Why am I writing about Malawi?

Well, I'll tell you.

Over the last couple of years, I have been doing more reading about issues affecting the global water supply, with a focus on conditions in developing countries. Sometime in the late Spring, I had the opportunity to submit an article to Progressive Planning for their upcoming issue on water and politics. While there are many areas I could have chosen to focus on, for reasons I won't go into here, I decided to focus on Africa. Because I have never been to Africa, I knew that I needed some contacts. So, after several queries, I made contact with people who had been to Malawi.

Like a rock that gathers more and more moss as it rolls down a hill. One contact lead to other contacts, including people in southern Malawi. It is difficult to express in words how all this background research affected me. I can only say that I was and continue to be very moved by what I found out. In addition, I feel almost driven to keep going with research and writing about various issues affecting water quality and supply in southern Malawi.

I readily admit here that one of the things that I can not get past is that I have never been to Africa. Perhaps one day, all the necessary cards will fall into place, and such a trip will be possible. At present, I can only work with what I have, which is my compassion and my call to keep writing about Southern Malawi.

So, for know, I am going to do some writing about Malawi in the blog. As the title, random ramblings suggests, I will probably post other random thoughts on issues unrelated to southern Malawi in particular and global water supply in general. For those of you reading this blog who are interested in Malawi, I will endeavor to remember to mention Malawi in the title so that you can easily find postings about Malawi.

If I get something wrong, or "fail to be correct", I know that someone will tell me either privately or as a public comment. As appropriate, I will respond to these comments in this blog.