I feel a very lucky person to have had so many of my dreams come true. The last one was to be able to go and help/work in an African ngo. As I am not a doctor or a nurse or a dentist or a teacher, no big ngos would take me. Thanks to Miriam, a friend of my sister, I was able to fulfill my dream.

My now husband and I arrived in Malawi on the 1st of November 2010 to be met at the airport by Miriam and a pickup truck full of school children from her local school, who had won a prize to visit the airport and have a look around the capital of Malawi: Lilongwe. What well behaved children. They were quiet, polite, all dressed in the same uniform. It was a pleasure to see so much respect compared to our own society.

When we arrived at the village where Miriam lives (in the district of Nkota nkota), we were surprised to see she had had made for us our own hut close to hers and surroundedd by our own fence. We had a cane mattress with a couple blankets on top as a bed, a very nice bambú shelf that we bought on our way over (very cheaply) and a couple of low stools. And a hanging mosquitoe net! No light, no running water, no toilet, no kitchen. For light we had candles and flashlights, the water was brought by a local girl form the bore holes financed by the Comunidad de Aragón (this is a northern Spanish province) and they had the Spanish flag painted on them, our toilet was a hole in the ground in a separate hut and the stove was a fire on the ground with 3 bricks to hold the pot. As soon as Miriam left to go back to Spain, I got some young kids to find some bricks for me (they were made locally and you could find them all over) and build a higher stove. The elders of around there thought it was a A idea but that it would fall over as I did not use mud to hold the bricks together. All I can say is that 3 weeks later it was still there!

Dom helped the villagers to install an oil expeller. It was amazing to see how these people created a different way to do things, based on the availability of tools. The normal way for us to do it would have implied buying stuff that was too expensive and not that readily available. Miriam is very specific at wanting the locals to always help out in the projects they create beteween them all together. That way they do not feel they are given things for nothing. They help and learn to value what they are given.

The weekend before Dom left, we went to a Natural Park and dear me, what a difference of life!. We were all of a sudden surrounded by whites and served by blacks. When we were living in the village, we all felt equals, we all had our jobs to do, not once did we feel out of place. As this was a tourist resort, we had all the luxuries we'd missed in our previous two weeks.

I had various jobs. One was going four days a week with the Education Inspector Mr Pillo (on his motorbike) to different schools to teach the teachers games which they could then use with their students to practise English. The teachers had great fun learning hangman, bingo, I spy, soup of letters, pictionary, mime a telephone conversation...

And then when Miran and Dominic left, I had the job of every morning visiting the different villages with my guide Gift to supervise some of the projects Miriam had started: help to the elders, see how fruit trees were doing, check on ambulance bikes. It was an indcredible experience as it brought me to place and homes of the poorest people, seeing how they lived and tried to survive.

Then I'd go to the river were the water was so cool and refreshing after my long walk. Sometimes I'd go visit a couple of Spanish girls in a nearby hospital, financed by a Spanish ngo, Africa Directo. And once a week I'd go to the nearest big village, Salima to check my internet and buy food in the local market. There were a couple of "modern"supermarkets that had chocolate. I was happy! And a lot of the time I spend in my hut reading. I was getting up at around 5am as that was the best time of the day. Sun was out but not hot yet. The rains started a few days before I left. Lightening and thunder and torrential rains. As soon as the first drops started, you could see little green plants sprouting everywhere. The countryside changed completely from brown to brown/green to green and mud!

It was a lovely 5 weeks I spend there. I learned from the people I was with and hopefully they learned from me. They accepted me with no problem though the young kids, when they saw me on the inspector's motobike would call out "whitey" in chechewa. Some asked me if we did the same to the black in my country! They believe we live better than they do or at least have more. They are always asking for help or for you to give or send them something. When I explained to them that I owed money to the bank from my house and worked seven hours a day 5 days a week to be able to live, they did not understand. They are happy people, whenever two get together, you can hear their laughter, they don't worry about tomorrow or about time. It is another world.

Thank you Miriam.