenya. From there it was suposed to be a short hop to Lilongwe, Malwai but Kenya Airways (” The Pride of Africa “) had other ideas and rerouted the flight via Harare, Zimbabwe. The flight was very interesting – besides the african passengers there where a fair number of very colonial looking whites – sort of “old africa hand” types, and one who I fancied was a mercenary (probably not). The whites and blacks didn’t mix at all, I don’t think it’s racism, just totally different worlds. Anyway it added about 3 hours to my trip and I can now say I have been to Zimbabwe (sort of).

Terminal 4 Heathrow

Finally, after what seemed liked hours of flying backwards and forwards over miles and miles of Africa I landed in Lilongwe. The visa and customs took about 5 minutes and I was met by a driver and car from the Widlife Center.  At the center Cazz the volunteer coordinator explained procedures and gave me papers to fill in but it all passed over my head. I had a shower, helped feed some Antelopes, took some photos of monkeys and saw some really cool Bushbabies (I’ll try to get photos). Now I think I’ll sleep for ever and see what happens tomorrow.  So far so good.

Entering Lilongwe