July 13
With our first entry exactly one year and one day earlier, we now prepare to depart this amazing country, our lives completely changed by what we have done, seen and given in Malawi.
After an amazing string of going away parties, dinners, showers of gifts of appreciation, speeches, songs and cakes and photos and so many brilliant friends, it all culminates in the mixed feelings of leaving this stunning country, yet happy to head home and see family and friends.
After an amazing string of going away parties, dinners, showers of gifts of appreciation, speeches, songs and cakes and photos and so many brilliant friends, it all culminates in the mixed feelings of leaving this stunning country, yet happy to head home and see family and friends. 
The work we have done here has given us both immeasurable experience and opened our eyes to a world that cannot be realistically imagined for those who have not been here and seen with their own eyes. One of desperate and unrelenting poverty, of a devastating lack of education, medicines and basic sanitation, of death and disease so common that one is simply numbed by its omnipotence. Yet a warmth and welcoming from the people that is second to none, of smiles that melt your heart on a daily basis, of a country that earns its moniker ‘the Warm Heart of Africa’ with consummate ease. Despite every frustration, and believe me there’s certainly no shortage of them around here, there is nothing we would change from our time here. And we have had the opportunity to meet so many interesting people from so many different walks of life, both Malawian and mzungu, who will all now drift their different ways as we do ours.
With all the various prints, souvenirs and photos that follow us home, none will compare to the memories of the lives we now have here and that very, very accurate expression about this vast continent: ‘Africa, it gets into your blood.’ Let’s just say that this is simply the end of the beginning.
