With no little bit of convincing, I finally got out of the NGO-mobile and into a tro-tro to travel south while my colleagues stayed north.

You learn more when you are on a bus.  You learn to feel the pace of a place, it’s pulse.  You learn how people interact, how boys chase and tease the girls they like, how grandmothers chastise their grandchildren, how old men like to hang out in groups and chat.  You learn what’s for sale, what people like to buy.  (I thought boiled eggs and apples – standard bus food in Malawi – were non-existant here.  They are not.  I was just looking in the wrong place.)

I think this is the same no matter where you are; Calgary, Toronto, London, Cambridge, Lilongwe, Accra…

This is not a new revelation to me, but it was a good reminder that if you really want to feel a place, get on a bus.