A Land Ruled by Silence: Tales of Transitions in the Warm Heart of Africa

By Eliza McCullen

The gate to the airplane led us gently down a ramp. On the wall in front of us was a sign indicating our destination: Lilongwe, Malawi. I felt my chest start to tighten and forced myself to breathe deeply. This was it. What we had waited for for five years, ever since we got married. Well, at least it was what my husband waited for. And I had gone along. That meant giving up a job I loved, one in which I was building a career, moving out of our first starter home, a tiny box of a house in Alexandria that was now rented to three men and a dog, and leaving behind all that was familiar to me. A professional working wife and mother used to the hustle and bustle of Washington, I suddenly found myself in one of the poorest and quietest countries in Africa. I was able to land a position at USAID as the monitoring and evaluation advisor in which I learned of the many development issues in Malawi: high infant mortality rates, the rampant spread of AIDS, low literacy rates, malnutrition and stunting. In a land where an oppressive dictatorship controlled all media outlets-no one talked about it. Until one day a group of bishops stood at the pulpit and spoke out, and we watched as the country transitioned from dictatorship to democracy.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1718759436
• ISBN13: 9781718759435
• Release Date: July 2018
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 202 Pages
• Weight: 0.61 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.0" x 9.0"