First day, returning to Malawi

It’s good to return to the warm heart of Africa with three colleagues, here to teach wildfire management to Malawians in the south (in Liwonde, for week one) and center-north (based out of Luwawa for weeks two and three).

Tonight, at Heuglin’s Lodge in Lilongwe, we continued our planning over a good meal (pork, squash, a wonderful pear desert) and talked with another guest about her work here in reducing HIV risk for teenagers.

After our dinner and a plan to plan our training week tomorrow, I go to bed beneath mosquito netting and far off there is bird-chittering and talking and singing and the dogs bark until the full night comes on and the singing and barking and bird-chitters all fall silent and this side of the city seems asleep under a filling moon. (Though later, much later, so late it is early tomorrow, a car alarm will sound for a minute or two, too early to wake but hard to sleep again.)

Tomorrow we drive to Liwonde and the Hippo View Lodge. And Monday we start teaching, and of course learning too.

Photo: Welcome, written in leaves.