So... Malawi?

(note: Most of the country links will take you to a map of Africa with the country highlighted.)

Here's some interesting information about Malawi that I've collected as part of my pre-departure training and/or that I remember finding interesting during my BA.

Let's start with the most important detail of all (as far as my rural Canadian upbringing is concerned): the weather.
I will be arriving in Malawi at the beginning of the rainy season, which runs from
November to May. Though rainfall and temperatures vary (depending on altitude, nearness to the lake, latitude, etc.), the country averages 725-2500 mm of rain per year. The rainy season also happens to be the hottest part of the year (yay...) so it'll be nice and humid when I arrive. That being said, all the weather sites I've checked say that temperatures don't tend to go much higher than the high thirties, so it might not be so bad.
The dry season tends to be cooler (depending on where you are, it can get down to about 6 degrees Celsius at night), with daytime highs capping around 25 degrees Celsius.

Anyway, the political science nerd in me wants to move over to the facts and figures, so here we go.

History in Brief
The Republic of Malawi gained independence from Britain in 1964 (after decades of effort on the part of Malawians to establish an independent state). From 1964 to 1994, the country was governed as a one-party state by "His Excellency the Life President Ngwazi Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda."
I'm going to gloss over Malawian politics for now (mostly because they're fascinating and I want to devote a whole post to them later). Suffice to say that the country has had two presidents since Dr. Banda. The current president is Bingu wa Mutharika and the next general election (presidential and national assembly) is slated to take place in May 2009.
Malawi currently ranks 164/177 on the UNDP Human Development Index (HDI): it is therefore categorized as a country with "low human development" and is considered to be one of the twenty poorest countries in the world (the three poorest/least developed being Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso and Sierra Leone). (more on the HDI later) In 2006, Malawi was approved for relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program through the World Bank.
Agriculture (especially tobacco) accounts for more than one-third of Malawi's GDP and 90% of export revenues.

Fun(ish) Facts

Offical Languages: English and Chichewa

Capital city: Lilongwe

Biggest city/Urban economic centre: Blantyre

Geographic size: 118,480 sq km (the CIA world factbook helpfully informs us that this is slightly smaller than the state of Pennsylvania)
est.

Population: 13,931,831 (compared to Pennsylvania's 12,440,621)

Life Expectancy:
total population: 43.45 years
male: 43.74 years
female: 43.15 years

Religions:
Christian 79.9%, Muslim 12.8%, other 3%, none 4.3%

Literacy: (defined as those age 15 and over can read and write)
total population: 62.7%
male: 76.1%
female: 49.8%

Per capita GDP (PPP): $800 (Canada's is about $38,400)

Major exports: tobacco, tea, sugar, cotton, coffee

Major imports:food, petroleum products, consumer goods, transportation equipment

Economic aid: recipient of approx. $575.3 million annually

External debt: approx. $894 million (Canada's currently sits at about $758 billion - not that it's a helpful comparison, really)

Currency: Malawian kwacha (MWK)

Current exchange rate: Malawian kwachas per US dollar - 144.400

Interesting Trivia
One of the most striking geographic features of the country is Lake Malawi (aka Lake Nyasa if you're in Tanzania) which runs along the eastern border of most of the country. Lake Malawi is the ninth largest lake in the world and part of the East Rift Valley lakes system. Lake Malawi is also one of the most biodiverse freshwater systems in existence, hosting more fish species than any other single lake in the world.

Malawi has a national cricket team which has placed fourth at the African championships in two consecutive appearances.

On August 16, 1914, Lake Malawi saw a brief naval engagement when the British gunboat Guendolen, commanded by Captain Rhoades, heard that World War I had begun and received orders to "sink, burn, or destroy" the German Empire's only gunboat on the lake, the Hermann von Wissmann (at the time, Malawi was the British protectorate Nyasaland and Mozambique/Tanzania were the German protectorate known as German East Africa(. Rhoades's crew located the Hermann von Wissmann and disabled it with a single shot from a range of 2,000 yards. Apparently, it was a big deal at the time.

HIV/AIDS prevalance (as of 2003) stood at about 14.2% with an estimated 900,000 people living with AIDS. Malawi has the 8th highest prevalence rate in the world, behind Swaziland, Botswana, Lesotho, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Zambia. In 2003, the annual estimate of HIV/AIDS related deaths stood at 84,000.

Travel Advisory: There is no official warning at this time. Travelers are, however, advised to "exercise a high degree of caution."

Sigh... yes, Malawi is perhaps best known at the moment for being home to Madonna's adoption saga.

(thanks to the CIA World Factbook, Wikipedia, voyage.gc.ca,certain pages maintained by the Government of Malawi including the National Statistics Centre and various arms of the United Nations.