Excerpt from The Teacher

A young man named Chisulo was waiting for her at the airport in Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital.  He absent-mindedly displayed a frayed card which proclaimed her name in shaky hand-writing.  His eyes passed over her vaguely as she approached, then more attentively as he realised she was heading for him.

‘You’re the teacher?’ he asked, flashing a cheeky, gap-toothed grin.  Had she imagined his disbelief, the barely disguised attempt to refrain from laughing?

He led her proudly to the dusty, open-topped old jeep which would transport her to the tiny Malawian village of Mwandama, her home for the next year, informing her as he did so that his name meant ‘strong as steel’ in English.  The translation proved unfortunately accurate.  They alternated between being jogged up and down on spring-less car seats, to being flung repeatedly against the unpadded jeep doors as Chisulo navigated the pot-holed, uneven track that passed for a road once they had left Lilongwe.  Sophie’s body was jolted and bruised, but the steely Chisulo drove resolutely on, entirely oblivious to any discomfort.

Even given her state of constant and uncomfortable motion, the beauty surrounding her asserted itself on her senses.  Purple mountains stood quietly as elegant acacia trees poised like delicate ballerinas against a translucent blue sky.  The earth was red and fiery, an inhospitable host to the brown, withered grasses.  Chisulo informed her that the rains were late.  Drought, the most feared word in Africa, was again being predicted.  The air was so hot and dry that, when she inhaled, the insides of her nostrils burned.