It is Beatrice’s birthday today so I get some party food and we have a dance and a Fanta for an hour. I say my goodbyes to Rowland and Beatrice. I am leaving in the morning. Wachisa wakes me as usual and we talk as I wait for the bus to leave. He is so happy with what has happened this week. He lives for his football. He is a farmer and is not married I found out. This is his mission in life and he is so good at it. As we pull out of Chitipa again I am leaving with some amazing memories.

I enjoy the trip to Mzuzu. The journey down to Karonga through the hills is always nice passing old memories from those days when the road was poor such as collapsed old bridges. The lakeshore road is as beautiful as ever with the usipa out drying in the sun on the left and the foothills of Nyika on the right. We head up at Chitimba, past the monkeys and Machenga coal mine near Rowlands village. He told me of how so many locals have been killed in the mine over the years with families getting little support. We cross the North Rukuru River and are soon in Mzuzu. By 5.30 pm I am in the Lisbon Bar near Taifa market with Henzie Banda, Jomo Ngonga, Elias, Orthaniel Hara and Wezi Hara enjoying a ‘Carlsberg Green’. As we drink we make plans for a 20^th Anniversary Apatseni FC Reunion in 2020. A charity fund raining football match at the stadium is mentioned.

It is a cold wet day in Mzuzu. I go and buy some apples and yoghurt from ‘ShopRight’. I stand and watch a protest march organised against the quota system in secondary schools and universities in Malawi. The main argument is that Northern students are denied places at Northern Secondary schools because less qualified students from south and central are allocated the places. The pass mark in the south and central is less than in the north people told me. It is just another example of how the government dominated by the south and central treats the north badly.

I visit the Education Manager. It is now Mr Moyo who back in 1999 was the District Education Manager in Mzima who I remember well attending some of our events. He tells me that there is now a Divisional Sports Officer but he is on leave. The first person since me back in 2000 to hold that post. The thing that I always suggested back in 2000 would be a great positive development for sports is now a reality 20 years later. Each district has a Sports Officer at the Education office now and there is a Divisional office.

The next morning I am up early and heading for Katoto. A shared taxi going south soon fills up and we are off through the Viphya Highlands via Kasungu. The driver doesn’t really want to drop me at the airport so I get out at the airport junction. I am out of kwacha so I jump on the back of a cycle taxi the last 6 kilometres. The birds are singing, a breeze in my face and the sun on my back. It is a really lovely way to leave the country.