June 7
‘That’s where Madonna gets her children from, right?’
That’s about the extent of people’s knowledge of this tiny little peaceful country in central southern African that we live, a land area only half the size of the state of Victoria just below the tourist Mecca of Tanzania with its infamous Serengeti. Most people can’t even tell you what continent Malawi lies in, let alone spell the country’s name. It therefore doesn’t come as a great shock when you hear stories such as mailed letters commonly being misdirected to Mali – completely the other side of the continent.
Walking up the Boma Path, one of the most beautiful and most trying routes up Mount Mulanje, with some of our close friends, we heard a story from Ange that typified the world’s knowledge of this little known Commonwealth country. An international NGO worker recently tried to send a package to some of her colleagues in Malawi from her home city in the United States. After two months the delivery hadn’t yet reached Blantyre (which admittedly, isn’t that unheard of here), so she approached the delivery room of the company to find out where the package was ,given the company sends everything via registered mail.
‘Oh, it’s right here on the desk,’ came the official’s reply, obviously nonplussed by this oversight. Disbelieving, she asked why it hadn’t been sent. The reply she got?
‘The postal office sent it back because the address is wrong. You have written Blanytre, Malawi. There’s no country printed on it. You forgot to write that Africa is the country.’
Even Madonna, despite her ‘bond’ with our country, has spent less time here than your average holidaying tourist whilst ‘officially’ acquiring her orphan… but that’s another separate story in its own right.
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