Blantyre via Mozambique – who knew?? 

Daniel, our driver for the trip from Lilongwe to Blantyre where we will be working for the next week, collected us from the hotel for the 300 km trip between the two cities. Once we were underway, we were delighted to learn that Daniel is a wealth of information about the country and the sights that we were seeing.  He also was quite accommodating when Bev wanted to stop and take a photo, or buy a mango, or examine the fresh tomatoes being sold by the vendors.  And the added bonus is that the road to Blantyre goes right along the border with Mozambique – actually it’s only the width of the road that separates the two countries – so while Daniel was negotiating the purchase of vegetables to bring to his family in Blantyre, David and Bev walked across the street into Mozambique. It looked pretty much like Malawi at that point.  What Daniel shared with us is that during the civil war in Mozambique, there were many refugees that came across the border, and some of the fighting extended onto Malawi territory such that the defense army needed to protect the border.   It all looks pretty congenial now – the cows don’t know the difference!

The first stop upon arrival in Blantyre was at the Malawi Union of Savings and Credit Co-operatives (MUSCCO) office, and then on to the Sunbird Hotel to get checked in before our briefing meeting with our MUSCCO host.   We also walked over to the Sunbird Tourism Savings and Credit Co-operative (SACCO) where Bev enjoyed a reunion with Gertrude from the 2008 Women’s Mentoring program and we had a tour of the facilities. 

So now we are fully briefed about the 3 SACCO’s that we are scheduled to coach during our time here and we are anxious to get started tomorrow morning with our first scheduled visit to MUDI SACCO.