Afri-CAN Cafe

http://theafricancafe.org/

I’m sitting at a café, typing away, enjoying some coffee on a beautiful day under an awning in Malawi. AfriCan Café is a non-profit, cooperative coffee shop made. They’re new to Lilongwe. Right now, they are only in Lilongwe, Malawi and opening soon in Blantyre, Malawi. Soon they will be found in different cities throughout Africa. It’s a little surreal.

The hospital is surrounded by gates and guards, with many sick people floating around the gates and others being treated inside and at other buildings around the hospital area. I can’t imagine many people come for coffee and pull out a computer to sit and write. It feels wrong--out of place. I wouldn’t have done it, but I managed to get what I needed done much earlier than expected (which is incredibly unusual) and now I have time to kill before my next meeting…in an hour. So, I’ll work until my computer battery dies.

The new maternity ward seems out of place too. It’s very nice, but there are buildings in disrepair and out of use surrounding the new building. Given the amount of people who are poor and in desperate situations nearby, I was initially unsure how a western-sty cafe would go over among locals, but as far as I can tell, the idea of a cafe has caught on pretty quickly. Customers are mostly hospital workers not patients and not the average Malawian. I feel a little guilty, but it is a treat.