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Malawi
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Country Background
Malawi
Known as ‘The Warm Heart of Africa’, Malawi is a landlocked country located in south east Africa. It’s surrounded by Mozambique, Zambia, and Tanzania and its north-south Rift Valley is flanked by mountain ranges and high plateau areas.
Lake Malawi, formerly Lake Nyasa, occupies most of the country’s eastern border. It is known as ‘The Calendar Lake’ because it’s about 365 miles from north to south and 52 miles broad.
Our bee keeping project is based only about 3 kilometres from Lake Malawi, in Senga bay South. The nearest town is a 30 minute drive away, at Salima.
We don’t often see zebra, but we do occasionally see a hippo in the lake or even a crocodile! And sometimes there are the odd snake or even two! Mike and the Malawian bee keepers were harvesting one hive to find a yellow Tiger snake in the branches making life difficult for them to access the hive and then there was another inside the hive and only discovered when the lid was taken off!
Mike also enjoys teaching the younger generation about beekeeping skills. They are welcome to join in the adults classes and they do.
One young man was so keen that his headmaster visited Chief Kunkhongo and asked that we ensure he was also attending school, as he’d skipped a class one morning to join in the bee keeping!
- Land Area: 118,484 Km2
- Population: 16.3 miliion
- Capital City: Lilongwe
- Main Towns: Blantyre, Zomba, Mzuzu
- Climate: Tropical (cooler in highlands)
- Official language: English
- Common Language: Chichewa
- Currency: Kwacha
- Time: GMT +2
