After the first night in our lodge, we were all very refreshed and looking forward to breakfast, which tasted very good. We had toast, with chips, salad and banana, especially the salad was very tasty.

Afterwards, we were picked up by our Malawians and drove together to the location of MASO (Malawi Aids Support Organization). This is the organisation that was founded by Mr. and Mrs. Klein to help and support the people of Malawi. Once there, we were warmly welcomed and introduced to each other. MASO has two buildings, one for teaching and the other for treatment. In the consultation rooms, patients can come to get help and receive medical treatment. Sometimes there are even patients who have been turned away by local hospitals and MASO is their last hope for help. The staff grow their own fruit and vegetables on the premises. Carrots and patata were harvested especially for us and were very tasty.

In the afternoon, we visited the boarding school of the Beautiful Gate Academy, which is located just outside Salima. There are two buildings on the grounds, each with two classrooms where grades 9-12 are taught, and two houses for sleeping. The dormitory rooms are quite small and there are always several people sleeping in them. At the moment, the compound is being renovated because there are no students there during the holidays. Furthermore, there is not much left on the compound, apart from a well, an office for the headmaster and a big mango tree. In order to have more of these big trees in the future, we planted some ourselves. Everyone was assigned one with a name tag, which they then planted themselves. There were about twenty trees in total, including mango, avocado, apple and lemon trees. We all had a lot of fun while planting and it was a great atmosphere.

Towards the end of the afternoon, we decided to go to Lake Malawi, which is half an hour’s drive from Salima. A few of us went swimming in the water, it was colder than expected and the sand was black in some places. As the sun was setting, the sky looked beautiful and later you could see the stars, the Milky Way and the moon extremely well. This was the only evening we could see the moon, on the other nights it was not in the sky. It also looked very special with its red colour and the wide crescent moon that was open at the top. After we had dinner at the lake, we went back to the lodge by car.