Tourism, not without its difficulties

Lake Malawi is without doubt Malawi's jewel in the crown. This so called "calendar" lake is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide and that produces a huge amount of lake frontage with many tourist houses, lodges and hotels.

Up and down the lake lots of boy bands have developed, each with their own unique style of singing and dancing to music produced on home made instruments. Its fun to watch as the boy band appears in your garden and offers to play for you ( in return for a financial contribution of course).

The sad fact is that many of these bands come together aged about 7, 8 or 9 when there is a lot of 'cuteness' about them. They find the business quite lucrative so instead of just performing at weekends they start skipping school and perform midweek. In time they drop out of school completely and financially seem to be doing well even if their education is suffering. Then the bubble bursts; they grow up a little and their 'cuteness' disappears and their income drops and school is just a distant memory.

We are left with teenage boys who haven't completed their primary education, have no source of income and very little earning potential.

Share this message if you can and lets all work together to encourage responsible tourism.