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.