Poisoned Arrows

30 year old tourism posters
had a new lease of life!

A quick bit of feedback and pictures after a lovely weekend at the Royal Botanic Garden in Edinburgh

Lake Malawi

Poisoned Arrows was a walking storytelling event where visitors were taken on a journey through the tropical glasshouses, meeting actors and storytellers among the foliage. Working with letters and journals form Victorian Edinburgh explorers who went out to Malawi (not that it was Malawi then) 150 years ago (follow the Poisoned Arrows link to a short film about the show! )


The story moved back and forth between white explorers and local people reflecting the different views, values and consequences of the expeditions

I was there to intercept people as they stumbled back into the damp cool of an Edinburgh autumn, inviting them to share thoughts arising from the stories they had heard, to pause and reflect or to make their own snippets of Malawian landscape to take home....

There was "a touch of Malawi" to look at or handle

 there were model animals to incent your own "wildlife of Malawi" quiz

 and those animals could give visitors subjects to draw for their own landscapes

A life time ago, I worked in Malawi for 3 years. The experience set an enduring love of southern Africa in motion that has taken my back to Africa, if not to Malawi itself again (yet!), whenever I can...

I wonder what has become of my students from 'way back then

adventures!

the road north from lilongwe to Kasungu