Dancing!

During our orientation week in Lilongwe, we had the first of many parties with satchets (poison in a bag), Carlsberg (because that’s the only beer you can get in Malawi - they have a 100-year agreement with Carlsberg on a beer monopoly in the country, 50 more years to go), and music and dancing. Gradually, almost everyone from the UK lot ended up dancing with our more confident and vivacious Malawian counterparts, more or less gracefully.

One volunteer from my team and possibly the most English guy I have ever met, Tom, outright refused all attempts to get him to join us, adamant that he ‘can’t dance.’ As is often the case in situations like this, repeated comments about how it doesn't matter, nobody cares, everybody can dance, just dance like nobody's watching yeeeaaahhh -- had no persuasiveness to them.

‘Stop saying you can’t dance, just own your choices and say you won’t dance’ said one frustrated onlooker.

‘Fine. I won’t dance,’ said Tom.

In about 5 minutes’ time he was up on the porch with the rest of us, flailing his limbs to the beat of some intense African tunes, and there was never again a moment during our time in Malawi when somebody refused to dance. The end.