Posted 16 Feb 2010

Everybody who takes a gap year to travel or volunteer abroad has a story about how they fell in love with the places they saw, but few can say they married the man of their dreams while doing it.

When Scottish primary teacher Caroline Pitcairn, 29, decided to take a sabbatical and volunteer in Malawi, little did she know she would come back home with a husband, reports Scotland’s Sunday Mail.

Caroline made the move to volunteer in Malawi after a trip to Ghana left her wanting more.

She met her future husband, Ugandan Jonathan Ssentamu, who was also volunteering in Malawi, at her first training session, preparing her to work with primary education advisers to establish a new curriculum.

Jonathan and Caroline quickly became close and would often spend evenings relaxing together.

One of the poorest and most under developed African countries, Malawi has many volunteering opportunities for people wanting to make a difference.

Sharing borders with Zambia, Tanzania and Mozambique, the nation boasts the eighth largest lake in the world, Lake Malawi, where Jonathan proposed.

The couple married in April 2009 in the Uganda village of Mityana.

Category: Living Abroad, Africa