Introduction

Hi, I am new at this blogging business, so please be patient with me as I set up my first ever blog!

Let me introduce myself, if you have stumbled on this page accidently. My name is Fiona and I am a New Zealander who usually resides in Melbourne, Australia, and lives a very sensible life going to work every day and hanging out with friends and looking after the cats and tending the garden. But not anymore! I have broken out of the mould and have embarked on an African Adventure to do some things I have wanted to do for a while and to explore some new challenges.

The landscape of Central Malawi near Dedza, April...

I left Melbourne in late March 2012, having taken 12 months leave from my job as a research scientist (ecology related stuff mainly) and headed for Malawi where I am spending the first 3 months of my soujourn. I am now living in a large house in Lilongwe which I share with the permanent residents, an international family of 4 with ties to Malawi, Italy, Canada and Thailand, plus the other temporary inhabitants who are passing through this town. We have just farewelled two lovely Dutch women who have moved on and this week we will be joined by a German guy, so it really is the United Nations here!

...at the end of the rainy season

While here, I am volunteering at ICRAF - the International Centre for Research on Agroforestry (aka as the World Agroforestry Centre). I have known about this organisation for 20 years or more and when I was looking for agencies with which to volunteer, this one came back into my line of vision. They had a project that suited my skills and time frames, so here I am! I will describe all that in more detail at a later date.

A depiction of life by Lake Malawi, in ceramic tiles

I want to use this blog to give some idea of what life is like in this country and so I am planning to describe my experiences and what I am learning as I go along. I don't promise to always get it right as my understanding of the complexities of life here is obviously fairly limited, but I will give you my flavour on things. I will post the odd photo too, as I don't do facebook or other social media sites and I know how you all love photos!


I think that's enough of an intro for now.