Perched high on an escarpment overlooking Lake Malawi, Livingstonia was established by missionaries from the Free Church of Scotland back in 1894. The story goes that they tried several times to establish missions down on the shore of the lake, but kept losing missionaries to malaria until they moved up the escarpment to higher, less…
Malawi’s Nyika National Park
Nyika Plateau, a little-known park in the north of Malawi, is one of my favorite places in the world—and I’ve seen a lot of the world. In terms of landscape, Nyika is often compared with Scotland: gently rolling hills covered with grasses—green in the rainy season, brown in the dry season—as far as the eye…
Badagry, Nigeria’s slave trade history
While I was in Lagos for work, I took an extra day to visit Badagry, Nigeria. This town on the east side of Lagos was the “Point of No Return” in the Nigerian slave trade for 400 years. It is now home to three museums about the Badagry slave trade and Badagry history. We were…
Driving through Lagos, Nigeria
I did a lot of driving on my recent visit to Lagos, Nigeria. Or rather, I did a lot of being driven. Lagos isn’t your usual tourist destination and, indeed, I didn’t go there as a tourist. I had agreed to lead a workshop at an International Baccalaureate school for two days. If I was…