Likoma Island

Likoma's modern history begins with the Universities' Mission to Central Africa, the Anglican society inspired by David Livingstone's appeal for missionaries. In 1885 the mission set up its lake headquarters on the island, chosen because its island position was protected from raiders on the mainland and its harbour gave steamers easy access to villages on both shores; people had already fled to Likoma for refuge from the slave trade crossing the lake. The main village grew around the station, and the mission's school, printing and boat work made the island a centre of Anglican Christianity for the whole lake region.

The cathedral of St Peter followed, begun in 1903, dedicated while still unfinished in 1905 and completed in 1911, on a scale that still astonishes visitors: a European-style church big enough for a cathedral city, on an island a few kilometres across. Mission steamers carried clergy, teachers and supplies to congregations on both shores.

The island's oddest legacy is political. When Britain and Portugal agreed in 1954 that their boundary ran down the middle of the lake, Likoma and neighbouring Chizumulu stayed with Nyasaland because of the mission, even though they lie in what became Mozambican waters close to the Mozambican coast. They remained Malawian at independence in 1964, an enclave reached only by boat or light aircraft. Fishing, farming and remittances have sustained the island since, along with a small tourism trade that grew from the 1990s around its beaches and its cathedral.

Church and island are hard to separate here. Likoma is overwhelmingly Anglican in a country where Presbyterian and Catholic churches dominate, and the rhythm of bells, choir practice and Sunday services runs through village life. Choral singing is exceptionally strong, sung in Chichewa and Chitonga in harmony that fills the stone cathedral, and church festivals are the year's great gatherings.

The island's population is small and interrelated, and social life is conducted face to face: greetings on the path, conversations in the shade, news carried by the boats. Fishing and farming set the working day, and children walk to school across the island rather than by any vehicle. Long-standing links with the mainland and with Mozambique mean several languages are heard, and many families have relatives working in Lilongwe, Mzuzu or South Africa.

Visitors are received politely and with curiosity rather than pressure; there is little of the hustle found at busier lakeshore resorts. Modest dress in the villages, a greeting before a question and permission before a photograph are the manners that matter. Football on a dusty pitch, drumming at ceremonies and the arrival of the ferry — an event the whole shoreline turns out for — are the island's regular public occasions.

About 10,500 people live on Likoma, in a dozen settlements of which the largest is Likoma town on the western side. Fishing is the main livelihood: boats go out at night with lamps for usipa, and the catch is dried on racks and sold on the island or shipped to the mainland. Households also grow cassava and rice on thin, rocky soil, keep goats and chickens, and trade whatever the boats bring in.

Everything else arrives by water. Fuel, cement, flour and medicines come on the ferry or supply boats, which makes prices higher than on the mainland and shortages routine; a delayed boat is felt across the island within days. A generator and a solar bank supply the island's electricity, and the primary schools in every settlement and Likoma Secondary School serve the island, while hospital care is limited.

Work outside fishing and farming means the lodges, the hospital, the schools, church employment, boat crews and a few shops. Many young people leave for Mzuzu, Lilongwe or South Africa and send money home, and remittances are an important part of island income. Days start early and end early, and the loudest sound at night is usually the lake.

Fish is the foundation of eating on Likoma. Usipa, the lake's small sardine-like fish, is fried fresh or sun-dried in the open and kept for the months when catches are thin; chambo, the lake's tilapia, is grilled whole over charcoal; and larger fish such as kampango catfish appear when the boats are lucky. Fish is eaten with nsima, the stiff maize porridge taken by hand, or with rice.

Relishes, or ndiwo, are made from beans, pumpkin leaves, cassava leaves, tomatoes and onions, often cooked in groundnut sauce. Cassava grows well on the island's poor soils and is boiled, roasted or pounded into flour, and in the wider northern lakeshore tradition it is also made into kondowole, a stretchy cassava-flour staple eaten with fish. Mangoes, bananas and papaya come from village gardens, and the enormous baobabs give a tart fruit whose powder is mixed into drinks.

Prepared food is simple and mostly domestic: mandasi, small fried dough buns, sold in the morning, roasted maize in season, chips and fried fish near the market, and strong sweet tea. The lodges cook for their guests with what the boats bring, adding curries, salads and baking. Thobwa, a lightly fermented maize or millet drink, is made at home, and bottled lager and chibuku sorghum beer are drunk at small bars in the town.