Malawi or bust...

Takulandirani. That's "welcome" in Chichewa, the national language of Malawi. Our team of 9 is headed to Malawi, the warm heart of Africa this Friday. We've been preparing for this trip for months and it's hard to believe that it's finally here. Though I don't think any one of us can ever be prepared for a trip like this. It's pretty much guaranteed to be life changing. I am super excited to see my good Malawian friends - Willie, Peter, John, Vincent, Chiko, and Mwai. And I think they are equally excited to see us. We've gotten to know them while they interned with UrbanPromise here in Wilmington and in Camden, NJ over the past year. They are a special crew and it will be great to be able to work side by side with them in Malawi. Malawi is one of the poorest countries in the world. It's a small country about the size of Pennsylvania and yet has 1.2 million orphans due to the AIDS pandemic. HIV is estimated to have infected 14.5% of the population. We hope to be able to journal our activities while we're there. Of course in a developing country like Malawi, there's no guarantee of electricity let alone internet access, but we will do our best. We leave on Friday, Sep 18th and will be returning on Sunday, Oct. 4th. You can check out our rough itinerary here. We'd love to hear from you so feel free to add some comments.