Muli bwanji, Malawi?

I’m here, finally! Not the most perfect welcome.. sat between two missionaries from West Virginia on the flight up from Johannesburg. Not quite the cultural experience I was looking for. And the airline left my luggage in South Africa.

But I’m here! Last night I took a walk around Namiwawa the neighborhood or township where I am living. On the clay dirt sidewalks nearly everyone I passed smiled or said hello miss. The children and the young men are the boldest. Shoeless orphans of AIDS – Malawi has the highest infection rates in all of Africa- travel in packs and shout, Mzungu! (trans. Whitey) and laugh. A man on a corner waiting for a minibus amid heaps of discarded sugarcane and maize shucks took up his guitar. Stopped to listen. A flock of girls came running down a side street, and the smallest one waved to me and shouted “Muli bwanji?” “Ndili bwino, kaya inu?”  “Ndili bwino” She was grinning ear to ear as I waved again and we exchanged thumbs up. This is a magical land.