Nearing the end of writing about Malawi

I have known for a while that I am nearing the end of my blog entries based on my trip to Malawi last summer. At least this may be the end of this phase of my writing about Malawi. There are a couple of more things that I want to write about. One is my last afternoon in Malawi where we visited a program in Lilongwe, Youthcare Ministries, that has a residential/education program for young teenage boys. Those of you who read my postings from Malawi know that I was somewhat emotionally exhausted by this time of our trip. And I was homesick, counting the hours until I could start my trip home. I felt like I could not absorb anymore. Then we arrived at the Youthcare Ministries residential.

I met the boys in residence, toured the facilities including the residence and the classroom, and talked to the teachers. I was so glad that we visited. In some ways this was a highlight of my trip. I’m not quite sure why. Perhaps it was because as an urban planner who spent a couple of years working in urban America, I could “understand” what they are trying to do at Youthcare Ministries; to take children off of the “streets” and the associated lifestyles and give them a chance for something better.

I felt the hope because the boys are smart, friendly, and articulate. I can’t imagine what their lives were like before coming to Youthcare, but it was immediately clear to all of us how far these boys had come. So, there really was a feeling of hope. And when, even after six months have passed since my trip ended, I find myself despairing over some of what I saw, felt, and experienced in Malawi, I have only to remember the faces of these boys and the hope embodied in each of these fine young men.

Education in Malawi

One of the things that interested me while I was in Malawi was the difference in the education system as compared with America. Primary school, roughly equivalent to what we call kindergarten through eighth grade in America, is free. I am fairly certain that the government sponsors primary education, During our travels, we saw many school children, many dressed in uniforms, walking to and from school.

A Saturday children’s program we visited on our second full day in Malawi used the grounds of a primary school. The building was small. It appeared that all grades shared one classroom. If memory serves, there were few, if any, of the accoutrements in the school that we are accustomed to in America. Before traveling to Malawi I knew that school supplies that we take for granted here in America –– books, papers, pens and the like –– are often hard to come by. Many of us traveled with pens and pencils to distribute to children. Many Malawian children attend at least some primary school.

The situation is quite different for secondary schools. We were told that for every 10 to 12 primary schools there is one government sponsored secondary school. Entrance is by exam, where the exams are extremely competitive. I could be wrong, but it is my understanding that government–sponsored secondary schools are free.

There are also private secondary schools. While admittance is also exam–driven, I got the impression that the exams for private secondary schools were not as competitive as for the government sponsored secondary schools.

Sad to say, there is a gender disparity in secondary schools. One figure we heard is if 15 girls start secondary school in what they call form 1, only one will graduate.

There are four grades, or “forms” in secondary schools. I got the impression that students enter form 1 around the age of 11 or 12. After form 2, they must pass a test. If they fail, they either repeat the test, or they or out of school. After the graduate form 4, they must pass another test if they want to go to the University. The government pays the university fees for qualifying students. Students typically start university at the age of 16.

Many of the community–based programs that we visited try to include money for a couple of secondary school scholarships in their budgets. These scholarships then go to teenagers in the villages where they work.

People I met, part II

The other day I wrote about some of the people I met in passing while I was in Malawi. There were many people that we met who worked with Malawi-based organizations. In this group I include people that we met with over dinner as well as representatives from the community-based organizations we visited, and a couple of hospitals.

They are all extraordinary people with the same generosity of spirit and warmth that I wrote about elsewhere. They took time out of busy schedules to meet with us and answered our questions. Some of them acted as tour guides, showing us how to get to the remote villages where they worked. I always felt welcomed, never once feeling like we were imposing. Quite the contrary.

I wish that I could find the words to express that spending time with each and everyone of these folk had a profound and lasting impact on me. As the weeks have gone by, I have found myself thinking about each and everyone of them. When I do, I offer a prayer.

People I met

I have been reviewing my blog entries over the last couple of days. I don’t think that I have done justice to all the wonderful people that I had the occasion to spend some time with during my two weeks in Malawi last June. I am not just talking about the staff and volunteers working with the various programs that we visited, all but a couple being funded by the Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA). There were also people we met along the way: staff in the various hotels and lodges where we stayed, the children and adults we met in the villages we visited, storekeepers, customs officials at the airport in Lilongwe, South African Air employees at the airport, people we met in restaurants, etc. As I write this over four months after I returned home from Malawi, I am certain that there are people that I have left out of this list.

In some cases the people who stand out the most to me, over four months later, are the ones who are nameless, with whom I had the very briefest of encounters.

There was the smiling warm welcome of the customs officials at the airport the day we arrived.

All the children who mugged for our cameras.

The entire congregation at the Our Lady of Fatima Roman Catholic Church in Salima where we worshipped our first Sunday.

The foreign currency exchange teller the one time I exchanged currency at a bank. He had a nice smile.

The two young men at Senga Bay who sold me some beads.

A woman who worked at the Malawi Department of Health who told me where the restroom was. I did not know where to go, so I asked a woman in an office. She was very nice.

A couple of female police officers.

The students at the Lydia Projects secondary school.

One of the managers at the Hotel we stayed in Zomba.

The waiter who brought me some bread to eat during a power failure because I was feeling queasy from taking my malaria pill on an empty stomach.

A woman tending pigs in one of the piggeries we visited.

Some boys learning carpentry.

Our guide for our two-hour trip on the Shire River in Lilondwe.

A child with AIDS sitting in his mothers lap.

A village chief.

A young Malawian man who is a mountain biker.

Our guide at the Mua Mission who told us about tribal customs in Malawi, and how they differed from region to region.

Girls jumping rope.

After clearing customs at the airport in Lilongwe for the first leg of my flight home, Lilongwe to Johannesburg, I found that the rest room in that portion of the airport was closed. The customs official let me back into the main terminal to go to the restroom without having to clear customs a second time.

When people die

I was going through the journal I kept while I was in Malawi looking for my notes on the education system in Malawi, when I ran across something that I have been meaning to write about. That is, what happens to the possessions, including a house, when someone in Malawi dies.

In America, unless there is what is known as a Last Will and Testament providing otherwise, the house, possession, money, etc. will probably go to the spouse and children (or other family members) after the decedents debts are paid. I am being extraordinarily simple minded in that statement because I want to make a comparison to the Malawian way of doing things. We heard a couple of stories of how it works in Malawi. To put it simply, in Malawi the brothers of a man who dies can come and take the dead man’s property, leaving his wife and children with nothing. There was the young man, D, whom we met early in our trip. D had to leave the University in his third year when his father died to help support his family.

Another women we met, C, was finishing her Ph.D. at the time we met her. Her first husband died, and his family came and took everything. C was left with nothing. She worked hard, eventually going to graduate school where she met the man who became her second husband. C told us that there is a new law that says that the wife and children can keep the dead husband’s property.

Fish, part 3

One of the highlights of our trip was our two–hour boat ride on the Shire River. We got a chance to see fisherman first hand. Two or three men or older boys man a small wooden boat. I believe that the boats were similar to what I would call a row boats with one man standing in the stern (back) working the fishing nets. We saw several fishing boats during our two–hour cruise on the river.

We also saw large groups of people at a couple of sites along the river. According to both Luzu and our captain, the people gathered at these sites were wholesalers or distributors. The fishermen sell their catch to these wholesalers or distributors. They in turn, sell the catch to other distributors who then sell the fish to restaurants, grocery stores, or smaller operators who sell at open–air markets. Or they may sell the fish on their own without going through a middleman.

Fish, part 2

On our first full day in Malawi, we went to open a open air market in Malawi. And you guessed, there were lots and lots of fish for sale, sardines and tilapia (or chambo)

mostly. Two things interested us, one was that the fish sellers displayed the fish in very interesting decorative patterns. I’m sorry that I did not take any pictures, so you’ll have to take my word for it. I still have the image of circular patterns of sardines. Real pretty.

More interesting was that the fish on display was not on ice. And there was no refrigeration. We asked our friend at CARD and Luzu about this. Turns out that the sellers and the buyers know just how long fish keeps without ice or refrigeration. Buyers may have coolers and they can purchase ice blocks.

I had chambo, a whole chambo in Zomba. It is quite tasty. By a whole chambo, I mean whole, including the head. I couldn’t deal with the eyes. Someone told me that the eyes are good, but I decided to pass on the eyes.

Fish, part 1

We are big fish eaters, eating fish a couple of times a week. Like many other Americans, I go to the store to by my fish. In some cases, the fish has been prepared in some way, salmon is marinated, crab cakes are made, or fish is breaded. Yes, I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I do not marinate nor do I bread my own fish. We spend a little more for the fish we buy, but it is worth it. One of our few luxuries.

Thanks to federal regulations, I know the country of origin of the fish I buy and whether the fish is what they call “wild” or “farm raised.” It always tickles me to buy “wild” swordfish because I do not think that swordfish is raised on fish farms. But the law is the law. We like farm–raised salmon over wild salmon because farm raised salmon are fatter than their wild relatives.

Sometimes I think about where the fish comes from and the loss to fish populations. I know that I should not eat swordfish, because the swordfish population is severely depleted from over fishing. So, I compromise and only buy swordfish once or twice a month.

And we like to go to fish hatcheries. Don’t ask me why. We just do. Deep sea fishing, well let’s just say I had one bad experience on a fishing boat off of the Jersey shore watching people torture this poor blue fish. I prayed that I would not catch any thing, and I did not. And to this day, I rarely eat blue fish.

So, when I travel, I check out the fish. I know that my Lake in Vermont is stocked with trout. The Rivers near me are stocked with trout. I find out where I can buy good fresh fish, and when the fish deliveries come in.

When I traveled to Malawi, one of the first things that I noticed was fish. Fish was sold by in the open–air market in Lilongwe. Stay tuned for more on fish in Malawi, tomorrow.

Goats

I think that I already written about the large number of goats that we saw during our travels in Malawi. If I recall I wrote about the large numbers of goats that we saw on my second or third day in Malawi.

Fairly early during our two-week stay in Malawi, we realized that Malawians rarely used goats for their milk. Given the great poverty and the attendant hunger and malnourishment that goes along with poverty, some of us wondered why goats were not used for milk. I learned from some of my fellow Malawi travelers that goats are high milk producers. When we asked Malawians that we meet about this, many did not know. Some may have offered that some of the goats we saw were wild, but my notes may well be a little fuzzy on this particular point.

Our friends at CARD offered an answer to the question of why goats were not used for milk. The answer is that most families have cultural resistance to this because in their way of thinking, goats are only for meat. At least one of the agricultural programs in Colleges in Malawi are working on a goat dairy program. But this is on a small scale.

I should add that I don’t recall seeing many dairy cows in Malawi.

Food Security in Malawi

On the morning of our last day in Blantyre (June 25), we had our second meeting of our trip with staff members of the Churches Action for Relief and Development (CARD). CARD is affiliated with the Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA), working in the southern region of Malawi. The staff was a fount of information on a variety of issues relating to life in Malawi. While we were waiting for others to join us, we had a chance to pick the brains of these CARD staff members. I will write about a couple of the issues that we talked about in the next couple of blog entries.

My notes are a little sparse in places, so please bear with me. We were about 10 or 11 days into our trip at this point. At this juncture, I was mentally exhausted and very homesick so I was not journaling with the vigor and intensity that I was earlier in the trip.

The first item in my notes from that day falls under the broad issue of food security.


The context for writing about food security in Malawi is simple. There is not always enough food, especially when there has been a drought as there was a couple of years ago. Or when droughts are not an issue, excessive rains during the November to May rainy season can lead to excessive runoff and even floods.

Included among the discussion points were:

1. Is there enough food to sustain a family through a drought;
2. Nutritional value of the food;
3. Accessibility of the food, who gets the food, in a particular household; and
4. The right of children.

CARD does the following:

1. Responds to emergencies, i.e. something the people were not expecting such as drought, and floods.
2. Works with villagers on ways that their village can work towards being self-sustaining including: goat production, crop production, and water sanitation.

HIV/AIDS is an added pressure in the case when one income earner is lost due to illness or death.

I was interested to find out that something on the order of 40% of (family) harvest loss of is due to post-harvest infestation in the form of mice and insects. Chemicals are utilized, although I suspect that this come at an added cost that might be out of the reach of many families. A number of natural remedies are used. Ground up leaves from a certain trees or ashes are mixed with the maize to ward off weevils. This seems to work. Ashes are also mixed in with the potato crop to prevent weevil infestation.

One model for rodent control that we discussed could come through communal grain banks. Here individuals come together as a group and construct a brick structure – bricks can be made by hand – with rodent guards. The idea is that the individuals in the group will come up with an agreement on storing and then using grains and other groups. I got the impression that this model is not yet widely used, if at all. But it is an interesting one. And if the bricks can be made by hand and then cured by fire – to stand up through the rainy season, I think that this could be a very cost-effective solution for rodent control.

Resuming blogging

If you have been following my blog, then you know that I have not posted anything in over two weeks. I spent some of this time starting to write some private reflections based on my recent trip to Malawi. But the last of those writings were about ten days ago. I have been in a relatively dry period in regards to any writing. I am not here to go into a prolonged analysis of the whys and the wherefores of this dry period. Rather, I am ready to move on and continue with posts to my blog.

I am not exactly sure what I will be writing about here. It may or may not be about Malawi. I think I am at a turning point in my blogging about Malawi. If I am to post on a more regular basis and, at the same time, take time when I am preparing an entry on Malawi, I might want to intersperse my Malawi entries with reflections on other things.

Power Blackouts and Malaria Medication

By our third or fourth day in Malawi, we experienced our first power blackout. This one lasted about one hour. By the end of our first week, we had experienced three more. All around the dinner hour, at least what was our dinner hour. We tended to eat on the late side, sitting down somewhere around 6:30 to 7PM. Eating out in Malawi, often requires a longer wait for food than I am accustomed to in America. Sometimes we would not finish eating until 9:30 or 10PM at night.

Some places had generators, others did not. At the hotel where we stayed in Zomba, they had no generator. Between the power failure that meant that they could not cook, and needing to take my nightly malaria pill with food, I was not a happy camper. I usually had a package of nuts of a power bar in my bag for such a purpose, but had opted to leave all this in my hotel room. Silly me. The one night I really needed the power bar so I could take my malaria pill, I did not have it. I took the malaria pill about an hour or so after the “designated time”, designated because I was under physician’s orders to leave 12 hours between my malaria pill and my thyroid pill.

Some more time passed, and I started to feel nauseous from taking the malaria pill without food. I mentioned this Don, who is a physician, and he helped procure some bread from the kitchen so I could settle my stomach. It worked, and our food came not long after.

It was not until sometime in our second week that I found out the reasons for the power blackouts. That is, I asked Luzu. We were in Malawi during their dry season. Much of Malawi’s power comes from hydroelectric power. The problem is that during the dry season, there often is not enough hydro power to fulfill the demand for electricity. So, they have scheduled power blackouts that are advertised in the paper. The theory is that, assuming you can get a newspaper, you will know when your neighborhood is going to be blacked out and you can plan accordingly. I forgot to ask Luzu, how the word of the planned blackouts gets around to those who do not have newspapers. Perhaps the radio is used, or failing that there is always word of mouth. In any event, I finally had my answer.

Camaraderie in Malawi

There were eleven of us in the transformational journey group that traveled to Malawi. We ranged in age from 22to the mid-60s with eight women and three men. Seven were from the Pasadena/Los Angeles area, of these seven; five are members of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Stephanie who joined us from South Africa grew up in Pasadena. I believe that her parents are good friends of Don and Mary. I am from New Jersey, while Adam and Rachel were most recently living in Tennessee (I think).

I had never met any of these wonderful people in person prior to traveling to Malawi. The one exception was Don Thomas, whom I had corresponded with over e-mail for about one year. Don had mentioned in an e-mail about how those of us traveling to Malawi together would become “life-long friends.” I had no idea how true his words would become.

To say that I was pleasantly surprised by how safe I felt with the other ten people in our Malawi transformational journey group is an understatement. From the get go, it was as if I had known the other nine people in our group for a long time (Jean joined us on our fifth full day in Malawi). The “normal” walls and barriers that Isometimes put up between others and myself were not there. Sometimes it takes a little while before I feel “safe enough” in a new situation to “knock down the barriers that I erect that may prevent people from getting to know me. Not this time, there were no barriers. In fact, on our first plane ride together from Johannesburg to Lilongwe, a couple of us remarked to the other about how safe we felt with each other.

A couple of days after we arrived, we were commenting on how it felt like we had known each other for “a long time.” While all of us were careful to respect each other’s boundaries, I felt a sense of safety, a sense of community. We were on this journey together and we took care of each other. A couple of us felt “sick”, mostly stomach problems, but nothing major. We never got stuck on a poorly maintained, badly rutted dirt road in a remote section of Malawi. If any of things were to happen, we would have taken care of each other.

I have not seen anybody since I got back. I miss everyone. Many are on the west coast. Don and Mary are embarking on a new adventure in New York City for the remainder of the year. I hope to see them before they go back to the west coast. Adam and Rachael are leaving Malawi on September 20th for Europe and the Middle East. I think that Stephanie is back in South Africa. Tim and Jane have family not far from me, I hope to see them when they visit.

I am assured that we will be friends forever. And even if it has been years since we last saw each other, it will be as if it was yesterday.

Tires

On our second full day in Malawi Luzu had to get the spare tire on the van fixed. This was the day we drove from Lilongwe to Senga Bay with two visits in the Salima area. As we approached Salima I recall noticing a group of young men at the side of road repairing bicycle and automobile tires. A tire repair shop without walls, so to speak. Our first stop was in the town center of Salima for the ATM and a grocery store.. When we had finished our errands in town, Luzu announced that he needed to get the spare tire on the van fixed, that it would only take an hour. Luzu dropped us off at our first stop of the day, the Salima Aids Support Orginazation (SAS0) before driving off to get the tire taken care.

Well before we ready to leave SASO, Luzu reappeared with the van. When we were done, those of us who were riding in the van piled in. Don and his wife and his two passengers got into the car and we were off. Luzu stopped at the same “tire repair shop without walls that I had noticed on our approach to Salima, paid the young men, got the spare and reattached the spare to the back of the van,

I did not think about getting the spare tire fixed at the time. After all, no matter where you live keeping your spare in good repair is a common sense. After all, no one wants to be caught by the side of the road with a flat tire and an unusable spare.

It took a visit to my mechanic the other day to have him repair a flat tire to get me thinking about what it might be like to be caught in remote Malawi on an unpaved road with out a good spare. Not fun. Even with a good spare, it might be difficult to jack up the car on a badly rutted dirt road. Nothing like that happened.

To be honest, it was Ed’s – my mechanic – interest in Malawi that gave me the idea to write about getting the spare tire on the van fixed. Ed, if you are reading this, this is for you.

Riding in pickup trucks

I experienced another first while I was traveling in Malawi, seeing 20 people or more crammed in the open back cargo area of a pickup truck. Yes, you are reading this correctly. As we drove around central and southern Malawi such trucks crammed with passengers in the exposed cargo area were common sights.

Here in America, riding in the open cargo area of a pickup truck is illegal in many States. As a result I see fewer pickup trucks carrying passengers in the open cargo area than I did when I was younger. But, I have never ever seen more than a few people riding in an open cargo area. Perhaps four at the most, and they were always – if memory serves – sitting down in the bed of the cargo area,. I don’t think that I ever saw anyone sitting on the “rim” of the cargo area.

Another common form of transportation in Malawi involves people the owner or daily renter of pickup truck cramming as many paying passengers as they can in the cargo area of the truck and dropping them off along a route. People will be sitting in the bed of the cargo area as well as all around the rim. I’m not making this stuff up.

The Malawians have a name for this, but I deleted the e-mail from Stephanie where she reported on her experience riding as a passenger in the back of a pickup truck along with the translation to the local language.

I wondered what keeps people who are sitting on the rim of the cargo areas from falling off, especially on a rutted dirt road. But what do I know?

Minibuses in Malawi

Common forms of transportation in Malawi are minibuses. The van that our group rented, driven by Luzu, was about the size of what I would call a cargo van, but our van had about four rows of usable seats. The last row was taken up by our luggage, so lets say the van could fit 10 to 12 passengers and luggage comfortably. If memory serves, minibuses are larger, perhaps a little the small buses (about one-half the size of school buses) often used in America for senior citizens and disabled persons transportation programs, Churches, Children’s programs and the like.

While we were reasonably comfortable in our van, even with our luggage and an extra two passengers, every minibus I saw was literally packed full of people with children riding on the laps of their caretakers, other passengers holding bags in their laps, etc. In addition to being crowded with passengers, minibus drivers always traveled at a high rate of speed. Luzu always let them go past him and was quite good at dodging minibuses when they pulled over to disgorge passengers.

I asked Luzu about the minibuses when I was riding shotgun on day. There seem to be fixed minibus routes both within cities such as Lilongwe and between towns and cities, e.g. Lilongwe to Zomba or Lilongwe to Selma. He went on to explain that the drivers rent the vehicle for the day from the owner for a fixed rate. The more trips that the driver can complete, the more money they can take home. I recall that the daily rental fee is not “cheap” giving the drivers even more motivation to make more trips. And they compete with other minibuses on the same route. So if a driver can get to the destination first, they can beat out their competition.

I received an email from Stephanie a few days after I returned to America. She reported on a trip she took to go scuba diving in Lake Malawi where she traveled part of the way by minibus. I can no longer find her email, having deleted it by accident. I do remember that her account of this portion of her trip was in line with the crowded minibuses that I observed. I recall that she enjoyed this crowded ride, in part because she was sitting next to an adult with a baby on their lap. She spent part of the ride allowing the baby to hold onto her finger.

Sharing the road

When I first got to Malawi, sharing the road with walkers, people on bicycles, ox carts, goats took some getting used to. The scene on the road as we approached a settlement of any size with market stalls an/or stores was unreal. There would be many more walkers and bicyclists than in rural areas. And I’m not talking about two lines of people walking down either side of the road. There would be people walking two or three abreast on each side of the street, along lines of minibuses disgorging passengers, bicycles darting in and out of traffic, and walkers making the "mad dash" across the street. Our drivers were very adept at navigating through these busy areas.

On the outskirts of the towns and in rural areas, there were the ever present goats that would dart in front of our van. Neither Luzu nor Don hit a goat. Walkers were always present, although in rural areas they would walk one or two abreast, often on dirt paths that ran along the road.

I lived in urban areas for about seven years in my twenties. In New York City where I lived the longest, I rode a bicycle sharing the road with cars, trucks, and buses. Not necessarily minding my manners, but getting away with it. If you are driving near a dairy farm in a rural area, you may have to stop while the cows cross the street to or from a barn or a field. You may have to slow down to follow a slow moving piece of farm equipment until it is safe to pass. Visitors to some National Parks in America and elsewhere may have to share the road with various types of indigenous wildlife. Nothing I had seen to date in America prepared me for what it means to share the road in Malawi.

About half way through our trip while I was riding shotgun with Luzu, he commented to me that “in Malawi we share the road.” Roads in Malawi are for everybody, not just cars, vans, and the like. There will only be something resembling “sidewalks”Only in larger towns and cities such as Lilongwe, Blantyre, and Zomba were then anything that resembled "sidewalks."

When I came home and drove around my town, I immediately noticed how quiet the streets were. Even crowded American interstate highways have taken on a new meaning.

Private Toilets and cell telephones

I went back and read the first posts I made from Malawi on June 14 (the day of my arrival) and June 15 (my first full day). The idea being that I wanted to compare what I wrote in my blog for those two days with hand written entries in the small journal that I carried around with me in Malawi. The idea behind this exercise is to provide new fodder for my blog.

You may recall that the first order of business on June 15 was to an open air market in Lilongwe. One thing I did not write about were, what at first glance appeared to be, public toilets. If I recall, these toilets were located just outside the entrance to the market. Given my interest in clean water and sanitation, I was quite interested in finding more about these toilets, so I asked Luzu. He told me that yes, these were flush toilets, and that people had to pay to use them. He went on to explain that the reason there is a fee to use the toilets is because if no fee is charged then the toilets fall into to disrepair. The fees cover, among other things, the cost of maintaining the facilities. I intended to go back to the market and see this facility close-up, paying the fee to do so. I never made it back.

In my early entries from Malawi, I listed my observations while riding in the van So, I have written about the many roadside stalls that I saw during our travels. By the end of our trip, they were a routine sight. People selling goods ranging from cell phone minutes to mice on a stick to vegetables to hand made furniture to coffins. On that first drive from the airport to Wendels, I noticed that a large number of small booths (or kiosks) with signage saying “celltel” or something similar. If memory serves, “celltel” is one of the cellular providers in Malawi. People at these booths had cellular telephones, selling time to individuals who wanted to place a call. In addition, some of these booths sold what are known as sim cards.

Unlike my cellular telephone that I can only use with a specific cellular carrier, unlocked cellular telephones can be purchased which can be used with a variety of cellular carriers. Activating an unlocked cell phone involves purchasing something called a sim card that contains a certain amount of airtime. When the airtime is used up, you purchase another sim card. The use of sim cards seems commonplace in Malawi. Americans can purchase an “unlocked cell phone” in Malawi at a much lower cost than in the U.S. However, to a Malawian, even a phone that is inexpensive to an American is going to be quite expensive. The cost of a cell telephone could explain the apparent popularity of “celtel” booths, especially around the cities and larger towns. If a Malawian could not afford one a cell phone, the “celltel” booths provided an opportunity to place a call. I never did find out what people charged for the use of their cell phone. My unanswered question is could a Malawian of average means, which probably means they are extremely poor, easily afford to purchase a couple of minutes of cell phone time at a “celltel” booth?

A little more about Luzu

I want to spend a little more time telling you about Luzu, one of our two drivers in Malawi. One of the things about Luzu that was interesting is that he grew up in northern Malawi, and we spent all of our time in central and southern Malawi. So, he talked a little about some of the customs and traditions that he grew up with. For example, the language is different and how village chiefs are elected is also different.

At some point he ended up in the Lilongwe area, I am sure that he told us how he ended up there, but because I did not write it down, I don’t recall the story. Anyway, he currently lives with his wife, two daughters, a (great) nephew and other relatives in an area known as Likumi about 8 km outside of Lilongwe. He took all of us to his house, actually a small compound on our next to last full day in Lilongwe.

Luzu works for a nongovernmental organization (NGA) in Malawi that works with wildlife preservation. In addition, at the time we visited him he had two kinds of chickens, about 400 layers and 500 broilers. His wife, whom I also met along with his youngest daughter, works for the government (I think). So, the chickens bring in extra cash. In a recent e-mail, Luzu reported that he sold the layers because they stopped laying eggs. He keeps the broilers for two months before selling them off and replaces them with a new batch of broilers. In addition, he had one or two roosters and some guinea fowl. I was very impressed with how clean and well cared for his chickens were along with the fact that they mix the chicken food themselves. He had a couple of young men who may have been part of his “extended” family who helped with the chickens.

They also had some fruit trees, and space for a vegetable garden.

I was quite impressed with his resourcefulness, self-sufficiency, and his generosity of spirit. I met his wife, and although we only spent a little while together, I felt as if I had known her for a long time, a kind of “kinship” that is very special and perhaps very “African.” Whatever words I use to try to describe this are wholly inadequate. I hope you get the idea She too shares Luzu’s resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and generosity of spirit. My only regret is that I was too tired to think about getting someone to take a picture of his wife and me.

Both of his daughters are in school. I know that his oldest daughter is in secondary school and his youngest daughter may be getting ready for secondary school. I can tell that they will go far.

Back from Vermont

I have been back from Vermont for four days now. It turns out that with the exception of my “diary”, I did no writing to speak of. So, I have nothing to post. I did write one entry that I had intended to post here. I still may do so, but it will require revisions.

Hello from Vermont

I am one week into my vacation. A very nice and welcome interlude here in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The usual vacation activities. I have at least one entry that I will post when I get home next week and have more time to spend on the internet.

Off to the North East Kingdom of Vermont

I am off to my cabin in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont for two weeks. Sans internet access. Will try to post periodically when I am in places with wireless access.

First Impressions of Malawi

One of the many people that we met when we were in Malawi asked us about our first impressions of Malawi. I told him that my first impression was deforestation. As I write this one month after returning home there are three first impressions that stay with me: deforestation, coffins, and goats. My first sight of Malawi came when our flight from Johannesburg was descending to the international airport in Malawi. Even though I was sitting in an aisle seat, I had a decent view out the window. The very first thing I noticed was the lack of trees. No, the landscape was not entirely denuded of trees, for there were patches of trees.

After I got in the van with Luzu for the trip from the airport to Wendels –– about a 30-minute drive give or take –– I resumed my observations. I noted large areas without trees, and something else. There were large areas of land that had been burned. As the days wore on, a common sight were these burned out patches of land.

In Malawi, it was very common to see individuals selling there wares by the side of the road. Some had small stands; others merely claimed a patch of land. Fairly early on in the trip, I began to see that many if these “vendors” were selling charcoal in what were similar to baskets on the top of long poles stuck in the ground. The charcoal could be used for cooking. So, this would account for some of the deforestation. But what accounted for the burned land.

Luzu provided the answer. If memory serves, there are two common explanations for the burned land. One is more obvious, clearing land for crops. The other is less obvious. I wrote in a recent entry that people burn land near their villages to draw out mice, which are eaten. One of the things that vendors sell are mice on a stick. Once I knew what I was looking for, the mice on a stick were easy to recognize.

In my first glimpse of Malawi as we were driving from the airport to Wendels, we all noticed the large number of coffin makers selling their wares in these small roadside stands. This is a very sad and visible sign of the high death rate in Malawi. It sounds very callous to say that I got used to seeing a lot of coffins for sale during my time in Malawi. I don’t mean to be unfeeling, but after a couple of days I just had to turn off the large number of coffins for sale.

I’ll write about goats tomorrow.

A tribute to our drivers, part 2: Luzu

I have talked about Luzu elsewhere in this blog, so those of you who have been following along have already been introduced to him through my earlier entries.

I think that Don and Mary Thomas first met Luzu through the American staff from Global Aids Interfaith Alliance (GAIA) about five years ago. I think. With the exeption of 2006, when Luzu was unable to get off from work, Luzu has been a driver for five years with groups lead by Don and Mary.

Not only is a superb driver, he is a very nice person. I liked Luzu from the time we first met, when he met us at the airport just outside Lilongwe. I believe that Luzu has been at his current job for at least one year, so he used his vacation time to be our driver. From what I understand, he earned in two weeks, what he normally earns in two or three months. In American terms, the $20 or so we paid him each day, seems inexpensive, but to a Malawian, it is a nice piece of change.

From the start, I knew that he had experience driving on the dirt roads in the more remote sections of Malawi. I only have one picture that shows a somewhat typical road in a remote section of Malawi. And believe me, we were on worse roads than that one.

Luzu never lost his cool and knew just how to tackle driving on these roads. There were a couple of times when he went around to the back of the van either after we stopped or before we drove off. We always wondered if something was wrong. The worse that happened is that we lost a small section of the rear bumper, or perhaps two sections. No punctured or dragging tail pipes, no punctured fuel lines. No accidents. He seemed to know just how to approach the ruts and rocks on the worse sections to avoid damage to the van.

He never minced words, when asked a question, but we always knew that he was on top of things. For example, on that rainy Saturday when we visited Mindanti and points beyond in a very remote section of southern Malawi, I told him that I heard that this road was bad and could be impassable in the rains.

He said "yes, we have to go soon."

And we left soon after that. Probably because it was the dry season and it had only rained that day, the dirt roads had not turned into that awful slick mud. And as we drove down a long hill to cross the river and her tributaries over a bridge with very, very low clearance, the river had not spilled over onto the road. So, we made it back. When we passed Mindanti on our way back to drop off our passenger, Luzu did not try to get on the turn-off to Mindanti. Instead, he dropped him off at the side of the road. He wasn't going to risk getting stuck.

Considering the size of the van we had, it had a very small tank that took about 40 liters of diesel fuel. That is slightly over 10 gallons. My subaru outback wagon has a 15 gallon tank. He knew just how long to time it between fill-ups and just where the petro station would be.

Another challenge was to not be run off the road by speeding minibuses and pick-up trucks packed to the gills with people. Luzu always let them pass. In Malawi, motor vehicles share the road with people walking, bicycles, lots and lots of goats, and Ox carts, As we approach villages, the crowds increase, more walkers, more bicycles, more speeding mini buses, etc. The horn is always honking and we swerve to avoid hitting something. Through this all, Luzu kept his cool. I would have been cursing up one side and down another. Not Luzu.

We passed many, many broken down vehicles, just as many on the tarred and the unpaved roads. It is a tribute to both Don and Luzu's driving skills that we did not end up as a statistic or stuck in a remote area with a broken down van and/or car.

He was also a great tour guide, answering all of our question about Malawi. We were always asking him, Luzu what is that? We would describe what we saw if necessary. And he would have answer for that the next time we passed it. Often he could guess at an answer from what we told him. As time went on, I got less and less shy about asking him questions. And we learned so much from him,

Why do people burn grass and other vegetation near their villages? Either to clear areas for crops, or to chase out the mice so that they can eat the mice. Honestly.

We passed some very large (5 feet or so) hills that looked like large ant hills. They are termite hills. We asked why the sticks in the top? The stick keeps the termites from exiting the colony.

We learned to identify baobob tress and banana plants.

And we all gained a new friend in Luzu.

Caught up with responding to your comments

I have finally sat down and responded to all the comments to my blog going back to the start of my trip. So, feel free to go back and read these.

I would be remiss if I did not pause and thank all of you who read and have otherwise followed along with my blog during and after my travels. It doesn't matter whether or not you posted a comment. What matters is that you were here. I could not of done this with the support of all of you wonderful people.

A tribute to our drivers: Part 1, Don

I left Malawi three weeks ago. It has taking me that long to begin to process what I experienced in Malawi. Towards the end of my travels in Malawi, I knew that one of the first things that I would write about would be a tribute to our two drivers, Luzu and Don.

One of the more personally unsettling statistics about Malawi that I ran across prior to my travels is that Malawi is among the leader in the number of traffic accidents per capita. As I thought about this statistic and made decisions not to share this with certain loved ones because I did not want to worry them needlessly, I knew that Don and Mary, others from GAIA, and other Episcopal Church groups had been to Malawi and returned safely from Malawi. So, I knew I was in safe hands

I would like to introduce you to these safe hands. Don Thomas (on the right in the photo) grew up in northern Maine (I think). Like other rural regions in America, northern New England has its share of dirt roads. I know this first hand from the 25 plus years that I have owned seasonal property in northeastern Vermont. Northern Maine is no different and in some regions, even more remote.

Some dirt roads, the road that my property is on in Vermont is an example, are pretty well maintained. This maintenance is also known as grading. As I write this, I am looking at the inventory of town road equipment for this Vermont municipality. They have a 2001 cat grader (with wing). I am pretty sure that this is the piece of equipment that I have seen them use to smooth out or grade dirt roads to minimize ruts and potholes that will degrade the road if left ungraded. Now my dirt road has la very large number of residences on the road, so the road is graded on a regular basis. Roads in more remote regions are not graded on a regular basis and the ruts and potholes can shake the muffler and pipes off a sedan. To say nothing of the possibility of a two-wheel drive vehicle getting stuck on a rutted dirt road, especially after heavy rains or during snow melt in early spring. This time of spring thaw in northern New England is known as mud season and can disable pick-up trucks as well as some four-wheel drive vehicles.

While Malawi has a system of fairly decent tarred thoroughfares between the major towns and settlements, there are a large number of dirt roads serving the rural villages that are as bad and worse than the most remote dirt roads in northeastern Vermont. Don, our trip-leader, learned to drive on such roads in northern Maine, so he was well equipped to deal with driving on these back roads in Malawi. And he was driving a sedan that, to the best of my knowledge suffered no muffler or pipe damage.

Not only did Don know the tricks of negotiating such roads safely, he did so with what I will call a sense of taking care of the people in his group, a sense of compassion and stewardship. I have had enough close calls on rutted dirt roads in Vermont to know that it is not all that difficult to get in trouble on these roads. I have learned when to turn around and I have an all-wheel drive Subaru wagon with slightly higher than your typical sedan or wagon. Don drove on roads that I cannot imagine driving on.

I am very grateful that we had two vehicles, the car that Don drove with such love and care and Luzu in a large van. Both vehicles were rentals, by the way. If it was only our group, no luggage, and no additional passengers we all could of squeezed into the van. And even with the luggage, we could have squeezed into the van and been crowded.

My next entry will be about Luzu (in the picture on the left), so stay tuned.

Doing other things while processing Malawi trip

I am still here, but have found the need to hold off on writing about Malawi while I continue to process all that I experienced. So, for the last few days I have spent time catching up with chores around the house and in my home office, resuming my exercise program, as well as branching out to learn some computer programming languages.

I am getting ready to resume blogging about my Malawi trip. Look for something in a day or two.

More on Bwaila (aka Bottom) Hospital

Well before I left for Malawi, I knew from reading e-mailed journals of a physician who traveled in 2006 to Malawi with Don and Mary Thomas that there was a shortage of physicians in Malawi and that most Malawi hospitals had shortages of supplies that hospitals in developed countries take for granted, things like sutures, sterile gloves and the like.

Being well meaning, if somewhat naive, I set about to try to do something to help. It seemed to me that the easiest way that I might be able to help was to find a way to provide some medical supplies to Malawi hospitals and clinics. I was about ready to give up on this quest when I ran into the husband of someone from my parish who is working as a physician's assistant in a major medical center in the mid-atlantic region of America. He confirmed what I had I come to suspect, that it is far easier to obtain medical supplies for donation to hospitals and health clinics in need if you are on the inside. And he offered to help, saying he has done this before. I was thrilled.

When we visited Bottom Hospital, recently renamed Bwaila Hospital on our first full day in Malawi and met with Dr. Meguid, I was extremely moved by his impassioned description of massive human rights violations at his hospital because of staffing shortages and facilities shortages. I wanted to help, so I stuck my hand up, told him of my friend at a US hospital who was willing to try to help gather needed medical supplies to send to his hospital. I asked what was needed. His answer was simple and astounded me. He said that their biggest need was people (i.e. medical personal who can come and help).

It was his need for people that stuck in my head, in part because for various reasons, I am not a person who can provide the help that they so desperately need. And I am not just saying that because I have no medical training, there are other reasons that I am not going into here that prohibit me from offering to help Bottom hospital. It is hard to explain to those of you who have never been to Bottom Hospital why this simple statement of need had such a profound impact. Perhaps because it speaks to the depth of their need. In any case, this simple statement of need by Dr. Mequid coupled with my apparent inability to help him added to my despair.

I have come to realize that I do not the effect that writing about what about what I saw in Malawi might have. I can not help Dr. Mequid directly, but perhaps my words will stir the heart of those of you out their who might be in a position to help directly.

I was not sure at first why he did not speak to the need for medical supplies. I found out towards the end of my stay in Malawi that shipping things overseas is a very big deal, as even simple shipments can get tied up in customs requiring people time on both ends. And that doesn't even address the shipping costs involved, which can be prohibitive. I understand that there is at least one organization that helps ease the costs involved in shipping medical supplies overseas, but this may not address the issue of time required of the staff of the overseas hospital on the receiving end. I did not find out much about the "administrative staff" at Bottom hospital. I suspect that they are just as overwhelmed as the medical staff is. Perhaps receiving a relatively small amount of medical supplies from an overseas donor is not worth the staff time required to deal with customs? This is just a speculation.

As I was preparing to write this entry, I said to myself that I should go back to the handwritten journal that I kept while on my trip to be sure that I don't miss anything and that I get it right. I found two things listed in my notes about what Dr. Meguid said his hospitals biggest needs are. The first on the list is people, that is the one I remembered. The second thing I noted is a pool of money for decent salaries.

At this point, I don't have an idea of how to get money to Bottom Hospital if I were to know of a large pool of money for decent salaries. And I have spent time searching to no avail. However, I have found that people who are in a position to help another person is usually able to find a way to connect with the person and organization in need. So, I can trust the process so to speak.

Oh, and speaking of people who can help. I may have written about the young married couple, Adam and Rachel who were a part of the group of Malawi travelers. Adam and Rachel are planning to stay in Malawi through Sept. 20. Adam is a licensed practical nurse, I think. He wants to volunteer as does Rachel. They both want to help and spoke to Dr. Meguid about this about a week after I left. He is going to speak the Matron at Bottom hospital. I assume that the Matron is the person in charge.

And simple joys

Lest I get too melancoly, there were the simple joys that I witnessed:

The joy in Don and Mary's voice as they talked about the hope that ARVs have given to all those living with HIV in Malawi. When they first started to come to Malawi, they would visit those sick with HIV/AIDS. When they went back, these same people were dead. Now, they came back this year, and see that people are no longer dying.

The joy in the faces of the children as they mug for the camera and the delight in their faces as they see there picture in the digital camera.

The wonderful singing that we witnessed, as children in many places we visited sang and danced to greet and welcome us.

On that rainy Saturday in a very remote and very poor area of rural southern Malawi we visited an Anglican service. Not only was the singing beautiful, but there really was a sense of peace and joy. People who had nothing, literally nothing finding peace and joy in their God.

Uninmangeable poverty

When I went to Malawi I knew that it was one of the poorest countries in the World. I knew that I would witness a level of poverty that I had never witnessed first hand. I knew that there was no way that I could prepare myself for what I was to witness.

When I blogged from Malawi, I tried to capture some of what I witnessed through my words. Perhaps I succeeded to a certain extent. Yet, I find myself feeling like my words and pictures are inadequate to describe the poverty that we witnessed day after day and mile after mile. To a certain extent, you can only know if you witness this first hand. Yet, I will not stop writing about Malawi. Perhaps in time, as I continue to process what I have seen, I will find the words to relay the extent of this poverty to you.

And lest some of you think that I am despairing because I don't think that I or we can make a difference. Yes, there are things that we can do. We each have gifts that we have to offer, ways that we can help. Even a small ripple can make a difference. I, for example, have my words, my compassion, and the few dollars that I have donated to groups that are working in third and fourth world countries such as Malawi.

How was your trip?

How was your trip?

This seems like a very simple question. I've been going on vacations and the occasional trip out of town for business for a number of years now. Never have I not known how to answer this seemingly simple question. Until now.

The simple truth is that I do not know how to respond. How do I talk about the emotional exhaustion that I still feel and the depth of unending poverty that we saw and the resultant feeling of despair that I am left with? How do I explain that in the midst of the horrors of the poverty that we experienced good times traveling together as a group and did experience joy? How do I sum all this up in the one minute response that I usually give when asked this question. There is no simple answer that honors all that I have seen, the wonderful people that I traveled with, the people that we met, the poverty that we saw, and the very great needs of so many.

Ok, I am still processing all that I saw, and I am not ready to answer that question. I know that in time, I will have an answer to this question, one that I can speak.

I am very grateful for this web log and for all of you who have followed along with my as I wrote about journey to Malawi. And I intend to keep blogging about Malawi as I continue to process things over the days and weeks ahead.

Perhaps the best answer is the one that I have already used:

"I'm glad to be home."

Almost back to normal time and more pictures

I am almost back to normal time, which in my case is Eastern Daylight Time. That is, I went to bed at a normal time for me, around 11 PM and woke up a little after 7 AM. I have updated the rest of the entries from my time to Malawi to include photographs. So, those of you who have already read my blog may want to go back and look at the pictures for days 7 to 14.

Catching up and posted more photos

I have been home for 72 hours. The first night back, we went out for dinner, and I fell asleep on the couch in the living room watching a Yankees game. Silly me because they actually beat the Athletics by a score of 2 to 1. I went to bed only to wake up a little after 2 AM (or 8 AM Malawi time). I was afraid that I would be up for good, which would not have been a good sign. I dozed on and off until about 6:30 AM when I was up for good. Lounged around all day, taking a short nap in the middle of the afternoon while the Yankees were losing to the Athletics. Only to sack out on the couch about 8:30 PM. Sunday was a little better. Up around 5:30 AM and went for a walk in the afternoon. Exercise and sunlight is supposed to help with jet lag. Sat outside on our southwest facing deck after dinner to get more sunlight. Today as I write this, I am beginning to feel like I am starting to catch up with myself. We went for another walk this afternoon and I have made it to 5 PM without taking a nap. We shall see how long I last tonight. Last night I made it until 9:30 PM.

I have uploaded photos for days 7 through 10 so please feel free to go back and check out the photos.

Back home

One weary traveler. Just over thirty-six hours door to door. Twenty-two hours in three airplanes. Three hours driving to or from airports. About three hours sitting on the plane at the gate, on taxi-ways, or waiting in line to take off at Heathrow. Eight hours waiting in airports.

Day 14: KASO and youthcare ministies

Today is our last full day in Malawi. Don and Mary, Adam and Rachael and Stephanie are staying on in Malawi. The rest of us are leaving on the same South African Airways flight to Johannesburg tomorrow early afternoon, Malawi time. Or about 7:30 AM EST. If all the connections go smoothly, I land at JFK at 12:30 PM on June 29th. That is thirty hours folks. As much I am looking forward to going home, I find myself feeling a little sad about leaving. We have gotten close as a group and are already talking about a reunion next year.

Anyway, the morning started out with a second visit to KASO, the same organization that we visited early last week. I was very glad to go because I wanted to talk to the KASO director, Richard. The photos that I will be posting next week, tell the story. Having a chance to talk to and get to know one of the home-based care workers, Jennifer. A delightful women. Sitting in the mud playing with the three-year olds. Watching the older kids play footbal (soccer). Watching Rachael and Stephanie dance with the little ones.

After KASO, we stopped by for a short visit at a local Anglican seminary, College for Christian Ministries, with a beautiful chapel.

We had lunch at a fast food place called Nandos, and went to a youth program, called Youthcare Ministries. Youthcare Ministries has two programs, one is an after school program for primary and secondary students, and the other is a residence for about ten boys who formerly lived on the streets.

Don and Jean Richardson traveled north to Salima with the Minister of Health to visit a new health clinic and were then invited to a luncheon. Our plans call for all of us to have dinner at the Minister's house this evening.

I think that we will have more time for check-in for one last time tomorrow, at least some of us. Then one last van ride with dear Luzu, who is talking the six of us to the airport.

Photos from top: mother and child, KASO boy playing football (soccer),  after school kids from Youthcare singing for us

Starting last full day, home tomorrow

I am starting my last full day in Malawi. I start home tomorrow. Luzu is picking us up at 8:15 AM.

Day 13: Back to Wendels in Lilongwe

Well I woke up at 5 AM this morning because I was afraid that I would sleep through the alarm on my watch. Luzu picked us up at 7AM for the drive to Lilongwe via the Mau Mission and a pottery shop in a town called Dedza.

I was very glad for the travel day, time to chat with folk in the van or to veg out and stare out the window. Our goal was to get a cultural museum called the Mau Mission by 10 AM so we could get a tour in before lunch. The museum was excellent and we learned about the traditions about the three tribes in Malawi. It was good to do this at the end of our trip after we had traveled around the country seeing different villages and because of getting to know our driver, Luzu who is from the north. They tour was for a little over an hour and then we adjourned to the museum shop where we bought souvenirs.

We left around 11:30 and began the climb up the mountain where we had a picnic lunch on the mountain with a spectacular view. Some teenage boys stopped, trying to sell us some carved wooden toys they had made. We gave them most of our leftovers. Oh, the road. The beginning of the road was not paved, many of the roads in Malawi are not paved. Anyway, there was one really awful stretch with big ruts and broken down van with a cracked windshield. Our wonderful Luzu got around the broken down van with about six inches to spare from the rather significant ditch on our left. Shortly after this stretch, the road was nicely paved with a nice water diversion system in place. Our lunch spot was on the paved stretch.

The mountains and the rock formations in this area where beautiful. I managed to get some shots from the van as we were driving by. I'll post them when I get home.

We got to Dadza and bought more gas. For such a large an heavy van, the tank is small, about 40 liters, so fill ups are more frequent.

Our next stop was Luzu's compound outside Lilongwe. He raises chickens, 900. Five hundred layers, and four hundred broilers. The broilers (white) are about one month old and will be sold in four weeks. He keeps the layers for two years and then sells them. He also has some free range chickens, and two roosters. I got a photo of one very cocky rooster. It was wonderful to meet Luzu's wife, twelve year old daughter and nieces and nephews. In addition to his chicken business, both he and his wife work full time. They are the salt of the earth.

We got to Wendels a little after 5PM. Ate dinner about 7 PM.

Tomorrow Luzu is picking us up at 8:15. We have one stop in the morning. Back to KASO. Tomorrow is our last day. Thursday I fly home. Thirty hours in airplanes or in airports. My cousin says that I should think of myself as a package being delivered.

The photo below with the statue is taken in the one room at the museum at Mau Museum where photogarphy is allowed. The sculpture fascinated me and I wanted a picture of it, so I am sharing it with you. The others are taken on the road from Blantyre to Lilongwe, mostly on the mountain road to the highway to Dedza.

Day 12: In Blantyre and emotionally drained

I am still feeling emotionally drained. The hotel in Blantyre where some of us are staying is very nice, and I like the wireless hot spot, even if I have to get a wireless card and sit outside to use the Internet.

We had a wonderful discussion with another staff member of Church's Action for Relief and Development, Milton. Milton is a font of wonderful information about Malawi. After I get back to America, I will be able to use Milton's information in the blog entries that I will be making after I return, so stay tuned.

We went and visited a piggery, that is an income generating activity formerly sponsored by GAIA. It was depressing because one of the pigs was very sick. After that we went to see some home-based-care patients in a nearby village. Gertrude (35), her 13 year-old son Samson and her six-year old daughter, Stella. All are on ARVs. Gertrude was smiling and full of joy. She had an infant of unknown age on her back who, thanks to new drug treatments is HIV negative. Her husband, who was off in the fields is also HIV+ and is on ARVs. When they need more ARVs, they have to walk many kilometers to the nearest clinic.

After lunch in a food court in a shopping mall in Blantyre, some went to an infant orphanage. I went back to the hotel with a couple of the others. I needed some more down time by myself. Much needed. And a nap. I felt emotionally recharged at the end of the day.

Tomorrow we drive back to Lilongwe and to Wendel's and to free Internet access. The photographs are scenes from one of the villages we visited today.

Day 11: In Blantyre

Some of us are at a hotel, on the expensive side for Malawi, but it has a wi-fi hot spot and I purchased a card from the desk clerk. I was very homesick and this opportunity presented itself. I decided that it was worth the extra expense to be able to connect to the internet.

We had the morning off, and many slept in. We were not due to leave to go back to Blantyre until 10:30 AM. At the last minute, we ended up stopping at a Baptist Church that really was about 10 minutes away from the sugar plantation. We stayed for about 45 minutes. The singing and music was wonderful and we were warmly welcomed. We got to Blantyre about 2 PM.

Don and Mary and another couple, Tim and Jane went to an orphanage run by the Baptists, about one hour off the main road. Luzu talked to them just after we arrived, I don't know if they had gotten to the orphanage yet. Anyway, tonight we are having dinner with another baptist pastor in Blantyre. The young people and our food treasurer, Margo, went to the local grocery store to buy them food. Luzu is going to help by suggesting food that we can purchase for them.

By the way, I just adore Luzu. He is very special. And another saint.

Addendum

Don, Mary, Tim and Jane arrived in Blantyre around 5 PM. They were very moved by the orphan project that they visited. We had an absolutely wonderful time with Fletcher and Clara Kaiya. Fletcher is the Baptist Pastor I wrote about. I felt very refreshed by the warm welcome we received, I felt at home. The Kaiya's have about 16 children living with them under the age of 16, only one is their own child by birth, Mildred. Pastor Kaiya told us the Mildred considers the others her brothers and sisters. All or most of the other children are orphans. Two of their older children, both young men, are living with them as well. One Jonathan, is a bicycle racer who wants to race in the Tour de France. I have no doubt that he will make it. The children sang a couple of songs for us after dinner. They were delightful! The evening and the very warm welcome we received from the Kaiya family went a long way to alleviating my homesickness.




Top: the Kaiya children
Bottom: Fletcher and Carla Kaiya

Day 10: to Mindanti and then to Sugar Plantation

Today is the day that we are to visit Mindanti. So far, this is the first place that we will visit that is not supported by GAIA. We drove at least one hour south of Blantyre on a paved road before we met Emmanuel, who introduced himself as a warden with the Anglican Diocese in this district. I am pretty sure that Emmanuel is a lay person. He is our guide and interpreter. Another 5 to 10 minute drive takes us to the dirt road to Mindanti. The road gets more rutted as we drive further away from the paved road, crossing over many bridges. One of the bridges has wooden planking. It is dry season, so all the streams and the river that we pass over are dry. One of the bridges crossed a River that is now dry, we go down a hill as we approach the bridge and up a hill after we cross the bridge. Along the way, we pass many villages.

I have heard from my Malawian friends, and from my friend Tom Gebhard that the road is impassable during the rainy season. It is easy to see why. And today, the day when we go to what I consider to be the remotest villages to date, it is raining. So, it would seem that even in the dry season, there is the occasional day or two when it rains. Fortunately, it is a light rain, as rains go. We pass perhaps two small stores and a sign for a Ministry of Education project that is 3 km away. I have no idea what this project is. Perhaps it refers to a primary school in one of the many villages that we pass.

After about 45 minutes, we get to Mindanti. We see the uncompleted building that is to be the maternity clinic. An American Episcopal Church funded the construction of the clinic. Unfortunately, they ran out of funds before they could finish. It is a large building, as buildings in Malawi go. It lacks doors, windows, and a roof. After the clinic building is completed, the plan is to staff the clinic with a government–paid nurse. We do not see any sign of the well on this visit and Emmanuel thinks that the well has yet to be drilled. However, Emmanuel is careful to refer all questions to Father Patrick, the Anglican Priest who is working in this district.

I get a couple of pictures, but it is raining lightly, so I put my camera away. I stand under a tree to keep dry and watch Julie, Margo and perhaps one or two others dancing with the village children.

According to Emmanuel, World Vision constructed many of the buildings in the village, a Church and at least some of the residences. There is one building, not a World Vision building, that is to be a Church that is without a roof.

Emmanuel says that Father Patrick is waiting to meet with us, and will be able to answer our questions. He says that he is a short distance away. A short distance away turns out to be a 30 minute drive over many bridges, passing many villages and one more small store on rutted dirt roads.

When we arrive at the village where Father Patrick is, the villagers are singing a song of greeting. It is still raining and we go into the Church where they are just getting ready to celebrate the Eucharist. Father Patrick invites our leader, Don to introduce his group. We each stand up and introduce ourselves. He invites one of our group to give what he calls a testimony at the end of the service. Julie offers a very good and moving testimony.

The Church is a simple structure that appears to be made out of mud with benches made out of mud. This is truly a holy place. The singing is very joyful. Everyone in the group feels that the Church service made this long drive on a rutted road to this remote church worth the drive.

The rains seemed to pick up a notch while we are in the service. At the end of the service, Don speaks privately to Father Patrick. It seems best not to intrude, so we stand outside waiting for him. His visit is not long, and we start the long drive back to the main road.

I admit to having some anxiety because of the rain and the bad stories that I have heard about this road. Our van driver, Luzu confirms this.

On our way back, we drop off one guest from Mindanti back at the village. Emmanuel is riding with Don and Mary. I expect that Don, probably through Father Patrick, has confirmed that the wind–mill powered water project is currently under construction. We see the wind–mill that is being constructed, but I decline to get out and take a picture. It is raining, and I can not get a good picture without getting my camera wet.

We drive to our hotel at a Sugar Plantation. More on that in tomorrows blog. I am emotionally weary and very homesick. The homesickness eats away at me. I know that others our homesick as well, cropping up at times that I least expect it to. We have some down time this afternoon and tomorrow morning. A welcome respite by all.







From top: Mindanti, inside uncompleted maternity clinic in Mindanti, Anglican Church where we worshipped, note the "mud" pews and the thatched roof, sugar plantation.

Day 9: Zomba to Blantyre

After an early breakfast, we went for a walk in a botanical garden adjoining the hotel. The grounds were beautiful. As we entered the gardens, I noted that there were signs indicating the species of a couple of the trees. Unfortunately, time did not allow me to stop and learn the names of these strange and majestic trees. We quickly got to a beautiful stream surrounding by what appeared to be bamboo and other foliage that I did not recognize. We climbed up a short, somewhat rocky hill, to a bridge that crossed the stream. There, in the interest of knee health, I decided to pause while the others went up to a meadow. Jane was kind enough to sit with me while the others hiked up to the meadow. Silly me for not wearing my knee brace! The pictures do not do this justice. It was daytime, so we did not have to worry about the skitters!

Our first stop was the Lydia Foundation Skills Training Center, Tailoring Workshop. For a fee, women are trained to be tailors. This is another GAIA funded group, as all of the groups that we have visited so far are. There are three grades, each lasting three months, basic, intermediate, and advanced. When they are finished, they either get a job or work from home. When the graduate, they get a loan for 5,000 kwachas (local currency) that they can use to start a business. The idea here is that this is a women’s empowerment program.

Jane demonstrated, using a teddy bear, how the chintje cloth is used by Malawian women to carry a baby.

Rachael Fielder, the founder of the Lydia Project explained what she meant by women’s empowerment for Malawi women later in the morning over tea at her house. She said that the goal of the Lydia Project, the tailoring workshop is under its umbrella. She said the Lydia Project is about women’s empowerment. She was widowed and lost everything after her first husband died. She wants to help Malawi women like herself. The idea here is that through Lydia, women can find themselves, and not be “trapped in marriage.” In most cases, the women will stay married, but the important thing about Lydia is that they will be economically empowered. That is Rachael in the middle of the photograph with Julie on her left and Jean on her right.

The Lydia Project also works with income generating activities (IGAs) where some of the proceeds is used to help fund orphans in the women’s villages along with home–based care and secondary school fees. We visited a piggery in one village and a small roadside stand in a second village.

I will remember Rachael. She is an awesome woman, and I will write more about here after I return to America.

After leaving Rachael, we drove towards Blantyre where we stopped and visited Churches Action for Relief and Development (CARD), another GAIA funded group. The director is a very impressive and well spoken man, Jones Laviwa. He talked about CARD’s work in villages near Blantyre: work with orphans, home–based care for those living with HIV, HIV counseling, and the like. He told us of the very hard work he and his first coordinators did to earn the trust of the people in the first villagers they worked with. At that time, admitting to living with HIV by a Malawian, meant living like a second class citizen and being shunned. So, earning trust was a long road, something they accomplished through health care talks that including HIV issues. It wasn’t until the anti-retroviral drugs were introduced in Malawi in August of 2005, that this stigma began to lift.

We left CARD, and drove into Blantyre to our lodging for the night. As we drove into Blantrye, I was impressed by the sight of car dealerships, including a Subaru dealer (I have a Subaru, other auto dealerships, a Carlsburg Beer plant, and a divided highway. I am not sure, but it appeared to me to be Malawi’s largest city. I’ll have to check my facts on this and revisit that point after I get back to America.

Today was also the day that homesickness and the crazies hit. Not that I was acting out crazy. I was slightly crabby most of the day because I was homesick, missing my friends and loved ones. And depressed. Spending time writing, listening to some soothing classical music, and reading some meditations that I brought with me helped. As did sharing about this with some of the others from my group. It turns out that many of us were feeling the same thing.

We ended the day with dinner at a fabulous Indian Restaurant called The Bombay Palace. And yes, we had our requisite power problem, this time it appeared to be a problem with the electrical supply within the restaurant because only a portion of the restaurant was darkened and there were lights outside.

And our wonderful van driver, Luzu, helped get Don’s rental car out of a very tight parking spot.

Day 8: To Zomba

I don’t believe that I have mentioned the blackouts are not infrequent here in Malawi. Up to and including today, we have had five or six power failures. At Wendels and at Hippo View, they had a back–up generator, which quickly kicked in. I don’t recall if they had a back–up generator at Carolina’s, but the staff quickly supplied us with candles at our dinner table. This power failure lasted only a matter of perhaps twenty minutes. We had candles in our room at Carolina’s, but no matches. There were candles and matches in our rooms at the Hotel Masongala in Zomba where we are staying this evening. We did have a black–out during dinner this evening that may have delayed our dinner even longer than usual. We ordered dinner a little after 7 PM, I took my Malaria pill at 7:30 PM. I am supposed to take my Malaria pill at the same time every day with a meal. The power went off sometime shortly after I took my Malaria pill. Food did not arrive until several minutes after the power came back on at 9 PM. Just when I was ready to go back to my room and get a cereal bar.

Anyway, back to this morning. After breakfast, we went for a boat ride on the Shire River for a little over an hour. I saw some Hippos in the water. Or more accurately, I saw their heads. I was not close enough to get anything resembling a decent picture, so you will have to trust me. We saw some storks, and a species of eagle that the Malawians call a fish eagle. It resembles a bald eagle in America, and I do not know if it is the same bird with a different name. The boat driver steered the boat where we could watch it flying and soaring overhead before it landed in the grass. This was the closest that I have ever been to an eagle and it was beautiful.

There were lots of men in boats fishing. Luzu thinks that reason that we did not see any Elephants –– they did last year –– is because all the fisherman scared away the elephants.

I snapped a picture of a baobob tree.

After returning to the Lodge, we stopped at St. Lukes Hospital, which I think is affiliated with the Anglican Church. Jean Richardson, who specializes in HIV prevention at the USC Med School, gave a presentation to the hospital staff. It was very informative and she did an excellent job of questioning the staff to be sure the her presentation met their needs.

Perhaps the most important GAIA activities in Malawi are income generating activities or IGAs. The purpose of an IGA is to provide a financial means for the village to continue the work that GAIA funds started: working with orphans, home–based care, paying secondary school fees. Those participating in IGAs also get to keep some of the profits for themselves. Today we saw three IGAs: carpentry (that is Julie in the picture demonstrating one of the beds the boys built), a piggery, and dairy cows. The boys in the carpentry project were building wooden beds that they sell. They buy the tools themselves and have no access to electricity. They do a good job. Here the boys are also being trained in a skill that they can use later to either get jobs or to be able to make and sell furniture.

Zomba is a very nice town, with a couple of Colleges and Universities. So there is the feel of a college town. It used to be the capital city and there is a vague Victorian feel to the town. The Hotel Masongala was built in 1886. I’m sorry that I did not get a picture. The grounds are beautiful. And we are next door to a botanical garden. Tomorrow morning after breakfast we are going on a walk in the botanical gardens after breakfast and before we depart for Blantyre.