At a roadside market in Nkhata Bay, wooden salad fork-and-spoon sets topped with stylized heads were the most common product, and a man calling himself Austin Powers linked three beaded chains together at my request.

Once we'd sated our desire for souvenirs, we piled back into our respective vans and headed to Mzuzu, our base for the next 5 days. In the center of town we checked out locally-made fabrics, made reservations at Andy's Café for a basic meal with our boys, then headed to Wukani.

Stephen meets Mrs. Mwasse

Too young for camp

So excited to see the muzungus!

The Wukani Educational Facility is the beautiful private school Hamilton, Happy, Eston and Humphrey have attended ever since We Are One Malawi took off. I understood it was going to be our camp location, but erroneously believed that we were using its space while bringing in underprivileged students to attend the camp.

Instead, most of the attendees were Wukani students, and in order to miss classes for the camp they had to be the best students. I had mixed feelings about this—on the one hand they were truly going to be the future leaders of the country, as they'd had all the opportunities to become so; on the other hand I felt that they didn't need us.

Still, it was exciting. Mr. and Mrs. Mwasse, owners of Wukani, greeted us with great enthusiasm for the project. We got to check out the classrooms, located the electrical switches, and prepared the "teachers' lounge." We were followed around by eager small children, too young for camp as yet, fascinated by this sudden group of muzungus that had descended upon them.

Later, we were introduced to the assistants Moffat and Rosemary had hand-picked to help us out, one per classroom. They were paid well for their time, and were upstanding young men who deserved a special opportunity. In addition to our young assistants, we'd have a couple Wukani teachers helping out with each class.

Moffat and with Precious, Kumbikani, Joshua (swoon)

Welcome to Mzuzu! Need a bicycle taxi?

Our assistant, Precious (really), had a slight stutter but managed to clearly convey his excitement at this chance to learn storytelling through photography. Quite moving. After camp was over, we left Precious with one of the better cameras and the portable printer; months later he would turn this into a thriving business, selling photos to people around town.

That night we filled Andy's Café with the whole family; 12 WAO boys, 11 volunteers, Rosemary, Moffat and WAO's [impossibly hot bus driver] Joshua. The food was simple, with choice of nsima or rice, and as usual Benson inhaled his food and then ate some of mine. That skinny thing could really put it away...always hoping to grow bigger, I suppose.

Back at Mzuzu Lodge, we discovered the fluorescent-lit rec-room style bar featuring dollar beers. Ah, now this was truly home base.

To find out more, please visit the We Are One Malawi website.

<   previous      •      next   >