Playful: The Women's Team of Kainga

On Saturday at Kainga, I taught the warning signs of dehydration and a formula for making a rehydration drink. After the  lesson the women excitedly talked about the Changu Changu Moto cookstoves. I learned that  while George and I were away learning how to make them, they were planning to collect the materials they would need to build them.  They told me they would mold the  26 bricks each and collect the sand, water, clay to make the stoves. They said that since it is rainy season, molding the bricks will have to wait. In the meanwhile, they will be gathering all the materials.These women really are amazing.

I told them that it is important to me that each woman have a quality of life, and I underscored the fact that my husband, George, shares this view. When I said that, they all cheered and clapped. On that note, we dismissed the class and the women filed out of the mosque cheerful and smiling.  George and Samuel were finishing up a little round of football (soccer) with the children nearby. My interpreter, Helen, overhead and told me some of the women were saying that they wish they could play football. 

George stopped the children's game and asked for everyone's attention. One of the boys tossed George the ball. Then, while all were listening, George told a story. He said, "Although football  is played around the world, it was not a big sport in the US  until about 20 years ago. Each year, the US enters a big competition called the Olympics. In the Olympics teams come together from many countries around the world to compete in sports. Then in a recent year, the US sent a men's team and a women's team to compete in football."

Here, George's voice slowed and softened, and he said, "The men's team lost," then smiling, he shouted, "but the women's team won!!"  With that, he tossed the ball in the group of women, and the game was on! Suddenly, they were  jumping and running to catch the ball. Their broad smiles and giggles told us they were really enjoying themselves. I loved watching the women playing and having fun.

Pin the Tail On the Donkey

I just read of a recent march on Washington protesting "dirty" oil and coal, and automotive fuel emissions and the like. I'm quite certain that most of the people there are totally clueless about the fact that about 100% of rural Malawians cook their meals on highly toxic open three stone fires, leading to lower respiratory disease being the greatest killer in the entire world, much more that either AIDS or malaria. This terribly inefficient method of cooking consumes large volumes of wood from a rapidly depleting forest. The mountains we see as we drive north along the highway from our home in Zomba are stripped bare about two thirds of the way up.

In the cities about 80% of the people cook on charcoal fires. Although charcoal burns more efficiently than does wood, it takes four pounds of wood to make one pound of charcoal. On any given day we are able to observe the billowing smoke from several charcoal producing fires high up on the mountains above us. These are much smokier than wood fires, and greatly endanger the health of the producers who make about 50 cents a day for their grueling work.

There's a certain naivete in trying to fix a situation that runs with over 95% efficiency, when there are many places on this planet which are still over 95% broken, such as most rural areas in sub-Saharan Africa, and parts of Asia and Latin America. If these presumably well meaning folks wish to help solve the REAL energy crisis they need only look as far as this sorely broken continent we have come to love and call our home.

Several projects we are engaged in or developing, such as very fuel efficient brick ovens, solar cookers, solar lighting, and bio-fuel briquette making, as well as sanitation workshops for women and well repairs,work toward that end.  Whether you are the kind of person who would be part of such a protest or one of its detractors makes little difference to our impoverished neighbors here in Malawi. What would make a great difference is your considering contributing to either our work or another small boots-on-the-ground group working toward making a better life for the terribly overburdened women whose every waking hour is about survival for themselves and their children, as they spend their days fetching water, cutting and gathering wood, cooking, or walking their sick children many miles to an understaffed and under-stocked rural clinic.

If you choose to partner with us in this work, you can either give securely on line at www.surefoundationministry.com or mail a check to Sure Foundation Ministry PO Box 30332 Winston-Salem, NC, 27130-30332. We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and all gifts are fully tax deductible, and any size donation is greatly appreciated.

What You Don't Know

Contrary to the idiom, we all know that what you don't know can hurt you. In fact, what you don't know can kill you. This is especially  true in regions of the world where gaining information critical to one's  health is often difficult to impossible for people living in rural areas.

Although our experience in the village of Kainga has made it clear that the women are eager to learn, when they are given an opportunity to share their understanding, we see huge gaps mixed with some misinformation.

Today at Kainga I shared the warning signs of dehydration in children and how to rehydrate a sick child. The women already knew about the packets of oral rehydration solution (ORS) because these are available at the clinics. I warned them that there is no time to waste when a child has had diarrhea and is dehydrated because a lack of fluids can kill a child within hours. At that point, the women told me that they had heard that giving a dehydrated person a mixture of water, salt, and sugar can cure diarrhea. When I asked them what proportions, they said a  heaping tablespoon of salt and a little sugar mixed in a glass of water. Actually, the formula they gave me is dangerous and can make the problem worse.

So, today, the women learned  to mix a liter of clean water with six level teaspoons of sugar and a level half teaspoon of salt. They really enjoy working together with hands-on materials  and having the opportunity to share what they have learned. Each group was given a picture of a child to label where symptoms of dehydration can be visible, then in small groups  they discussed all the symptoms of dehydration. Another very important part of the lesson was learning when to seek medical help.

At the conclusion of the lesson, I asked if there were any other medical concerns, and one young mother asked me what could cause her daughter's eyes to be jaundiced.  That was a very serious question that deserved a quality answer. I asked if she had other symptoms. Does she have appetite? Is she taking fluids? Does she seem ill in any other way?  She told me there are no other symptoms. Immediately, liver damage, hepatitis, and yellow fever came to mind. Any of these can cause serious illness or death. I advised her to take her child to the clinic immediately. I was surprised to learn that she already had taken her there and returned without a diagnosis or treatment. When I asked her to describe what happened at the clinic, the mother said she was told to give her daughter a mixture of  brown sugar and water, then was sent home. I  promised her that I would learn all I can that could help her daughter and that I will share with her what I learn. 

So, why did this mother not get the answers she deserves?  Malawi has a population of about 15 million people, but there are only 360 medical doctors in the whole country. To put this in perspective, one hospital in Winston Salem, a midsized city in the US, Wake Forest University Bowman Gray School of Medicine has more doctors than all of Malawi. Malawi has the highest  patient to doctor ratio in the world,  88,000 patients per doctor.  That means that on any given day, when a woman takes her sick child to a clinic, she will not  see a doctor.  Clinics are usually staffed by clinicians and  midwives.

All of this underscores the need for life-saving information in the rural areas, information that will help the women  make informed decisions about the health of their families.

Creative Pricing

S: I've got a different place for you to stay this time. It's 7,000 kwacha a night.

 Me: OK

 We arrive.

 Mgr: The one for 7,000 is way in the back, and I have a nicer one for 8,500 right near the front.

 We look, and I agree on both counts. We sign in.

 Mgr: That will be 10,500.

 Me: You said 8,500.

 Mgr: That's for one person; there are two of you.

 Me: (thinking) There have been two of us standing here the entire time; is my wife invisible?

 Me: You can't change prices after a deal is struck.

 Mgr: It gives the rates right here (as he pulls out a sheet with about thirty different price structures.)

 Me to S:  We'll just go back to the Golden Peacock. They never did this kind of thing to us.

After much negotiation in Chichewa, which neither of us understand, a new price of 9,500 is agreed upon by all. We head down the hallway, and right past the nice room we had first seen to one the size of a broom closet.

 Me: You switched rooms on us. We want the first one for 9,500. That's what we thought we were agreeing to.

 Mgr: No; we were able to reduce the rate by giving you this room instead.

 Me to Phyllis: Lets put our bags back in the car; we're going to the Golden Peacock.

 S: I checked again this morning; they have no available rooms.

 Me: We'll find another place somewhere in Lilongwe, I'm sure. Let's pack up the bags.

 Mgr: I'll ask the owner.

 Mgr: (a couple minutes later) OK, 9,500 for the original room.

 Me: OK

 PHEW!!!!!

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The Roundabout

On Thursday morning George fueled up the SUV and I packed a case of water, a picnic basket with plenty of snacks and fruit, and enough food for at least two meals. We wouldn't arrive in Lilongwe until late afternoon. There is food to be purchased in little communities along the way. You can find grilled ears of corn, fish,  or chicken, but it's not easy to find a sit down restaurant. They are few and far between, so we had to plan accordingly.   There are maybe four towns along the way big enough to have a diesel  station.  At one of these we topped our tank and traveled on.  Around 4:00 pm, we called Pastor Banda to let him know that we had arrived in Lilongwe. We would stay a couple of days in Lilongwe and travel with him each day to teach at a pastor’s conference in a rural area some 45 km from the capitol, heading west toward Mozambique. George would teach the men and I would teach the women.

 The Pastor had already reserved a room for us at a little bed and breakfast called the Longonot Guest House, and we were already looking forward to dinner, a hot shower, and some rest.  We called Pastor Banda, and over the phone he gave us directions, “After you cross the Lilongwe River as you enter the city, start looking for the roundabout. When you reach the first roundabout, just go straight and  in just a short distance, you will be at the Game Store. Call me when you get there, and I will come and meet you and take you to your room.” I was wondering, “And how does one go straight on a roundabout?” But, what do I know. I have only driven once in Malawi, and on the short trip from downtown Zomba to our house, I had George in the passenger seat gripping the door handle and shouting, “Too close to the left! Watch that bicycle!”  

The builders of Lilongwe were fond of roundabouts, so they are everywhere, in almost all the major intersections downtown.  There are a few traffic lights, but none of them were functioning. We entered the busy roundabout the Pastor mentioned, everyone whirling left with seemingly neither rhyme nor reason about right of way. Well, it wasn’t that we didn’t try to follow directions, but when we popped out the other side of the roundabout, somehow we ended up in the suburbs on Kamuzu Procession Road leading to Capitol Hill and a little further on we were on Presidential Way. Magnificent, multistory homes lined the broad streets, each manicured estate surrounded by tall walls, guarded and gated. Any of these beautiful homes would fit comfortably in the finest neighborhoods in any world class city.  This was certainly a different view of Malawi than we had seen before.  

After we zipped by the grand new Parliament Building and the Presidential Palace, we decided we couldn’t possibly be anywhere near the Game Store and found a place to turn around. We drove back to the roundabout the Pastor mentioned to give it another whirl, so to speak.  This time, the roundabout shot us out in another direction. In a short time, we were in a pastoral setting, where along the roadside vendors catering to bicycle and pedestrian traffic had avocados, mangoes, tomatoes, and baskets of peanuts for sale, spread on burlap.  A little further on, we saw women and girls balancing water buckets on their heads walking along the roadside and young goat herders prodding their charges to graze in the ditches. I couldn’t imagine a Game Store here.  

At this point, we were looking for a public building that Pastor Banda would recognize when we came upon the Water Board Building. We pulled into the parking lot and called him again, this time to come and retrieve us.  The pastor got a little laugh out of us for getting lost, but fifteen minutes later we were at the bed and breakfast a few blocks from Game Store.

The Albino

This morning, we drove into Zomba  to get a few  groceries at Shoprite and to give Imran directions for making our kitchen curtains.  At the only traffic light in town was  a young boy, maybe 12 years old, with fair, sunburned skin, a heap of tight blond curls, and squinting eyes.  I focused on him initially because he  is  an albino. Although albinos are rare, I have seen a few in the months we have been living here. 

For the fourth week in a row, Shoprite didn't have any cheese, but they did have cookies and chocolate! We picked up a few packs of cookies and a chocolate bar and drove around the block to Imran's shop. We left Imran with directions for the curtains and promised to be by later in the afternoon to pick them up. 

We pulled up to the traffic light  and saw the young albino, this time standing on the small concrete lane divider in the middle of the road, glancing first one direction, and then another. His anxious face was tightly drawn and his eyes narrowed. Why was he there? Was he waiting for someone? 

We had a busy day planned with several items on our to-do list. George took me home to get some work done then drove back into town to pick up Daniel who would direct  him to a mechanic who could service our truck. As it turned out, the mechanic lives a distance out of Zomba on an almost unnavigable dirt road.  (By the way  he doesn't own a vehicle.) A few needed supplies had to be purchased  back  in Zomba, so George and Daniel drove him into town to purchase these in the market. Eventually, the truck had new diesel and air filters and an oil change. George was pleased.

Back at the house, George and I sat down to do some writing while Daniel painted our  water stained ceilings. Two hours later, it was time to drop Daniel off in town. George picked up the curtains from Imran and was leaving Zomba when he saw the young albino still in the middle of the road.  When George returned home and  told me about seeing the boy again in town, we realized that what we had seen was troubling both of us. We sat at the dining table and prayed for him, that God would protect him and show the boy His love. As soon as we prayed, we both knew what we had to do. We are usually home well before dark, but tonight we would go looking for the boy and, if we could find him, give him some food. Beyond praying for him, that was all we knew to do. 

When we arrived in town the nearby mosque was sounding the call to prayer. The dark streets were nearly vacant, but there were some homeless people huddled in doorways. Then we saw the young boy  sitting on the median in the same intersection, his face occasionally lit by a passing car.  

We  drove a little farther then made a u-turn to pull up near him. George asked if he was ok. He said he was ok. We asked his name, but neither of us caught it. (It was a Chichewa name with about five syllables and he was speaking very softly.) George asked if he was hungry and handed him the bag of food, but as soon as it left George's hand, the boy was opening it. We told him God loves him and  that we would pray for him.  Just as we were pulling away, the boy said, "Tomorrow."

Is this child a runaway, throwaway, or abandoned? Do we have a role to play?May God give us wisdom. 

Children of Kainga

As we drive in to Kainga from week to week, the children are always happy and come running to greet us. George and his interpreter, Samuel, have been teaching the children Old Testament "hero stories" and playing games with them while their mothers are being taught the importance of good hygiene and sanitation for improving the health of their families.

Flood Waters of February

 I read that the rainy season of Malawi is produced by water drawn from the Indian Ocean. As the rain poured and poured over the past several weeks,  I  imagined  at the end of the rainy season in April, the Indian Ocean will be no more than a puddle! 

For the past several years, Malawi was experiencing drought that stunted crops and led to widespread hunger in the villages. All of this is of great concern to farmers, and 80% of the population are farmers whose income is dependent on a successful harvest. Last February's rains were only infrequent showers, but this season Malawi is experiencing the heaviest rains in many years which should produce amazing rice and maize crops.

However, there have been torrential rains for the past several days with downpours  so hard, in fact, that I would have never believed that such sustained rains were possible. How could  it rain that hard for that many hours? The ground here is now super saturated, and when we returned home last night to a flooded yard, we had to take off our shoes and wade from our driveway to our porch.  We began to settle in to an evening of reading when in the midst of a tremendous thunderstorm with heavy rain drumming our metal roof, CRACK! The power went off.  It would be almost 24 hours before it would be restored. 

Because the power was still out this morning, we prepared peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast and prepared for church. As we drove down the mountain road, at several points along the way, where streams and rivers usually pass under that road, the water was beginning to bubble and trickle over the pavement.  I had seen the white water rushing, but I had never seen this.

Once we reached the city, we realized that we were blessed that there was no damage to our house or property. We learned that a bridge along the way to  a  large urban community and market outside of Zomba had been completely washed away during the overnight rains. There were also poorly constructed and unwisely placed  homes near the river that were washed into the surging waters.  I do not know of any loss of life.

This  afternoon as we traveled back up to our home, those mountain rivers along the way were completely overflowing their banks and pooling  several cm deep in some low places in the road  and washing in broad streams over the pavement where it rippled down the mountain road,  quickly seeking lower elevation in ditches and over embankments.  From my window I hear the splatter of rain on my lawn and above that, I hear the river roar, as the waters rush once again toward the ocean. 

The Highway Maintenance Crew

It’s the rainy season here in Malawi, and we’re getting much heavier downpours than in the past few years. The potholes on the paved roads are getting larger by the day.  As I drive along, feeling as though I’m the main character in some arcade game, I’ll find myself constantly veering left, then right, then left again in an effort to avoid as many as possible, mainly for the sake of the car’s tires and suspension system.  On top of that, we often encounter oncoming vehicles the drivers of which insist on playing chicken by riding down the middle of the narrow two lane road until the very last second.

There are several mammoth potholes between Zomba where we live and Blantyre, about 65 kilometers south that are more notable than the average one. Two in particular are too wide to straddle, and much too deep to simply drive right over, so I was particularly grateful to observe two young men several days ago busily crushing brick, and backfilling one of these canyons. Also out of the corner of my eye I also saw another young man standing in the middle of the road as I approached the worksite with a large brimmed hat turned up and out as though begging. What an odd place for such activity, I thought to myself.

It wasn’t until after we had completely passed through the work area that my friend Daniel, who had been sitting quietly in the back seat explained to Phyllis and me that these men had taken it upon themselves to make a road repair which the government workers wouldn’t be by for until after the rainy season ends sometime in April or May. The man with the hat was there receiving donations from appreciative drivers whose cars and trucks daily risk being damaged by such gaping holes on the roadways.

There’s a somewhat invisible side to this story, in that the average rural Malawian earns less than fifty cents a day and the unemployment rate hovers somewhere around 40%.  Very possibly, as a result of their industriousness, a family will have a third, or perhaps only a second meal that day.  I’ve spoken with people who during really difficult times have had only one meal every other day. These are the types of struggles faced by many Malawians. Yet most seem to always press on cheerfully.

On our return trip from Blantyre that same afternoon, I had been hoping to make good on my ignorance, and see these men, and give them a nice big tip, but all I got to see was a near perfect repair made of brick pieces and fine brick powder compacted tightly into what had been this alignment wrecker up until a few hours earlier. I felt badly, but got to redeem myself a couple days later on our way out to a sanitation workshop, and some children’s ministry in the village of Pahuwa.

It had rained very heavily the night before, and the red clay Lake Chilwa Road had many more deep rain filled holes than usual. There is a constant flow of cars, trucks, and bicycles hauling fish from the lake, and 50 kilogram sacks of rice from the always busy rice mills. As we came upon a strip that was primarily layers of loose mud, and truck tire ruts, there were several men hard at work overlaying the area with dried dirt and small tree branches so as to prevent drivers from getting stuck. As a young man with a broad smile extended a large winnowing basket toward my open window, I knew exactly what to do, and why. My highway taxes hard at work!

Teaching the Sanitation Ladder at Pahuwa

This morning in Pahuwa we taught the women the Sanitation Ladder. Each group of women were given a stack of 16 pictures which they were to sort from worst to best. The drawings showed everything from no toilet facilities to well designed and well maintained facilities. The women were asked to explain what they saw in the pictures and what was good or bad about it. Then I asked them to justify their answers. "Why is this one better than that one?"

I had just spent some time discussing with them how germs spread and how to block them by practicing good sanitation. I had impressed on them the importance of improving health in the village by always using a latrine rather than fields so that they stop the spread of germs. I learned that many of the women have no toilet facilities at all, and it seems cleaner to use fields rather than the latrines in the village that are not maintained. The women also explained to me that typically the women in the village do not have access latrines during their monthly cycle. In fact, they are forbidden to use it at that time and must resort to using fields. I told them that even if it is not a priority to their husbands, the women can work together to improve sanitation for the health of the whole community.

Family Planning in Kainga

We are traveling to Kainga about every two weeks to work with the women and children. On our first visit after their well was repaired, one of the women said, "We are a muslim village, and this is the way we greet one another." Then she lowered her hand over her face, symbolically pulling down a veil.

Today, the women of Kainga filtered in as they completed chores, starting around 9:30 am. By 9:50 twenty four women were seated on the burlap bags on the floor of the mosque, some with nursing newborns and others with toddlers napping on their backs.

At our last visit two weeks ago, the women requested that I teach about family planning. I do not consider myself an expert on the subject, but I knew how important the topic is to the women. Many of them are in their 20s and already have large families.

And it was only last week, one of the young women died in child birth. In describing what happened to her, I was told that at the clinic she was bleeding, but the bleeding did not stop. She became unconscious, then the clinic sent her to the hospital, where she died from a loss of blood. Usually, there is no doctor at the clinics in this area, only a medical technician and sometimes a midwife.Knowing what service to ask for,  how to advocate for themselves for good medical care is important, and what alternatives they have for family planning is very important. That is what today's class was to be about.

So, I studied and prepared visual lessons of different types of family planning. We discussed each one's effectiveness in preventing pregnancy and protection from STIs, like HIV/AIDS. They also evaluated each one on the cooperation it takes from their husbands. I would have thought the women would have been shy, but they were very open in their comments and asked interesting questions.

They are really a delight to teach because they are so eager to learn. I asked, "Can you tell me reasons a woman might be interested in family planning?" One of the women answered, "Because her womb could wear out before she is old."  By the way, the life expectancy in Malawi is 48 years old.

 

 

While Helen and I were instructing the women, George and Samuel, a young Mennonite man, were working with the children. Samuel and the children kicked around a homemade soccer ball. Then when they were all ready to rest a bit, they sat down on the mosque steps, and George told them the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abedengo. George said they really enjoyed the story, so every time we visit in the villages while Helen and I are teaching the women, George and his interpreter, Samuel, will tell the children "hero stories." 

This was definitely a women only class, but as we were packing our visuals at the conclusion of our class, George asked permission to come in and say a few words to the women. He quoted Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the plans that I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to do you good and not evil all the days of your life, to give you a future and  a hope."  I told the women that in the past when I have gone through very difficult times, God, the one who made heaven and earth is the one who gave me hope.

 

 

Before we left, we scheduled our next lesson on February 28th.

God has given us favor and trust in Kainga. Pray for the families there.