I thought we’d find it without difficulty. “Oh yes,” I’d said, “I remember our route. Turn left on to the southbound road at the Heaven-Bound funeral parlour, then left again after the big bridge . . .” and that, in the event, proved easy.
“Then down a long dusty track, then . . . oh, I’m sure I’ll recognise the footpath we drove down, when I see it. And the village — well, we spent most of the day there in Paulo village, building the elephant pump, and that was only a year ago. I’ll recognise the little place straight away.”
In fact we got completely lost. In our four-wheel-drive vehicle we were meandering across the flood plains around Lake Malawi in a blistering 40C heat, and every footpath and village looked the same. A scattering of mud huts with grass roofs, a gaggle of excited children, shouting and waving, no electricity, no standpipes, no facilities of any kind, a bit of old corrugated iron fencing off the goats, a couple of mango trees, a stand of bananas and a paw-paw tree.
It struck me that there must be tens of thousands of poverty-stricken settlements like this in central Malawi, each of them the centre of a small community’s life, each instantly recognisable as home to their inhabitants, each of them somebody’s whole world, none of them distinguishable, to the outsider, from any other.
But Seka, who was with us, is a Malawian who speaks Chichewa. She rescued the situation. Finally, we found Paulo.
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Seka — a capable young recruit — has recently joined the Lilongwe-based staff of Pump Aid, the small British charity with whom I spent a few days in November 2008, writing about their work after we included the charity in our Times Christmas Appeal.
I had described on these pages the charm, the warmth and the poverty of the village we’d worked in, and in glowing terms explained the genius behind the cheap, easily maintained hand-pump we were helping to install, so they could seal their well from dirt and flies, and deliver the women from backbreaking labour with rope and bucket.
Our appeal had gone brilliantly. We’d raised, through the generosity of Times readers, hundreds of thousands of pounds. More, I think, than anything I wrote, it was our photograph of an unnamed little boy in rags, on his head the empty plastic water bottle he’d begged me to give him, that touched readers’ hearts.
So when, at Christmas, I decided to return for a holiday with friends to the beautiful, friendly country I’d discovered Malawi to be, I’d called Pump Aid and asked if, with its help, we could go back to Paulo and see if the pump was still working and as much of a blessing as I’d claimed. In the back of my mind I thought we might find the anxious-looking little boy with the water bottle, and see how he was.
The moment we walked into the village, everyone crowded round. We were besieged, as we had been a year ago, by excited children. Nobody spoke a word of English, so Seka translated. She explained my purpose.
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We walked to the well, more children arriving all the time. All around the wellhead it was beautifully swept and clean. A man the villagers had appointed as guardian of the site came over to shake my hand.
Gingerly I turned the crank I so well remember being put into place. Clean, fresh water came gushing out. Nobody raised an eyebrow, let alone a cheer. This safe and plentiful supply of water was now part of the villagers’ lives: normal, taken perhaps for granted. From her buck teeth I spotted Esther, a woman of advanced years for childbearing, who a year ago was weighed down with her sickly baby. Diarrhoea from unclean water cuts a deadly swath through infancy in Malawi. Esther, still carrying her baby, grinned. The baby was twice the size.
I climbed up on to the wellhead, we lifted the securing concrete plate and I looked down at the rope-and-pipe mechanism. All in perfect working order after 13 months’ continual use.
Now the children were jumping and waving and dancing, as my friends Chris and Paul led the juvenile mob like tropical pied pipers. When shown digital pictures of themselves on Paul’s camera they went wild.
We retreated to the shade of a hut, adult villagers joined us, though most of the men were planting in the fields, and I unpacked the gifts we’d brought: a bottle of elderflower cordial and two jars of blackcurrant jam from the produce of my garden; framed prints of the pictures that had appeared in The Times; a copy — which none of them could read — of one of the articles. And a print of the boy with the water bottle — hopefully to give him.
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“Hadi!” some of the children shouted. The boy’s name, the adults told Seka, was Hadwell — and now I recognised him, a year older, and still looking anxious. I’d not felt confident, last time, that he’d get to keep the water bottle.
As we drove away we leaned out of the truck windows for a final wave.
Thus far, just the hint of a wave or a smile from any of us had been returned in spades. But this time none of the children smiled, and their wave was only half-hearted.
“They’re sad,” said Seka, “to see us go. It was a big event for them. Nothing much happens in Paulo, usually. It finished too soon.”