LILONGE, Malawi- My trip to Mwaya Beach took nine hours on a perilously crowded bus across narrow bridges spanning crocodile-peppered waters - of the 100 in the vehicle I was the only white person.

We passed through Malawi’s lush grasslands, walled in the far distance by an expansive, shimmering mountain range.  After leaving Lilonge, the Malawian capital, one could see little homesteads, all mud brick and thatch, sometimes with a communal water-pump or open fire, and bony livestock. These were surrounded by maize plantations or rows of the starchy, potato-like cassava. The maize is allowed to wilt before it is harvested and dried in the open, ready for milling into flour. This streaks the land with patches of tawny yellow.

The terrain is more varied than most African savannah, teeming with life. Tall grasses shook in our backdraft, and as the hills levelled out the sparkling azure waters of Lake Malawi seeped into technicolour life. Majestic fish eagles rode thermals 100 yards up before taking a dive through the brilliant meniscus.

The damper terrain by the lake has its own jewels. Perhaps the most beautiful is the marshland sprouting tall reeds, each home to a weaver bird nest. Flutters of the canary-yellow birds hover about like sparks from a fire. If you get close you might see a spitting cobra slither into the rushes. Either the snakes are reasonably safe, or the locals are surprisingly lackadaisical towards them.

In this country, life flows from every pore, and it is a most welcoming place. It is grossly rude not to address passers-by. Everyone smiles and appreciates even the vaguest attempt at the local dialect, Chitonga. It is appropriate that Malawi’s nickname is “the warm heart of Africa”.

Leaving the bus and the roadblock, the red earth track was baking in the sun, and I turned around to watch the vehicle continue its journey, chucking out great plumes of black smog which very nearly obscured the bus company’s motto: Punctual, Reliable, Friendly. Of these, one, at least, is true.

Despite being far too large for my seat, I had an enjoyable trip, and talked with the chap beside me. He once worked for Malawi’s border police, and recounted tracking down illegal Somali immigrants on the border. Now he has hung up his badge, completed a law course and was travelling to his workplace in one of the towns further down the route.

Down the sloping path toward RIPPLE Africa’s headquarters was like walking into yet another world of unbridled greenery, surrounded by teaks and molinga trees, or pineapple plants shooting from the ground like emerald fireworks.  The effect heightened walking into RIPPLE’s encampment – a tiny hamlet of wooden huts on stilts around a kitchen area. Several other sheltered areas in the camp are used for teaching or communal meals. Everything is cut into the woods and borders the black and white sands of Mwaya Beach, and the infinite expanses of Lake Malawi.

Despite the charity’s decade or so in the Nkhata district, white skin remains a novelty; walking down from the Matete Village roadblock to Mwaya Beach, I was surrounded by small children yelling, “HelloMzungu (white man)!” The children, particularly the younger ones, are in constant amazement. Most exciting of all appears to be that we have hair on our arms, my sunglasses, and the ticking of the second hand on a wristwatch.

Sitting on the beach reading a book draws a small crowd of children. When shaving I was watched intently by one local woman – I suspect my  anachronistic badger brush is the cause.

On calm mornings, the sun rises in a brilliance of pastel hues over the lake, breaking through the mountains of Mozambique, poking through the early mists. By 7 am the sun is gloriously oppressive for our early morning circuit training on the beach, before breakfast of locally baked bread and black coffee and the bicycle journey to work. Doctors and nurses go to the local health centres and dispensaries, teach first aid, run family planning clinics, or join the motorbike ambulance patrolling villages.

We are nine: Older Charlie (early 30s) – a veteran volunteer who has been with RIPPLE for a year and is staying a further two; Frankie and Other Charlie (a nickname given by the Malawian staff, pronounced “Odda”) – an English couple, both doctors in their 20s; Harry and Morgan – late 20s and here for two months before emigrating to Hong Kong where they will do an MBA in business and teach physics; Mark and Trina – late 20s, Irish, both of whom are nurses, me, and Chris – a 50-year-old German engineer and my hut-mate.

Anglo-German relations are good, despite Chris having to suffer my somnambulism twice now, most dramatically when I awoke, inferred I was in the jungle, and tried to find others. It is easy to become slightly claustrophobic in the blue mosquito nets which tent our wooden beds. Furthermore I am heavily medicating.

We have visited a few pre-schools, several primary schools and the local senior school, Kapanda. We’ve also toured the nearby Mwaya Dispensary, the various tree-and vegetable-planting initiatives, and had basic training in building the RIPPLE Rocket (Changa Changa Moto (very fast fire)) – a far safer and more fuel-efficient alternative to the commonly used three-stone fires, which inflict a horrible number of burn-related incidents. The effects of small, ingenious devices such as these are wide-reaching, instilling a desire to see as much as I can in the hope that I might too invent something life-changing.

There is much to do -- infant mortality and life expectancy rates are amongst the highest and lowest in the world.  In our area, as much as 30 percent of the adult population is HIV positive, though figures are rare as tests are only carried out on expectant mothers. Most heartening is children’s desire to learn. Many locals will run up to you and ask for help, but this is almost exclusively for after school tuition, which I am happy to give.

Nevertheless I feel I will have greater impact on the area by coming up with my own initiatives. I’ve identified such needs as a local dispensary, which requires an electrical transformer to get power from the grid (currently it is without electricity and vaccinations and equipment sterilisation cannot be carried out onsite). Chris and I have become co-conspirators.  I believe with his experience and contacts, and my chutzpah, we’ll be able to raise the £2-3k needed and get the thing implemented.

There is a local pre-school to be built (after finances have been raised). Chris and I also plan to renovate Mwaya Primary School, as soon as they break for summer (their winter) holidays. Classrooms are dire -- peeling paint, broken windows, filthy floors and ceilings. They are in desperate need of teaching supplies. We will contact the Government and see what we can arrange.

Most striking  is the poor English skills of faculty and students. From about 8 onwards, students are taught in English. This is their third language (first, the local Chitonga dialect, next the national Chichewa language), so it is impressive they learn anything. I will run English programmes for teachers, and help with pronunciation. The Malawians find the letter ‘L’ particularly tricky to tackle. There is also a strong wish to turn every last letter in a word into a syllable of its own, eg. ‘Used’ becomes ‘Useddah’. In an Agriculture lesson, the teacher attempted ‘Animal Husbandry Practices’. We listened as he described the various trials and tribulations of those involved in “arrnaw hubbandy prahtiss”.

We’re also planning an anti-corporal punishment campaign. It took quite a lot not to say something when a young girl without correct uniform (presumably she couldn’t afford it) was taken outside by a teacher wielding a stick.

I’ve been recruited by a local secondary school teacher to create a script out of an English-language Malawian book for a theatre group (I’ve yet to learn which book it will be (do not picture an actual theatre – envisage a few poles and a roof)).

Our greatest challenge in medicine, education and otherwise is the painfully slow modus operandi of the Malawians, as well as their innate ignorance of the deficits. This is excusable for they have no benchmark to go by but frustrating when considering what we could achieve if everyone was more proactive.

Still, the volunteers are all decent people and struggling onwards.

We’ve each been given a bicycle, smuggled in from Tanzania by one of the staff (who holds no passport, and so had to canoe over a river, stealthily ride the bicycles across the border, and carry them for a full day overland on buses and lorries before reaching RIPPLE at nightfall).

Chris and I spent one afternoon cycling down to the nearest town - Kande. We were surrounded once more by mountains, and greeted constantly along the way. I’ve learnt a few phrases in Chitonga, thrilling the locals.

In Kande, a desolate village made up of shanty buildings and stalls with corrugated steel roofs, we stopped into a local restaurant for the most unpleasant meal I have ever eaten. On the small table there sat the cook’s two children, and we were all given great piles of nsima. Nsima is made with either maize or cassava, which is dried and milled before being put to use as a disgusting hard porridge. It quickly cools and forms a skin and tastes on the foul side of bland. It was accompanied by tiny, slightly putrid fish. Chris declared, “we must finish or it’ll offend them.” I put away at least half. Thankfully, my anti-malarial tablets contain antibiotics, so I’ve yet to suffer food poisoning.

Work starts at around 7:30. Afternoons are spent on the beach or on a deck overlooking the water. We take pre-dinner gins and tonic or beer before sitting in the open for meals prepared by local cooks, the smell of paraffin coming up from the lamps, and the still-warm sand under our bare feet.

The deck is a fantastic place. When the sun sets, the sky becomes a recreation of Van Gogh’s Starry Night over the Rhone, festooned with twinkling white, and the Milky Way is like a cloud in the background as we sit out watching the occasional lime-green firefly dipping amid the leaves.

On calmer nights, the lake reflects the brilliance of the sky. For this, Dr Livingstone dubbed it the sea of stars. When the water is flat and the moon waning, fishermen drift into the lake upon dugout canoes, using lanterns to lure out the fish. I cannot fully describe the otherworldly effect of seeing the darkened horizon flecked with their glowing amber refractions.

I enjoy snorkelling in the lake, to watch the irridescent cichlids up close, and an array of brightly coloured fish. Also, crocodiles are not a worry. The locals are terrified of them, and are therefore a good barometer for whether or not to take a dip. However, the reptiles live in the nearby rivers, and not the lake. I feel this Africa is almost too harmless. 

There is a safety you wouldn’t find in England. You can leave belongings unattended without fear of them being stolen. We’ve stopped locking our bicycles up. On the beach one can leave  valuables before going for a swim, and return to find them as left, though perhaps surrounded by children staring with amusement at our books and phones.

In Malawi, the nights end as tranquilly as they begin – we retire at about 9, and in the huts it is total darkness. It is peaceful too; from my bed I hear the gentle lull of the waves breaking over the black sands, the whir of crickets, and the rustle of the vervet monkeys who live in the trees above.

It is a wonderful catharsis to be here. It is true that the Dark Continent can get its hooks into you -- I am completely taken in.