Our time in Malawi has truly been a wonderful experience on many levels. Today, our final day here, we traveled from Blantyre to Zomba to work with a group of music students at Chancellor College. Once again, we were met with great enthusiasm. This hunger and excitement for something new has been consistent througout all of our travels here in Malawi and will never cease to amaze me. The students gladly participated in all of the activities during our workshop as we introduced them to a few elements of jazz and blues. Using our voices, we learned a basic 12-bar blues form, sang “Bag’s Groove”, worked on call-and-response, and even had a few people take entire solos. They picked up everything so fast!! I believe that this introduction to jazz really inspired a lot of the students. They all had many specific questions concerning various aspects of this great music. So far, this trip is reinforcing that fact that music can unite people faster than any other language, even if you aren’t familiar with a certain style or form. I’m looking forward to our next destination, Zimbabwe. Will the people we meet be equally excited about learning something new as the people of Malawi have been? We’ll keep you posted. Until next time, take care.

-Greg Ward