Beautiful Gifts

Each Saturday as  we travel back to Zomba from Kainga and Pahuwa, we discuss the lesson with  Hellen, our interpreter. We want to hear her perspectives on how the day went and to clarify any communication. There have been times when these discussions have helped us learn some details George and I missed.  Hellen's comments and suggestions are always helpful and encouraging. 

In the midst of our discussion last Saturday I turned to the back seat to tell Hellen and Samuel  that the following day, March 24, was George's birthday. "I will be 39," George announced. They both laughed and congratulated him. 

Sunday afternoon we pulled into the Shoprite parking lot in  Zomba where Hellen came up behind the car and queitly slid into the back seat.   I have had interpreters who did fair work, and I have had some that I had to help as they limped along.  Hellen, however, understands the small nuances of the English language so well that  it is never a struggle for either of us.  My heart suddenly filled with gratitude.   I wouldn't even have  an opportunity to minister to the women on the mountain  without her help.  

I turned to  greet her and saw that she was smiling. She was extending a small cake she had made from rice flour and bananas. Although this cake would never have won a baking competition,  it was nonetheless a beautiful gift.  I know that Hellen doesn't have a kitchen,  and her cooking is done with three rocks and a pot over an open fire in her back yard.

Some of you may know that our house is in a large compound, and our groundskeeper, Harry, lives with his wife and five children in a little two room house just inside the compound walls and  across the driveway from us.  He tends the beautiful terraced gardens and keeps our gate. Since we moved to Malawi in November 2012, I have been so blessed by knowing Harry.

Although we have never asked him to, Harry washes our car each morning, and if we leave the door unlocked, he will wipe down the interior and clean the mats. While cleaning our car, there have several occasions when Harry has found money we dropped on the floorboard.  He could have been tempted to keep money we didn't even know we lost, but he always leaves it on the dashboard. I respect Harry's honesty. 

When George casually walked over to Harry's house a few days ago, he was sitting on his front porch reading a tattered Chichewa Bible that had been read and reread  until the volume was expanded to twice its original size.  What a beautiful unpretentious faith. 

Another gift came this morning about 8:00 am with a knock at our back door. There stood Harry extending a tray of fresh picked maize from his own field.   Maize we could easily buy at the market, but it was more than that. It was a gift of friendship, which is priceless. 

Powerlessness and Deep Poverty

This morning I witnessed a scene that almost made my blood boil. As I was leaving our house on a quick errand, I saw a man sitting on a wall outside our property. I waved and went about my business. As I approached home upon my return I saw two women and three children all balancing large, heavy bundles of wood on their heads.

 As the man stood up, hands empty, he began walking behind them. I then saw what he was waiting for; it was the last of the women coming down the steep, narrow trail with her equally heavy load, carefully avoiding the jagged rocks with her calloused feet. He was quite obviously not the least bit interested in assisting any of them bear their cumbersome loads. I have heard of the brokers who are the middle men for these firewood mining operations, and how they receive the much more generous portion of the spoils, while the women make barely enough to purchase a few morsels for their families' dinner that night.

Tomorrow morning the long trek up the steep mountain will begin again before sunrise for these women and children. They're trapped in this seemingly endless cycle of toil  and deep poverty. The women will grow old, and the labor will become more and more difficult. The children will never receive the education that would afford them the opportunity not only to pull themselves out of such deeply entrenched poverty, but most likely they will have any dreams of a real future dashed out before they’re ever kindled in their hearts and minds.

One needs to spend a bit of time here in Malawi to see what is perhaps a little less apparent, but an equally, if not more cruel reality, and that is the devaluing of both women and girls rampant throughout much of this culture. Women become like beasts of burden, daily fetching forty pound buckets of water and hauling it for up to several kilometers, gathering fire wood hours a day with which to cook by, tending to chronically sick children, and a host of other tasks.  Girls more often than not, never finish even primary school, begin toiling right alongside their mothers at a very early age, and are often married off at thirteen or fourteen years of age for the sake of the parents receiving a very small dowry, as well as having one less hungry mouth to feed. Thus the cycle begins itself anew.

Whether it's the restoring of wells, our energy efficient brick oven projects, solar cookers, or Phyllis' hygiene, sanitation and nutrition workshops, our work here is focused on presenting opportunities they would otherwise never know. The wells we’ve been able to repair since our first one in 2010 have already collectively saved the women of the many villages we’ve worked in over 4,000,000 hours of intense water gathering labors. The sanitation and hygiene workshops, although difficult to put a real number to have been saving countless hours for mothers walking to and from, and sitting for hours at local clinics. As our brick oven and solar projects take root in many communities we are certain additional countless hours of back breaking labor will be saved by these beautiful women and girls.

As difficult as all this is to implement, I believe that this is the easier part. Minds and hearts are often much harder to change. When women are made to cook, and serve the men at the dinner table, and they themselves are made to eat separately on the kitchen floor, and when women are often made to enter a room on their hands and knees and bow to their husbands there are deep cultural shifts that need to occur before any real and lasting relief can come in order for the women to realize meaningful reform, and lightened burdens. Our earnest prayer is that the Lord will use us for His glory in order to elevate and set free the women and children of rural Malawi.

Seasons Change

 Back in NC, George and I  enjoyed strolls on the beach and lighthouse climbing, walks in the park on crisp fall mornings. We loved snow gazing through streetlamps on snowy winter nights, and glorious springtime bursting with life.  We enjoyed the changing of seasons.

Before we moved  to Malawi in November 2012 we spent many months researching the relationship between women, wood, and water, disease and poverty, but we never gave much thought to the weather here. We knew that Malawi is on a parallel in the southern hemisphere that Jamaica is in the northern hemisphere, and I thought that meant a year long tropical climate with no real seasonal changes. But since moving here to live on Zomba Mountain  we have learned that Malawi does have seasons, much more subtle than NC, but nonetheless distinct.


When we first arrived, farmers  (and 80% of Malawians are farmers) were preparing their fields and waiting for the first rains of the season to plant their crops. In the rainy season, each morning a mist rises from the slopes of the Zomba range, gathering, building, and lifting to form thick clouds that completely cover the tops of the mountains. Without much warning, shadowy gray clouds cover the sky then burst into torrential downpours. This season is.marked by hot weather, heavy rains, and sometimes flooding.  Many times, our  backyard was covered by water several cm deep, and on one occasion, we had to take off our shoes and wade  from our car to our house.


Over the past few weeks, we have noticed a change in weather patterns. The tropical downpours of the rainy season are over and it is the beginning of harvest time. Farmers  are now harvesting their maize, peanuts, and pumpkins. Thick clouds no longer hang over the mountain peaks, but above the peaks there is a crystal clear, brilliant blue sky. There are rains, but they are infrequent, gentle, and short lived.   Unlike in the rainy season, every ridge and crag of the mountain peak above us are visible, and every spring pouring from the side of the mountain sparkles in the sunlight. A few days ago, we saw for the first time two little houses nestled in a fold in the mountain side.

Burr! Mornings are chilly, so we slide on our slippers before putting our feet down on the cold concrete floor. We quickly dress then I pull on a jacket. This is the crisp clear air of fall. Each evening  about sunset a cool breeze pours down the mountain ridges above us and  gently lifts our kitchen curtains and surges through our house. Then, overnight temperatures drop, so we pull that warm blanket and comforter around our chins.  We haven't used it yet, but maybe it is time to light up that large fireplace in the livingroom, the only heatsource in this old house.

What is a Respiratory System?

I want to tell you about our Sunday afternoon class with the women here on the mountain. This past Sunday was our largest class yet with 28 women attending. Most of them bring their infants or toddlers with them, but that is never a problem. Usually the babies are sleeping or nursing, and the toddlers are playing quietly at their mothers' feet.

 

 

Every chair in our house was filled, and many women sat on the floor. In rural Malawi women usually sit on the ground, and when they want to honor us, they bring out two chairs for George and me. There are no stores that sell plastic chairs in Zomba, but I hope to find a source for them soon.  In our house, I want every woman to feel honored.

 

 

Our lesson was about respiratory disease because lower respiratory disease kills more people than HIV/AIDS or malaria, and about half of them are children. I always begin the lesson by assessing what the women already know, so I asked, "If you could see inside your body, what are the organs, the parts of your respiratory system, that enable you to breathe?" I was amazed at their answers. One said liver. Another said heart.  How would these women know how their bodies work when they have had little opportunity to receive an education?  Also, the patient to doctor ratio is 88,000 patients per doctor, making adequate health care impossible. So, I started with very basic information about why and how one breathes.


Then I taught them about the communicable diseases that affect the respiratory system. When I mentioned laryngitis and bronchitis, they told me they never heard of them, but when I described  them, most of them said they have had those symptoms. I covered an array of diseases, from the common cold to pneumonia and tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is common here, and most of these women have had pneumonia. Next, I taught about how germs are spread through contact and through the air and how personal hygiene  helps keep these diseases from spreading.

 

Then I asked the women to show me what they learned about the spread of germs. I grouped them in  5s and gave them two options to show what they learned. They could draw a series of pictures or do a skit to perform for the rest of the groups. Malawians love drama! All but one group decided to do drama.  The women were very funny and really enjoyed that activity.

 

 

 

 

 

In their next activity outside, each group was given a cup of soap bubbles and a homemade bubble wand. They were to blow the bubbles into their groups to illustrate how easy it is to spread germs by breathing, coughing, or sneezing on someone near them, and how the germs just hang in the air and are spread by the wind. The women enjoyed it, and their toddlers loved it! They were running through the bubbles  and laughing.

When we gathered again inside, and I told them again that Jesus loves them and died for them. I reminded them that Sunday is Resurrection Day, a day to thank Him for all He has done for them. Then I prayed for the women to experience the love of God for themselves and to realize how much He loves them.

 

 

I pray that the knowledge these women are gaining week by week will  be applied to keep their families healthy and to save lives. I also pray that the love of God I share each week will soak in and the women will surrender to Him. That will save them for eternity.

Vulnerable Children

In the US, much thought, effort, and money goes into nurturing, protecting, and caring for children. In affluent families, children have the latest in toys, shoes and clothing, and as they get older, the latest electronic gadgets. They are well clothed, fed, and entertained. When they speak, children are listened to, and it is common for parents to earnestly converse with their children and to treat them as equal participants in adult conversations.

Because parents fear the abduction of their children, they are closely guarded in all public places, and a parent who leaves a child unattended at home or in a parked vehicle risks arrest for child endangerment or neglect.  As prescribed by law, young children cannot wait at a school bus stop without parental supervision.

In rural areas of Malawi, the demands of life are sobering, and activities focused on survival, such as collecting firewood and water, working in their fields, and collecting and preparing food require many hours of labor each day.

Young girls are considered part of the labor force of the home, and as soon as they are able to bear the load, they are given responsibility for helping to collect water and wood and for caring for younger siblings. It is common to see girls as young as 6 carrying infants or toddlers on their backs to free their mothers for other tasks. When they are not playing with other children, I have seen children quietly congregate at a distance around the periphery of adult conversations, listening and observing. They are seen and not heard.  

Women have the major responsibility for raising children and making sure they are clothed and fed, but among the poorest, there doesn’t seem to be much left for nurturing their children with the exception of infants. When strapped to their mother’s backs, infants are usually content, and almost without exception their need to nurse is promptly attended to. Men are certainly not seen as nurturers, and it is exceptional to see a man carrying or holding a child. 

Children in the US are constantly under the watchful care of a responsible adult, but that is not the case in rural Malawi.   As we drive into villages we frequently see young children, 2, 3 or 4 years old, playing in fields or along roadsides some distance from home with no adults in sight.

Here it is completely acceptable to give a young child five or six years old responsibility for walking some distance from home along a busy road to a community store to buy perhaps a little bag of oil or a bit of sugar for her family, and it is common for primary age children to walk many km along busy highways traveling to and from school.   Could this kind of parenting foster  a quiet resolve, independence, and resourcefulness in children that may be necessary for their survival as adults, or does it make children vulnerable?

I have shown you a glimpse of a child’s position in the home and parent –child relationships.  Now I would like to show you a child’s position in the broader culture.

Families typically have 5-7 children. The reasons are disease, death, and poverty.  If that doesn’t make sense, I will do my best to explain. The average lifespan in Malawi is only 47 years old, largely because infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, diarrhea disease, tuberculosis, and malaria take many lives. The majority of deaths from malaria and diarrhea disease are children under age 5.  

A contributor to susceptibility to HIV/AIDS and malaria and other diseases is malnutrition.  Individuals with HIV/Aids are more susceptible to malaria, and those with malaria are more susceptible to HIV/AIDS. And people who have poor nutrition are more susceptible to both. Lower respiratory disease takes more lives than HIV/AIDS and malaria combined, and half of those deaths are children under age 5.  Also, because of inadequate medical care and unsanitary practices at birth, many children die soon after birth from cord infection. 

Parents know that some of their children will die before they are grown, so having a large family is somewhat like having a retirement plan.  It assures parents that they will be cared for when they can no longer care for themselves.

 It is a vicious and downward cycle: the poverty and disease dictates having a large family, and having a large family perpetuates the poverty.  The poverty predisposes one to succumbing to disease and rampant disease robs families of resources and contributes to deeper poverty.

There are two main cultural groups here in Malawi, the Chewa and the Yao, and about half of the population of central Malawi is Yao. Now, I will describe an initiation of children practiced by the Yao.   During the month of July, Yao children, as young as 10 years old (some say 6 years old), undergo an initiation that lasts about a month.  To prepare for the rituals, a group of village elders build huts away from the village along a river bank.   When they return to the village, parents release their children to these elders who take the children back to the huts along the river bank. They will spend about a month there teaching the children about sex. Any child who refuses to go or tries to run away will be abducted and brought back to the site and held there against their will. Any child who wanders near the camp will be brought into the camp as well.

Parents here in Malawi are uncomfortable discussing with their children the changes their bodies will go through and other sexual matters, so traditionally this is the responsibility of their village leaders.  Even city dwellers who no longer live in their ancestral village will take their children back there to participate in this initiation.  Much of the instruction is through crude  language and vulgar songs. The purpose is said to be to prepare the young people for adulthood, but the actual consequence is that innocent children lose their innocence. The boys are encouraged to experiment with sexual behavior, and the girls are told to not be afraid of a man’s touch, that it is all pleasurable, and that they should do whatever a man asks them to do.  After days and weeks of this, of course, the children lose their inhibitions against engaging in sexual behavior.

Then the boys are circumcised. I have learned that several boys will be circumcised with the same unwashed instrument with no concern for the spread of germs or communicable diseases.  With no medical assistance, the children go naked for days and are kept in the camp until their wounds heal.    

So, at the end of this initiation, the children return to their families without natural inhibitions, and they begin to act on what they have learned.  It takes no imagination to realize that this initiation promotes promiscuity, early sex, early marriage, and early pregnancy and makes the children very vulnerable to STDs such as HIV/AIDS.  Early marriage and early pregnancy increases the odds that a girl will never be able to complete her education, and the obvious consequence of that is a lack of economic opportunity and a life of deep poverty for her and her children. Then when her children are old enough, the cycle begins again. 

Now I will describe a practice that is common in northern Malawi. There, as in other parts of Malawi, families are large. Typically, a young man marries a wife, and as soon as possible she is expected to produce children, and a woman who cannot produce children will be rejected.  As the family grows over the years, of course, the wife’s responsibilities increase.  She performs the duties of a good wife, working in the maize field, washing clothes, tending to sick children, cooking and cleaning and caring for her family.  

She stays very busy collecting water and firewood. Now that there are five, six, or seven children in the family and the wife is away from the house for hours of the day doing her chores, the husband begins to feel lonely and wants someone to talk to. Then he will seek out a young woman for companionship who will be his second wife. She is young, energetic, and can attend to his every need.

My focus here is that the girl who becomes the second wife is young. Many girls drop out of school and are married young to older men. The young girls begin to produce children when their bodies are not fully formed, putting themselves and their babies at risk.   When a girl’s body is not mature enough to deliver a baby, it can result in fistula, a permanent perforation or tear of the lining of her vaginal walls, urinary tract and or bowels. A girl who suffers from fistula is unable to control her flow of urine and or her bowels, making her unattractive. Because of the constant stench, a girl who suffers from fistula is rejected by people around her, including her husband.  What kind of future does that leave her?

Although this has not been a pleasant story to tell, I felt compelled to tell it.  I hope each one who reads it will be filled with compassion for the children of Malawi and will pray for them and for our success in ministering to them.   The children in the two villages where we work are always very excited when George comes to play games with them and to tell hero stories from the Bible, but can God use us to have a broader influence for the good of the children of Malawi? 

Of all the vulnerable children of Malawi, the girls are without question the most vulnerable.  Starting at a young age, a girl’s responsibility for helping with household chores often takes her away from getting an education. Then when cultural influences encourage her to leave school, engage in promiscuous behavior, marry young, and start having children,  both she and her children are relegated to a life of deep poverty.  

We know that a good future for these girls starts with their knowing that they are made by God and that their lives have purpose. It is knowing they can make choices with their lives that can positively change their futures. It is also determining to stay morally pure and finishing school.  May God enable us to be an advocate for the children.  

What Will It Take?-A Malaria Free World

Worldwide, there are between three hundred million and five hundred million new cases of malaria each year. Approximately 1,300,000 malaria deaths occur annually, and most of these are children under five years of age. Since reaching its low point in the late 1970’s, the incidence of malaria has been steadily increasing. The shift in locale of infectiousness has moved quite rapidly from Asia to Africa, where now nearly 90% of all new cases occur. An impoverished African family will spend about 28% of its annual income on malaria related expenses. For each million new cases of AIDS there are between seventy and one hundred million new cases of Malaria.

It is common for men in rural Africa to pressure their wives into having many children; six to eight per family is not at all uncommon, and many men will not allow their wives to use any kind of birth control. The reasoning is there is such a high mortality rate among small children that in order to assure their posterity they must produce larger families. The women suffer in multiple ways from this practice. First of all there is the overwhelming burden of caring for such large families while living in deep poverty. Bearing so many children also takes a great toll on a woman, and finally the mosquitoes, which carry malaria are attracted to the scent given off by lactating mothers, making them the highest risk group for contracting the disease, as they can spend between ten to twelve years of their lives either pregnant or nursing. They also run the risk of passing malaria on to their newborns.

The numbers can sometimes be overwhelming to where you just want to cry, and at other times they simply numb the senses to where there seems to be little reaction at all. That's what statistics do, but when those cases of malaria, and cholera, and food shortages, and dirty drinking water become the very people you spend time with each week, you just want to be used to make a real impact. "Here am I LORD, send me." Isaiah 6:8.

After reaching an annual peak of 3.5 million worldwide in the late 1940’s, a sharp decline in the number of malaria deaths occurred through about 1960, when a slower but still steady descent continued until the mid-1970’s. At that point both infections and deaths began steadily trending back upward. Hidden within these numbers, however is the disturbing reality that while Asia, the prior world leader in malaria cases was joining the rest of the world in conquering the disease, Africa was swiftly becoming its new breeding ground

Could all this have occurred as a result of policy decisions being made oceans away on a seemingly unrelated issue, and if so, what? Let’s look at the facts. In 1972, the then recently formed US Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of DDT, a powerful and effective insecticide, from use in agricultural spraying. From that point forward environmentalists pushed hard for a total worldwide ban for any purposes whatsoever. Although they have never achieved their intended goal, they may as well have, as pressure has since come to bear against any nation using the substance for any and all purposes.

Most poor African nations have bowed to that pressure, disallowing DDT’s use even in what had proven to be the single most effective agent in the effort to eliminate malaria’s scourge from the planet. Fearing reprisals from a number of European nations, who have threatened to cut off imports if even a trace level of DDT is found on produce. Spraying very low level amounts of DDT on the walls of homes has worked very well in the past, and continues to work wherever and whenever it is applied. We need to keep in mind that those so strongly against DDT’s use in rural Africa and elsewhere live in areas of the world where malaria is not an issue, and perhaps has been that way for several generations.

All the anti-malarial medication available throughout the entire world today is enough to treat only about 10-15% of those infected, leaving the other 85-90% with no available treatment at all. Chemically treated bed nets, which are made available in many African nations on a limited basis to those most vulnerable to infection, pregnant women and children under five, only protect at certain times of the night, and obviously not the entire family. Clinics which are supposed to have these nets on hand for distribution very often do not. Additionally, the nets lose their potency over time, tear, and can be easily kicked aside during sleep, and become ineffective as a result. Although they were intended to be handed out free of charge, many are sold on the lucrative black market; some even winding up being used as fishing nets.

How is DDT applied in the home, and is it safe? A family is moved out of the house, along with all their furniture, the walls, where the female mosquitoes typically lodge between their feeding cycles, are sprayed with a DDT solution in quantities a small fraction of that which was used to spray crops, and after waiting twenty four hours, the family return. Only a small percentage of the spray would ever escape out the windows or door. Any potential harm from such a small quantity would be immeasurably insignificant. Unlike is the case with bed nets, or anti-malarial drugs, the entire family is protected. The applicator, of course,  is a trained professional. In order to be effective long term this process is repeated about twice a year. Mosquito populations drop off dramatically, as do new cases of malaria.

As experts on both sides of this debate have been kicking any decision-making back and forth like a ping pong ball for decades now, the result has been more death and heartache for the powerless people of hundreds of thousands of rural villages of Africa and other parts of the Third World. It is not our goal or mission to get entangled in the fray, but we will continue to educate the women and children on how they can improve the odds against their contracting malaria, cholera, and other devastating diseases. Our prayer and hope however, is that those who hold the decision making powers in these nations would do what is right for the disenfranchised innocents in this battle.

Hospitality in Pahuwa

Saturday in Pahuwa was a special day. We were introduced to Chief Ibrahim,  a kind and gracious man, who made us feel very welcome in his village and thanked us for our work to train women in ways to keep their families healthy.  He indicated that he is also concerned about the health of his village, especially expectant mothers and  children under age 5 .

We learned that the partially built bamboo structure a short distance from the chief’s home is being built to house a medical clinic. He asked us if we could persuade donors to give so that they could have an under five and prenatal clinic.

The nearest clinic, Maquapala , is about 6.5 km away from Pahuwa,  which is quite a distance for a woman to walk for a prenatal checkup or to deliver her baby. 

We told the Chief that we would attend an event with the US Ambassador in a few days and that we would seek an opportunity on that occasion to ask her for the assistance he requested. We told him that we are Christians and that we pray for his community because it was the love of God that first brought us there. We asked him to also pray for God’s blessings on his village and that God would enable us to continue to be a blessing to his community.  He responded, “Of course we pray. We are Muslims.”

Then the women invited us to a large sports field where George and Samuel played games with the children.  On every visit to the village, George teaches a brief lesson about practicing good sanitation and hygiene. He also teaches them hero stories from the Bible. On this visit, one of the children asked to hear the story of David. It was amazing because this is the story George had planned to teach! Every week the children look forward to storytime. 

Nearby, the women spread out a large bamboo mat for Hellen and me to sit on. The women sat  in a broad circle on the ground around us, and we began our lesson on family planning.  A few young teenage girls were sitting near me on the front row. I assumed they were children who wandered in on this meeting. When Hellen asked them to go and join the other children, they said that they wanted to be in the class because they are already married.

 

The class went well. There were about 18 women attending the session. I taught them that their bodies were made by God and they deserve to be respected. They learned that they should respect their own bodies and that they should require others to treat their bodies with respect as well.  I taught them the importance of taking measures to protect themselves from STIs like HIV and AIDS.

I also encouraged the women to discuss with their husbands their needs and preferences concerning family planning.  In this session, the women learned thirteen methods of family planning, some of which require medical assistance and  some that require the approval and cooperation of their husbands. They also learned how to determine times in their cycle when their bodies are  less fertile. 

The women enjoyed the small group discussions and activities. In one of the activities the women sorted diagrams of  family planning methods by how effective they are in preventing pregnancy and how much protection they give against STIs.

As we were concluding the class, one of the women asked me to wait because they had a gift for me. Several women stood up and began to lead the others with singing and dancing. They were singing a traditional Malawian welcome song.

Then, by ones and twos they stepped forward with arms full of maize and pumpkins, gifts from their fields, and laid them at my feet.  What a humbling experience. In this very poor village, this was a beautiful and rich gift.  We are very thankful for the open door of hospitality in Pahuwa and the opportunities this opens for sharing the love of God.

Beijing Trading Company

A huge banner with Chairman Mao's portrait hangs over the entrance to Beijing Trading Company in downtown Zomba. Typically, the store is staffed by two or three Chinese clerks at the register and at least one Malawi national on each aisle. The Malawian employees’ job is to check prices, find merchandise, and to keep an eye out for shoplifters. If you arrive in the store around noon, each one will be eating a bowl of rice. They trail us so closely as we move through the store that their presence often feels invasive and uncomfortable.    Chinese rock music is usually emanating from large speakers on the back wall of the store.

There are several such Chinese stores in Zomba, with basically the same merchandise, and the cashiers rotate among them. We always smile as we stand in line, looking for a way to relate and to build some bridge for a relationship, but until today, we have never seen even a tiny opportunity to do so.

We found the clothes pins we were looking for, moved to the front, and stood second in line behind a group of four chatting ladies, each of which was buying a large bagful of colorful blankets. It was then that I recognized the young lady behind the counter as the expectant mother I had seen in this store on other occasions and walking along the street in Zomba a few days before. George and I always smile and   say, “Thank you” and “Have a good day” as we take our change and exit, but in Beijing Trading Company, there has been almost no response.

But today was different.  As we waited in line, my eyes wandered over the items on the wall by the cash register, clustered along the counter and in the cell phone and jewelry  displays.    Then, nestled in a blanket, my eyes landed on the beautiful, cherubic face of a newborn girl, sleeping peacefully  on a shelf near the cell phones.  

When the mother heard us admiring her little one, she came toward us smiling broadly. “Your baby is so beautiful!”  I told her. “Thank you,” she responded. Then she took out her cell phone to show us pictures of her handsomely dressed son, probably about 4 years of age. “They are very beautiful children,” I told her again. She was obviously very proud of her family and enjoyed sharing it with us.

I know it is a small thing, but in building relationships, sometimes it is the little things that count.  May God use it to open more opportunities to share His love.

Building Trust and Friendship

Just as we approached the village of Kainga, a woman walked to the edge of the road and directed us away from the front of the mosque and down a little trail beside a nearby home. We didn’t know what was happening and were concerned that somehow we were no longer welcome in the mosque. Perhaps we would no longer be able to teach there. My heart sank at the thought.

Directed by the woman near the road, we followed her in as she passed through one home’s side yard, behind a few houses, and then near a large cleared field where we were directed to park our truck.  As we got out, a few children gathered around, anxious to tell us something. One child stepped forward and complained to Samuel, our interpreter, that since we gave the women the soccer ball two weeks ago, they have been hogging the ball. Hmm. That was interesting.  As we left on our last visit, George had instructed the women to take good care of the ball.

About that time, a few women gathered around us and thanked us for the soccer ball we gave them on our last visit.  One of them was obviously anxious to tell us something as well. She said that the boys play rough with the ball, and in their care, it would probably not last very long. She had a request: Could we possibly get another ball for the boys to use so the one we gave the women would last longer?   George and I thought this was a good idea. Evidently the women thought “taking good care of the ball” is a serious responsibility.   

Other women joined the conversation and excitedly told us that they wanted to show us what they can do.  Two women were carrying long bamboo poles, each with a small metal hoop (a slightly bigger than a soccer ball) attached to the top. They erected one of these poles on each end of the sports field.  As they moved toward the field, the women asked us to come to the edge of the field and watch them play a game called netball.  They split into teams, moved to their positions, and the game began.  In Malawi, netball is always a women’s sport.

 Unlike basketball, no movement with the ball is allowed, so to forward the ball down the field toward the goal, the ball must be passed from one team member to another.  The aim is to keep the opposing team away from the ball as your team advances it down the field by passing it to other team members. One person on each team is designated scorer. Once the ball is advanced to her team’s goal, her job is to get the ball through that tiny hoop at the top of the pole. Honestly, it didn’t look possible, but without the showmanship of a 6 ‘ 11” professional basketball player, time after time, the women easily slipped the ball through the ring.  They made it look easy.   They leapt into the air to catch the ball, and at times thrust both hands forward and took a belly dive to protect the ball from the opposing team.    The women were very competitive.  We stood along one side of the field, clapping and cheering for both sides. They were amazing. At the end of the competition, we congratulated both sides for a game well played.

I had come to teach the women how to protect their families from malaria, a very serious topic. I had prepared great visuals and a game I thought they would enjoy, but there will be time for that.   This was a day for building trust and friendship.  The women had invited us into their lives and shared with us something they enjoy.  We count it a privilege to call the women of Kainga our friends.

Chef Giorgio

Italian cooking is one of George's hobbies. Working in the kitchen gives him opportunity to create some delicious meals, but it has been a challenge to find some ingredients.  For example, until now, we have been unable to find a variety of cheeses. A few days ago, George decided to bake eggplant parmesan, and we had all of the ingredients except the mozzarella.   

 

We looked in Shoprite and Metro. From time to time these stores have blocks of cheddar or gouda cheese, but they go fast when they are available.  There is no variety here. What does a good chef do when the ingredients he needs are not available? He creates a new recipe with the ingredients he has.  George was able to find a block of gouda and decided to try eggplant gouda. It was delicious.

 

A friend recommended a little restaurant here in Zomba called Casa Rossa. We didm't know that an authentic Italian restaurant existed here. An Italian restaurant has a variety of cheese, right?    We decided to check it out last Sunday afternoon.Their food is  good, but very expensive. Perhaps we could go again on a very special occasion. The owner, an Italian immigrant to Malawi, was friendly enough, so George asked where he gets his cheese. We were surprised by the answer.

 

As it turned out, Catholics are the major Christian religion in Malawi, and many of them live in the Balaka region.  We traveled through there when we were on our return trip from Nkhata Bay. There is an enormous Catholic church there as well as well as Catholic schools and  an orphanage. There are also many Italian immigrants who live in Balaka. Some of them produce and market cheese.  Cheese is delivered to Zomba from time to time. We look forward to being on the list for deliveries. Just think of all the delicious Italian meals we can make. It will taste like home.

Nansasala Clinic Dedication

When we met with Ambassador on February 15, she had invited us to attend a clinic dedication  she would attend in the Zomba district in a few days. We thanked her and told her we would put it on our calendar. So, once we returned home to Zomba, we started asking friends about the location of the Nansasala Clinic. Although it is in the Zomba district, no one we asked, even native Malawians who have lived here all their lives had ever heard of the Nansasala Village or clinic. 

 With only a day before the event, George came upon a website called Mapcarta. There he was able to search for Nansasala and to get directions from Zomba, noting turns on unmarked dirt roads and paths, right down to the tenth of a kilometer. We stopped by the Minister of Health’s office to confirm our Mapcarta directions.    The Minister of Health was not in, but one gentleman in her office didn’t know where the clinic was and suggested that we travel out to a rural hospital near a community called Jali and ask them to give us directions to the clinic. George and I decided to trust Mapcarta instead.

The Minister of Health’s office told us the dedication was to begin at 2:30, but our correspondence with the Ambassador’s office indicated it was to start at 3:30. Just to be on the safe side, we decided to go at 2:30.  As it turned out, Mapcarta was accurate down to one tenth of a kilometer. That was good because none of the roads between Zomba and the clinic were labeled.   The last leg of the journey was several km down a windy one lane dirt road. Suddenly, around a bend in the road there was a police roadblock staffed by half a dozen sharply dressed, uniformed officers. They never asked for our IDs, but when we asked where the clinic was, they pointed to a trail off to our right. 

 Ours was the only car there as we drove into the  lot in front of the clinic, our tires sinking into the soft sand.    A few dignitaries and police officers   standing in clusters talking stopped to look us over. We asked one gentleman where to park and were told to drive out of the lot and park along the road. The narrow road in front of the clinic was bordered by deep ditches, so the only place we could possibly park was exactly where the police officers were positioned.   One officer noting our dilemma directed us to park in the narrow frontage by a tiny shop in the center of the roadblock.

From there, we walked in, feet slipping in the soft sand, and were greeted with singing by the more than 50 village women who were standing in the shade of a grove of trees. We passed them smiling and waving and proceeded to tour the property.    At the time there were a few dignitaries already present seated on the front row of four rows of seats.   We moved toward the back row but one of the village chiefs sitting on the front row invited us to sit by him. Supported by six wood posts, burlap bags sewn together shaded the chairs.   In the center of this arrangement were a burgundy upholstered armchair and a table flanked by a Malawi flag on one side and an American flag on the other. This was the seat of honor, reserved for the American Ambassador who had not yet arrived. We shook hands with the dignitaries then took our seats.

The project manager, a gentleman named Edison, sat down by us and introduced himself. He gave us a warm handshake, and then asked us what everyone there was probably wondering, “How was it that you came to be at this dedication?”  We told him that a few days ago in a meeting with the Ambassador in Lilongwe she had invited us to come. He was satisfied with that answer and proceeded to give us many details about the clinic’s purpose and how his efforts had helped bring  this project  to fruition. This clinic, he said, will serve prenatal and children under 5 years of age from five surrounding villages.

We learned that although over 150 villages had submitted project plans to the Ambassador’s office, only five were selected to receive US support. One of the requirements  for the US grant was that the village had to contribute 1/3 of the cost, materials or labor.  The people of this village contributed all the sand and mud to make the bricks to build the clinic including a waiting room and two examination rooms as well as a residence for the medical technician who would staff the facility. We were impressed.   We told Edison that we work in rural villages around Zomba and we know how important it is for the women and children of the village to have accessible health care. We commended him for his hard work and dedication to the project.   He was obviously very proud of his accomplishments, both getting the grant and bringing the project to completion.

A little later, several tribal authorities including all the village chiefs and the traditional authority for the region arrived. The traditional authority, an inherited position, is the head chief, over all of the  other tribal authorities in the region. Officials from the Zomba Health Minister’s office as well as  local school officials  were also in attendance. Then two ambulances arrived bringing several nurses and medical technicians, all dressed in blue hospital scrubs.

 

By this time, the tent had filled up and the number of women and children seated in the shade of a grove of trees had swollen to over 200. As if signaled that the ceremony was about to begin, the women moved from the grove of trees and lined both sides of the trail leading from the road to the clinic.  Through the trees approaching the compound entrance we saw a convoy of three white SUVs that contained the Ambassador.  Suddenly, the women of the villages with much singing and dancing began waving tree branches as they led the Ambassador’s convoy to the front of the clinic.  Everyone rose to their feet to welcome Ambassador Jackson who walked directly from her car to join the women in dancing. 
 

Next, all of the guests followed as Edison and other officials as they led the Ambassador  to the entrance of the clinic. There she with the assistance of a little girl from the village cut the ribbon.  We were all given  a quick tour of the facilities, including the waiting room, two examination rooms, and the small residence for the attending medical technician.   Then in back of the new clinic officials showed her the site of the “clinic” before this one was built. It consisted of four poles and a patchwork of burlap bags sewn together for a cover.  The center of the compound was a circular garden ringed by bricks. Here the Ambassador symbolically planted a tree.  

After Ambassador Jackson was seated, the speeches began. Her husband, Mark Jackson, who was seated beside me leaned over and whispered, “We have observed that the smaller the project, the longer the speeches.”  We heard from many dignitaries including the project manager, Edison, each of the village chiefs, officials from the Health Minister’s office, and the traditional authority.   

What followed was a short comedy skit with actors from the local community. One of the actors’ funny clothing and manner indicated he was a clown.   We have been told that Malawians enjoy drama and humor very much, and although we do not understand Chichewa, the laughter and applause indicated that everyone thought this skit was very funny.

As the thunder rumbled and the sky darkened, large drops of rain began to dot the women and children seated on the ground. Some of the women who had umbrellas used them to shield themselves and their little ones nursing on their laps. Children pressed in to find shelter there too.  Other women pulled the piece of cloth that is usually used to carry their babies on their backs to cover themselves and their little ones.  As the rain increased, one of the officials stood and invited the children to come under the tent. The children rushed forward and seated themselves facing all the officials, looking intently up at us. Meanwhile under the shelter, along the seams in the burlap, the rain softly dripped and spattered, but no one was complaining.

Next it was Ambassador Jackson’s turn to speak.  She acknowledged each of the dignitaries who attended the celebration.  We were very surprised when she said, “I would also like to recognize two fellow Americans who came to attend this celebration, George and Phyllis Crispi., who are living and working in the Zomba district.”  Then she thanked the village leaders for donating the land and congratulated the people for their hard work and dedication to this project. She told them how impressed she was to see their initiative to undertake such a project that would benefit themselves and their families for years to come. She stated some of the functions of the clinic, including prenatal examinations and childhood immunizations. She encouraged the community to take good care of the facility, and  at that point, she officially turned over the clinic to the community, and everyone cheered.

  The Ambassador and her husband, Mark Jackson, came over, shook our hands, and thanked us for attending,  Mr. Jackson told us how impressed he was that we would, after retirement, move to Malawi and get engaged in improving lives in the rural villages. He underscored what we had already heard from the Ambassador, that the US is keenly interested in  projects such as ours in Malawi that are aimed at reducing deforestation and clean burning cookstoves.

 

The Ambassador’s cameraman, Chris, invited George to his SUV to receive a gift from the Ambassador, two official US Embassy soccer balls. How thoughtful. She remembered  from our visit to the Embassy that we take soccer balls to the villages in which we work and play with the children. What a lovely lady the Ambassador is.  We enjoyed very much meeting her, and we are grateful for her acknowledgement of the value of our work.

Nkhata Bay

After that meeting in Lilongwe with the US Ambassador on February 15, we picked up Daniel, who had traveled overnight by minibus from Zomba to meet us at the Shoprite store in Lilongwe.  He would travel with us to gain experience in making the Changu, Changu, Moto cookstoves. Our next stop, some 350 km from Lilongwe was Nkhata Bay. There we would visit the base camp of Ripple Africa; a British based NGO, working in the villages along the shores of beautiful Lake Malawi. 

We had been traveling for some time on Lake Road, passing many small fishing villages with clusters of round, thatched roof houses.  Dan, back at base camp had told George to begin looking for a police roadblock once we reached Nkhata.  With no warning, over a hill and around a bend, and suddenly there was the police checkpoint.  A dirt trail led off to the right.  With nowhere else to go, that had to be it. We noticed a weatherworn and faded concrete sign just at that juncture that said, “The Last Church of God.”  At the time I wondered if they were being prophetic or humble.

About 2 km down that trail we took a sharp left at a Ripple Malawi sign, and we were at Ripple’s barrier gate. A Malawian woman working there saw us and ran to pull the rope and lift the pole and let us in.  We met Dan, the man we had been in phone contact with as we traveled.  He brought us to the site manager, a chipper young Brit named Charlie, probably in his mid 20s who welcomed us warmly, introduced us to others on his staff, and invited us to take a tour of the property.   

Although this compound hugs the shoreline of Lake Malawi, it is fully shaded, so even in Malawian summer, the temperature was quite comfortable. There was a large shady gazebo made of fieldstones and beautifully thatched just off the beach with a spillover down to more dining tables and chairs along the beachfront.  We learned that the gazebo doubles as a conference room for times when they host large teams.

From there a path led to a centrally located thatched roof outdoor kitchen with an old fashioned woodburning cookstove.  I have to admit that I was surprised that Ripple uses firewood for cooking, but I soon learned that they burn firewood absolutely guilt-free because they have a tree planting project that complements their work with clean burning cookstoves. Free of charge, Ripple provides each household  in the community with sapling trees -25 senna siamea, 5 guava, and 5 paw paw – from their own nursery.  After three years of tending, each family has their own 10 by 10 meters woodlot and can harvest both fruit and firewood in three years.

Next we were shown the bath house with two showers and three toilets.  There are no power lines to the property, so solar collectors provide light in the kitchen and in the bath house. The bath light is on a motion sensor, so it only comes on when someone enters the broad, open doorway.  The two showers were on the left, two sinks and a mirror just in front of the door, and three bathroom stalls on the right. This is a unisex bathhouse, by the way, so I was never quite comfortable with men and women bathing, using the toilet, and brushing their teeth all in the same room. Call me old fashioned.  Just outside the bathhouse, solar collectors pump well water to a large green plastic tank perched high on metal posts collecting the heat of the sun to provide hot water to the kitchen and bath.

The cabins are broadly distributed in a somewhat semicircular fashion throughout the property, with Charlie’s larger cabin near the center. Each cabin is perched on stilts and has a cute little porch facing the beach, big enough for a small table and two chairs.   There is no lighting, solar or otherwise, in the cabins.   It was almost sunset when we arrived, and Charlie reminded us to locate our head torches ( flashlights mounted on  headbands). We told him that we had neither towels nor torches and asked if there was a store nearby that might have them. We were on a beautiful beach.  We had assumed there would be rows of shops and restaurants to accommodate tourism, but there were none.

Although Lake Malawi has the potential for being a great tourist attraction, that is not the case.  As it has been for thousands of years, the shores of Lake Malawi in Nkhata Bay are dotted with small fishing villages.  There are no beach shops, no high rise condominiums, and no fancy restaurants. By Malawian law, land cannot be purchased by foreigners, but it can be acquired on a long term lease basis or in partnership with a Malawian national.  

While we were discussing with Charlie our shopping prospects, we learned that Daniel had neither flashlight, towel, soap, toothpaste, nor toothbrush. That would make for a miserable weekend, so  with less than an hour of sunlight left, we decided to venture out to the main road to find a shop that might have some of the items we needed. About 3km south along the roadside we found a little shop lit by a solar lamp.  We were amazed that this store had all the items we needed: towels and soap, toothbrush and toothpaste, as well as flashlights and batteries.   We were set for the weekend.

It was nearly dark by the time we returned to camp.  A local woman, part of Ripple’s staff, had prepared dinner: fish pie with vegetables and avocado salad.  Initially I wasn’t sure about the fish pie, but it was delicious. All of us were very hungry so some asked for seconds and some asked for thirds until all of the salad and most of the huge pie were consumed.  The following day, Saturday, we would be working in the villages learning from the Ripple team. After a hot shower, we road weary travelers were exhausted. It was time to get some rest.

Breakfast was self-service, so for us it was a bowl of corn flakes, an apple, and a cup of hot coffee for each (once George figured out how to operate the French press).   About that time, Catherine, one of Ripple’s community organizers arrived in camp. Charlie introduced us to her then laid out her day’s plans to include her work with us.

Catherine asked if we were up to the walk out to the villages, and we asked, “How far?” She said, “Oh, about a km.”  I told her that there is a lake 11k around back in the US where George and I enjoyed walking from time to time for recreation.  That seemed to assure her.  Daniel, George, and I packed bottles of water and a couple of snacks in our backpacks, said goodbye to Charlie, and started our hike, following Catherine down a trail. About a km from the camp in passing she pointed to a small brown brick house with a cluster of trees in a clean swept yard.   That was her home. Although she lives in a modest home, don’t assume she is not resourceful. She owns many fruit trees and from the hundreds of trees in her grove she supplies bananas to major brokers.   

As we continued our walk, she explained how Ripple organizes their work in the villages.  Her first step is to contact each village chief and explain to them the purpose of their work and how it can benefit the families in their community. The chief then gives his approval and appoints someone in the village to follow Catherine’s directive in implementing the program. Then the chief’s appointee  recruits two assistants. Those three individuals in each village are the ones responsible for implementation of the program.  Catherine’s job is to coordinate with all of the appointees and assistants and to collect data for Ripple.  We learned that at this time, Ripple has built 30,000 of their cookstoves in that region! Their goal is for every household to have one and to learn how to maintain it.

 We arrived at the first home before the volunteers arrived, so we sat on benches near the first kitchen, sipped our water, chatted, and waited. We learned that Catherine is also a farmer. She owns land on which she grows maize to sell. She also organized several women who together purchased land to feed widows and orphans in their community.  From her own experience with early marriage and the poverty this perpetuates, she knows the importance of encouraging girls to aim high with their lives.  Her first child was born when she was a young teenager, so she was only able to complete her primary and secondary schooling after she became an adult. It was quite a struggle, but she is proud of her accomplishments. In order to encourage other girls to not fall into the same poverty trap,   she organized a club for adolescent girls to encourage them to stay in school and to delay sexual relations and marriage. We were quite impressed.

In probably 10 minutes Catherine’s community assistants arrived and the work could begin.  The Malawi kitchen is typically in a structure a little distance from the house. This kitchen has a hard-packed dirt floor and the walls are brick about a meter tall with an open doorway. Above the brick wall, posts support  a thatched roof.  Wood posts just outside the kitchen support a sheltered woodpile.   A typical Malawian woman cooking a meal sits by a smoky open fire on her kitchen floor. Having a two burner, clean burning, and fuel efficient cookstove built in her own kitchen will seem like a luxury.

The homeowner had already made the 26 unfired bricks. She had collected a bucket of mud, a bucket of sand, and a bucket of water for mortar mix. They had a hoe for mixing the mortar and a trowel for spreading the mortar, and she had already leveled the ground where the stove would be made.   The family’s meal had been cooked on an open fire on that spot a few minutes before we had arrived, so when George and Daniel began placing the bottom level of bricks, the ground was very hot, but they were able to successfully complete the project.   

We walked back to the camp for an extended lunch break.  Afterward, Catherine informed us that the next village we would visit was quite a distance away, and we should consider driving to the site. The sun was pretty intense on our way back from the first villages, so George and I thought this was a great idea. Over the course of the day, Catherine coached us and improved our method as we worked with homeowners.

We want to thank Ripple Malawi  and Charlie for giving us the opportunity to receive training and valuable hands on experience making the Changu, Changu, Moto cookstoves. We want to thank Catherine in particular for giving us opportunities to practice under her supervision.   Although we had thought of staying longer, at the end of two days, we were confident that we could duplicate their model in the villages around Zomba where we are working. The women in the villages where we work are already excitedly talking about these stoves and look forward to having their own.