Out of Clapham, into Africa “Daily Telegraph”- August 1997 by Claire Norrish
On the shores of Lake Malawi, Claire Norrish and her husband, Paul, have realised their dream - for the price of a London bedsit

THE 10-acre plot was head-high in brown grass. Inside our campervan were a tent, two rucksacks, reference books and a sheaf of plans and sketches. This plot, this patch of scrubby land in an alien country, was now our home and future. Oh God, I thought. Was this really the right place?

Nine months previously we had stood on the same spot with the village headman - a man incongrously dressed in a three-piece suit, bowler and white spats - and shaken hands on a deal that was to change our lives. The grass was short and velvety then; down below we could see a sandy cove shielded by forested hills, lapped by clear blue water. We had felt incredible excitement, and a conviction that our project couldn't fail.

Our friends, of course, thought we were mad. Why leave London, when we were doing so well? Paul worked in graphic design; I was with a record company, commissioning music videos. We both owned flats in Clapham. But, at 27, we knew we were not heading in the right direction.

A six-month trip through Asia some years before had planted the seed of an idea: in Thailand we had stayed in cheap bamboo huts on stilts on perfect beaches, aimed at like-minded people. This, we decided, was the sort of business we could run - but where? Thailand was already over-developed.

Over the next four years we took as many long-haul trips as our jobs would allow, in search of a suitable beach. Each winter, Paul would spend hours in the DTI library, writing to countries open to small-time investors.

In Zanzibar we found what we thought we were looking for: a perfect stretch of beach on the northern tip - then we found that the country had a minimum investment figure of £200,000. Daunted, we turned to Malawi - a tiny country landlocked between Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania, which we had ignored because it was not on the ocean. What we had overlooked was its vast freshwater lake, flanked by pristine sandy beaches.

A reply from Malawi's minister of tourism was positive: there were incentives to invest at that time, tax concessions, and you did not have to have a local partner or huge sums of money. "May God bless you and your families," the letter concluded, with an offer to meet us off the plane.

I can't pretend that we fell in love with Malawi at first sight. The landscape looked parched, barren and frankly unappealing, due to the ravages of the dry season. But it was firmly on the Nairobi to Cape Town back-packer trail, and was lacking in mid-price, quirky accommodation. We checked in at a hotel at Mangochi, and, with the help of Joseph, a local teenager, hired a car to explore.

Over the next couple of weeks we had a depressingly fruitless search. With only five days left we decided to head north - and as we progressed, the landscape metamorphosed into lush tropical vegetation over gently rolling hills. Our car followed a winding road downhill into Nkhata Bay.

People smiled and waved as we drove past, through the busy port towards Chikale Beach where we were to camp - a popular spot with travellers. The gods must have been smiling on us, too. It was the perfect place.

Inquiries led us to the village headman who, on a hot, windy afternoon in January, led us up a hill overlooking the beach and offered us his land for £2,000. We returned to London with a few photographs, promising to come back with the money when we had sorted out the legalities and tied up our lives.

Looking back, our naivety astounds me. We were so convinced of our mission that we were deaf to negative voices - but we knew that if we thought too hard about moving to Malawi we would never do it. In May I handed in my notice. In June we received a letter from Joseph in Malawi, saying that we had better hurry back, as there were lots of mzungu (white men) sniffing around for land to develop. He hoped we would keep to our word.

And so we found ourselves, in September, surveying our plot. The goal was to open on Christmas Day. "Impossible," laughed the expat community (mostly tea and rubber farmers). "This is Africa." But the bush telegraph is an efficient one. Within a week we had found a basic house to rent (£20 a month) and signed up an army of 70 villagers to clear the land. Our building foreman, Crosby, a local man in groovy Seventies outfits (from the aid warehouses of America), was delighted at the prospect of such a big project. He advised us on local wages: £2 a day for women; £4 for skilled labourers. Cement had to be ordered, timber cut, lorries hired.

What followed resembled scenes from King Solomon's Mine, and we laughed many times at the absurdity of it all. In Malawi a cement mixer is four people with shovels. A tap cannot be installed until water is connected (in our case, many months later), so a team of women carry buckets of water up from the lake on their heads. Scaffolding consists of a framework of bluegum poles, which have to be cut in the forest and transported to the site.

There is no such thing as pre-cut timber: each tree has to be selected from the forest and sawyers cut the planks to size. Bricks cannot be bought. First you have to employ a gang to mould them from a good ant hill. They are then dried in the sun, packed into a kiln and burnt during a ceremonial party involving vast quantities of millet beer.

Compromises had to be made. My heart was set on a huge thatched roof for the main bar-cum-restaurant - but the grass where we were wasn't thick enough, and few locals knew how to thatch. We had to make do with tin. We had wanted to build in wood - but we hadn't reckoned on termites. Brick it had to be.

But we also discovered a flair for decoration: we found that mixing red earth with limewash gave a great terracotta colour to the walls, on to which we stencilled designs taken from books on Thailand, Mexico and Africa. Slowly, our plans were taking shape.

"Njaya Lodge" opened on Christmas Day - somewhat to the astonishment of all involved, especially the expats. Even more astonishing was that we had 30 guests - courtesy of the bush telegraph. The barbecue was lit, beers poured (ice-cold, thanks to a fridge shipped out from England). Sitting on the verandah overlooking the lake, surrounded by fragrant frangipani, bougainvillea and acacia trees, we marvelled at the change our lives had taken.

Four years later, a constant stream of visitors keeps us busy. They come by bus, jeep and bicycle from all over the world - including Malawi. We have a visitor's book filled with every profession - lawyers, accountants, doctors, journalists, vets, artists, computer programmers . . . and public schoolboys, especially Etonians (who are generally charming). Such an array of skills can be useful to a lodge as remote as Njaya.

We live with our dogs and cats in a cool stone house with stunning views over the lake. Most of the people who helped build Njaya have become a trusted staff of 30. They keep the business running when we are on home leave - and it is then that it fully sinks in what we have managed to do. For the price of a London bedsit, we have realised a dream.