Malawi: Blantyre - Vendor's Market

The market occupies less than a square kilometer of ground but houses an easy 500 stalls of amazing variety - I bought a book to write in for 25 kwatcha, and a mango for 50 kwatcha (the price of a bottle of coca cola), and then two oranges for 70 kwatcha each... there were people selling all colours of beans, fruit, baskets, door locks, you name it...

At today's exchange rate one gets 141 kwatcha for one US dollar.

Malawi has a lake which is part of the Nile valley. This lake is the main food source for much of the population. Much of the fish sold is dried, and at the vendor's market in Blantyre there are rows and rows of tables covered in these fish.

There was a TV documentary recently where the presenter said that Lake Malawi was likely to run out of fish. It was easy to forget that when it had just been something watched briefly on a Wednesday evening, but seeing the land now, the poverty, how much these people rely on the lake to provide, and seeing how fish from 2 cm long upwards are sold in such huge quantities, it really brings the issue to stark reality.