Your Place Or Mine - Episode TWO - Lilongwe (Malawi)

Iszi Lawrence Daliso Chaponda and Shaun Keaveny

Episode two is out! The country we are in is completely landlocked… But a fifth of it is water…

David Livingstone famously traveled through and around Malawi in the early 1860s. Livingstone was a hero geographer, miraculous adventurer and possibly the worst missionary of all time - the number of people he converted to christianity was fewer than the number of lion attacks he suffered during his time in Africa.

I did go on a bit of a rant about the wildlife in Malawi. Not just the black samba snakes who bite you repeatedly in the chest and face if you happen to disturb them.

The geography of the rift valley had caused some amazing evolution. Cichlids make every other freshwater fish seem dull. They look like fish you’d find on a coral reef and lake Malawi has approx 850 species of them. Half haven’t been scientifically described and just because the fish look similar doesn’t meant they aren’t. There are 15 species of the ‘blue stripey one’ for example. I don’t think my examples of adaptive evolution made the cut, but know I waxed lyrical and had to poke Shaun awake at the end.