What Shocked Me When I Visited Africa

When I was getting ready to travel to Malawi, Africa I had people throwing all kinds of advice at me – what clothing to take, what vaccinations to get, what else to pack. However, the most common piece of advice that I got was to prepare myself emotionally for what I what going to see. People starving, without water or clothes or even a roof above their heads, children begging for money with their stomachs bulging due to the fact that they hadn’t eaten in days, weeks even. These are things that, no matter how hard you try, you cannot prepare yourself for. There were things that I saw in Malawi that I will never forget. It’s one of the reasons that I was so keen to start up my own charity, Maggie’s Beautiful People Project.

However, there was one thing that will haunt me for the rest of my life. In every town, every family, no matter where we visited, we were met with more generosity than I have experienced anywhere else. There were people starving, whose children hadn’t eaten in days, that presented us with bowls of food that meant they wouldn’t eat for another week. They gave us gifts and sacrificed more than I will ever understand to make us feel welcome. They were kind, showing us around and making us a part of their community and, despite us having more than they would ever experience, they didn’t beg, didn’t steal.

We helped them as much as we could whilst we were there, giving them gifts of clothes and food and taking them on trips. We helped fund computer for their youth centre, raised money for the local school, and took an abundance of toys to the orphanage. We even put a lot of our own spending money together to help repair the home of a family who had been caught in a recent flood. For everything we gave them they were truly grateful, but what they didn’t realise was that they were giving me even more.

I thought that I was grateful for everything that I had, thought that I appreciated how lucky I was to have a home, a bed, food, a family, an education. But it isn’t until you see a family of eight living in one small room with mud walls and no roof, starving, ill, having to walk miles for water, missing out on education or a normal childhood, but yet singing and dancing, playing and being happy and not feeling sorry for themselves, that you realise what you need to have a good life. They may have a harder life than most, but they have friends and family and they don’t want for more; they are content with what they have, and that is what makes them happy.