First: nice! Malawi is awesome. They, like lots of places, have post colonial, modernism, and urbanization problems but they are generally preserving things they do right that western countries get wrong.

>most people only have interaction with people in their tribe.

A large percentage of the population live in Lilongwe and Blantyre-Limbe. Tribes are not well delineated in those urban areas. I was just talking with some friends there about the cultural changes coming from so many children born in cross tribal marriages.

Also, I don't understand how she could be the "first" woman chief. Yao and Sena are matrilineal and tend to prefer women as chiefs. I was just in Zomba where the "Village" (or neighborhood) chiefs are women.