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DR.LIVINGSTONE, I PRESUME? ©

Val White asks: Blantyre? Why visit a small town eight miles south of Glasgow that has almost been swallowed by urban sprawl and doesn’t even seem to exist as a separate entity today?

Because it’s the birthplace of David Livingstone and the city after which Blantyre, Malawi was named!

Commonly known as the Warm Heart of Africa’, Malawi is a tiny, poor and overcrowded landlocked country in central east Africa, bordered by Tanzania, Zambia and Mozambique.

Its major geographic feature is Lake Malawi, one of the great rift valley lakes, which occupies about a quarter of the country.

It was here that the missionary/explorer/doctor David Livingstone spent much of his incredible working life bringing health and education to the people of central Africa.

Livingstone was one of the first Europeans to explore the central part of Africa, travelling up the Zambezi and Shire Rivers and walking thousands of miles on foot.

He came to Africa when the slave trade was at its height, with Lake Malawi serving as one of its major thoroughfares.

On a visit back to the Britain, Livingstone formed the Universities Mission to Central Africa, which sent doctors and missionaries back to Africa, having a prominent effect on eliminating the human trade.

Blantyre is Malawi’s largest city (Lilongwe is its capital), located in the southern part of the country. We have been in Blantyre several times, doing volunteer medical work on a malaria project at the city’s largest public hospital, Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital.

After our third trip, we flew to Glasgow, Scotland to visit my husband’s relatives. Chatting with a woman at the airport, we mentioned that we had just arrived from Blantyre in Africa. She immediately suggested that it was only right for us to make a pilgrimage to the Livingstone Centre in Blantyre, Scotland. We decided on the spot to do so the next day, as we had been intrigued with the story of Livingstone since first going to Malawi.

For us in the 21st century, we still feel like explorers going by airplane to a little known African country to work - we can’t even begin to imagine how it must have been over one hundred and fifty years ago. We wanted to see where the ‘stuff’ of that personality came from.

As we approached the Scottish Blantyre, we located the sign for the Centre, but had a difficult time finding the right exit off of a busy secondary road. The Livingstone Centre is located on the River Clyde – David Livingstone was born into a poor family who worked in the cotton mill, operated by power from the river.

The restored mill workers’ tenement now houses the Centre, containing the crowded rooms where he was born and raised.

David Livingstone’s determination was evident early in life: during the day he was required to work in the mill from 6am to 8pm, but by night he attended the mill school and managed to stay awake long enough to obtain an education.

Following medical school, he became an ordained minister and travelled first to South Africa where he was attacked by a lion, damaging his shoulder for the rest of his life.

Despite worsening health due to malaria and other tropical diseases, Livingstone made a total of five trips to southern and central Africa, travels by foot and boat that we would think extensive and adventurous even today!

If you are interested in African history, this stop near Glasgow makes a delightful half-day outing to learn how one determined and selfless man brought the African slave trade to European attention, almost single handedly bringing it into public disrepute.

Report by Val White.

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Web sites of interest:

www.biggar-net.co.uk/livingstone/index.htm
www.lonelyplanet.com/destinations/africa/malawi/