It was both refreshing and heartening to celebrate Easter here in Malawi last weekend. Absent were all the commercial trappings and media distractions to which we have become so accustomed in the UK. No eggs, no rabbits, no self-aggrandising celebrities. The focus was solely on ‘the reason for the season’ – Jesus Christ.

More generally, life is a lot less cluttered here. Societal superficialities like materialism and hedonism do not hold much sway. And, with these stripped away, it becomes clearer to discern what people truly value. The focus is on people, not things.

For Malawians, relationships are vitally important. They possess intrinsic, not instrumental, value. People are interested in and value each other. It’s not restricted to family ties and bloodlines. Nor is it about maintaining a façade of friendliness, or making a connection in order to grab a deal in the marketplace. Anything more than an exchange of pleasantries with a stranger in England and we automatically get suspicious. ‘What are they after?’ ‘What’s their motive?’ But here, people go out of their way to build relationships, willingly sacrificing their time so that they can get to know you.

Malawi is heralded as ‘the warm heart of Africa’, owing to the friendliness of its citizens. After spending nearly 2 months here, I can certainly affirm this sentiment. Without wishing to sound judgemental, I do believe that it is something that we can learn from in our own culture. Don’t get me wrong, things are far from perfect here. Yet, in spite of the daunting problems that face Malawi, its inhabitants still exhibit a measure of contentment, fulfilment, even joy, that I rarely encounter back home in England. I think a principal reason for this is the investment that people make in relationships; poverty may preclude the pursuit of possessions and pleasure (as we conceive them), yet the people here are not dispirited. Far from it, for they treasure something else instead – each other.