Written by CorpsAfrica/Malawi Volunteer Ms. Twambilire Kalolokesya

It is the eleventh month since I was allocated to my site. It has been a period of a lot of experiences. I have met people of different age groups and all kinds of perspectives. I did stuff that I never thought I would do. Interacting with everyone in these eleven months has changed my life and I am grateful for that.

Because of this CorpsAfrica service, I got to meet my fellow Volunteers. These unique people have been very helpful to my service as a Volunteer. Whenever I needed advice, help with an activity, whenever I got stuck, and whenever I felt like sharing my problems with someone, they were there for me. I even got to learn something just from observing their lifestyles, they have been a very great inspiration to me. Even the CorpsAfrica staff (very tolerant people I say), have been really great. They were not hesitant to give advice, I have improved professionally and learnt new skills because of these people.

Another group of people that I met is my community members. They have been taking care of me more than I expected. I interacted with people from only months old kids to adolescents to old people. That gave me a wide age range with different challenges, priorities and perspectives to learn a lot. Hearing them tell their stories helped me know some truths that I misunderstood about local communities.

Meeting these different groups of people exposed me to a new kind of knowledge, skills, challenges that I learned from. I got to make mistakes that I learned from. What I experienced during this period of time will forever be remembered and I do not regret one bit.