The National Express direct Heathrow bus pulled out of Alnwick at around half past midnight. Forty-one hours later the shared taxi I was in arrived in Chitipa. The headmaster at Chitipa Secondary School was later to comment ‘forty-one hours travelling Andy, that’s almost a day’. The route via Istanbul, Dar es Saalam, Mbeya, Songwe and Karonga had been as smooth as usual. It was a beautiful African morning as I stepped off the plane in Mbeya. The light was amazing as the sun came up over the hills that surround Mbeya. ‘Nani-Nani’ bus station was my first destination and I was soon sitting next to Jackson in the front two seats of the border bound bus. Jackson was a 61 year old reflexologist heading for Tukuyu where he had to see a patient. He had an old bed frame on the roof and at Tukuyu I helped him carry it to his wife who had a stall selling cabbages in the market. It is a beautiful journey from Mbeya to Songwe through the hills that bisect the Rungwe and Livingstone Mountains. The road is lined with tea estates, crops of potatoes, carrots and cabbages. I saw an orange stream where a lot of carrots were being washed. My big cricket bag had no wheels this year so I needed some help. I got a motorbike to the Tanzanian border and a bicycle to the Malawi side across the Songwe River. I broke all speed records through immigration, leaving Tanzania and entering Malawi in under an hour.

I was soon in the back of a Karonga bound minibus and taking a hit with every pothole our driver managed not to avoid. I was tired and hungry as I dragged my big bag the last few metres to a roadside restaurant for some nsima. A bicycle taxi took my bag and I walked behind as we went looking for the Chitipa transport. Since the tarmac road was completed in 2014 so much more transport goes between Karonga and Chitipa. A few people have bought and imported small Japanese cars through Dar es Saalam. They cost about $2000. I quashed myself into the back seat, designed for two but obviously with enough room for four. The electric door slides closed. The satellite navigation system dominates the dashboard but then back to reality as fresh fish is dangled over the wind screen wipers and the wing mirrors. As fast as possible the driver gets to Chitipa using the wrong side of the road as much as the right. I nod off and as I wake we are approaching Chitipa guarded by the Mafinga and Misuku Hills.

I sleep well at the NaChitipa Guest House and get up early to head off to Rowland’s house. We greet each other and eat breakfast of tea and sweet potatoes. His wife Beatrice, daughter Rosa, brother Tiomeke and wife’s sister Catherine are all there to greet me. Rowland didn’t get the revised plan for my visit and we are not sure if the Malawi Cricket Academy coaches have arrived so we head off to Kawale Primary School to meet the previously trained twenty eight teachers who have been called for this meeting. First we meet the Head Mistress of the school to say thanks for the permission to hold the meeting and courses over the next week at her school. She has no problem and welcomes us. Her husband is the MP for Chitipa and a new member of Mutarika’s cabinet. I decide not to talk politics. The Teacher Development Centre is at Kawale and we meet the Primary Education Adviser who also welcomes our efforts. This year we can only focus on one zone that of Kawale, which is the central Chitipa zone because of a lack of funds to invite teachers from all over the district like last year.