Visiting friends and leaving Malawi

On Sunday, I spent the whole day with David Mhango and his wife Naomi and daughters Ellen and Susan and it was a real joy.  Sadly, John was only able to join us for about an hour during the 6 or so hours there were at our hotel, and we had to change our plans from seeing a museum and attending a football game to just sitting and visiting, which was fine. So John ended up missing out on almost all the time with David and his family, which is very sad since it has been so long since we have seen them.

Here are David, Naomi and the children in their Sunday best clothes sitting by the pool at our lodge – they had never seen a pool before.

John has been having some digestive problems while we are here, and I feel very blessed that I have not.  He  about 3 or 4 days that he has been ill enough that all he wanted to do was rest while we have been here.  Fortunately, I have not had similar problems except for a couple of very brief episodes that were very manageable.   It is never fun feeling ill when you are so far from home.

Fortunately, John felt a lot better on Monday and David came to have lunch with us, and will come again this morning to see us off to the airport in a few hours., the beginning of about 25 hours of travel time to get back home.  I’m not looking forward to the journey, and am very sad to leave everyone here, but am ready to be back home again in familiar surroundings, with Jack our cat, and not living out of a suitcase!

To Majete Wildlife Park and Back

Thursday:  I just got done taking a shower at our outdoor rainhead shower under the light of the moon and overlooking the waterhole outside our permanent tent where some antelope are drinking – and that was just the end of an amazing day!  And here is our lovely tent with John enjoying our deck.  And a picture of the shower and toilet – what doesn’t show is a sunken tub next to the shower which was very cool too.

This morning we came down the Chikhwawa escarpment – something John has talked about many times from his time in the Peace Corps.  It was spectacularly beautiful and I can see how it would have been very memorable when it was a dirt road and he was driving a motorcycle.  It has a very steep pitch and must drop about 2000 feet easily so by the time we got to the bottom, the temperature had gone up about 10 or 15 degrees, another thing John talked about a lot from his Peace Corps days.  I’m sure it got to the high 90s today and the height of the hot season isn’t until November or December – and by then the rains have started so it is humid too.  I can’t even imagine – remember no one here has air conditioning since only 10% of Malawians even have electricity – how do they manage and walk for miles and work in their fields, by hand, no tractors here either.  Amazing.

We arrived at Thawale Lodge in Majete Wildlife Reserve around 10am this morning and saw a lot of Impala and other antelope soon after we went through the gate.  The Majete reserve was created in the mid-1950s but was decimated by poachers until 2003 when it was taken over by the African Parks Service, a non-profit running parks in 5 different African countries.  An electric fence was built around the entire perimeter of 700 square kilometers and a full range of animals was reintroduced into the park - currently there are over 6,000 animals in the reserve including the “big 5” after lions were reintroduced a year ago. 

Over 100 local villagers have been employed by the reserve, and part of the revenues generated by the park each year go to projects in the nearby villages.  Two more parks are slated to be taken over by African Parks Service in the next year, both ones that we have visited, and the plan is to replicate this successful model.

Poaching is a serious problem in Africa, not only by local people hunting for food, but also by organized gangs.  In African Parks Service Annual Report they describe with great sadness an incident in Congo where poachers in helicopters killed 15 elephants, and their tusks sawed off for sale on the black market.  The also describe many gun battles with poachers and announced the death of one of their park rangers in a gun battle in 2012. But Majete is a shining example of what can be done through local education and employment and stepped-up security measures.  In the long run, effective wildlife management and tourism is a great boost to the local and national economy and

African Parks Service is working hard to help make that happen in Malawi and other parks in Africa.

Thawale Lodge has a watering hole just outside our permanent tent which has a large patio(khonde) and we sat and watched impala, kudu, warthogs, sable antelope and baboons come in the hour or two we were there before lunch.  They light the water hole until about 9pm so we can watch animals come while we eat dinner since it is dark here by 6pm or so.

After our delicious lunch(no chicken and rice – yay!!) we went on a game drive – the breeze felt great, and although it was a hot wind it still felt a little cooler when you are wet from perspiration.  On the drive we saw even more varieties of antelope, including Nyala which are found only in Malawi and Eland which are huge – they weigh more than a water buffalo. By the Shire (pronounced sheer-re) river we saw a herd of Zebra and then a lone Elephant who we followed for awhile.  Our guide told us that he had his trunk caught In a snare before he was brought to Majete to recover as a baby and now he lives on his own because he can’t eat very well and slows down the herd.  We followed him for a while, I thought about how sad it was for him to be alone when elephants are so social.  Here he is.

Down by the river we saw hippos and crocodiles, and a few more elephants, and then came upon some elephants with the big bull on one side of the road and a young one and female on the other.  Well, the bull decided he didn’t like being separated and after a bit his ears started flapping followed by a mock charge – we got the point and quickly left.  Our guide and driver had been watching him very closely and the driver had his hand on the ignition ready to leave   Here is a photo of the baby – probably about 3 or 4 years old since he has small tusks

Friday:  Last night just after we turned off the light I heard what sounded like a dog bark followed by a very loud and indescribable noise.  Because we were meeting our guide at 5:45 this morning for a walking safari, I asked what the sound was and he said a hyena.  I had never heard anything except the laughing sound we associate with hyena’s.  It had given me enough of a start that I stayed awake for awhile afterwards, and we turned on our ceiling fan to cool it off a bit for sleeping so didn’t hear any noises after that.

We didn’t see any large animals on our walking safari but it is quite amazing to get off the roads and just walk through the bush.  We saw a fairly fresh track from a rhino not too far from Thawale and were told it is not uncommon for them to come and drink at our waterhole.  We saw lots of antelope who were very curious about these humans walking, baboons, an aardvark burrow, many beautiful birds and lots of tracks for animals.

It was an incredibly hot day.  I spent a good part of the afternoon with a wet washcloth wrapped around the back of my neck, and stood under the shower once or twice then let the wind dry me off.  It was the only time of the day I felt a little cool, drying off in the breeze.  Our guides said it is common around November, when it is the hottest, for the temperature to be 110 to 125 degrees.  I think it must have been close to 100 to feel as hot as I did in the dry heat which is usually much more tolerable.  Of course, I am kind of a weather wimp too.

We went on a night drive and for quite a while watched a large group of elephants, with several females and children of various ages.  It was very cool to watch – and the temperatures did cool off a bit after dark which was nice  None of the predators were seen, and even though they have about 500 water buffalo we didn’t see them or the 15 or so rhinos, they have but it was still amazing to be in the midst of all that wildlife  We must have seen 15 different kinds of antelope, and in such large numbers everywhere we turned.  The lions were just reintroduced this year, and there aren’t too many leopards either but it seems like Majete would be predator heaven here with all the antelope – and it will help to keep the ecosystem in balance too so it doesn’t get overgrazed. 

Saturday:  I am sitting on our patio as we wait for our driver to come and pick us up and am watching a small herd of impala approach the waterhole.  It is amazing to see how long they take to approach – so wary of any predators who know to hide by waterholes since none of the animals can survive without water, especially in this heat.

When we got back to Blantyre the temperature was much more bearable.  I loved Majete but couldn’t have taken much more of that heat.

As soon as we got back we called our Malawian son David Mhango who came to join us for lunch and then took us to his home.  We had a great visit and made plans for Sunday. We are so excited to be able to spend some time with them!  It feels a bit unreal to see him and the family when we know him as our neighbor in Livingstonia in 2008 – Livingstonia is more than 13 hours from here.  He was able to get work with the Ministry of Agriculture here and was recently transferred to Blantyre with his family, so this is very different than the time we spent in 2008, and Susan was just born a month before we left in 2008 – named for me, but also called Ziegen for John. Here is a great photo of his wife Naomi, Ellen 8 and Susan 5.   

Leaving Lilongwe, arriving in Blantyre

It is now Tuesday morning, our last day in Lilongwe as we will take the bus to Blantyre tomorrow morning.

We have managed to get a lot done for Flemmings while here despite the ongoing sicknesses in his family.  He wanted us to come over on Sunday, but phoned to say both his wife and 5-year-old daughter Rejoice were quite ill with vomiting and diarrhea.  It’s a good thing he was trained as a nurse as he was able to care for them and ensure that dehydration wasn’t getting serious enough to have to go for IV hydration at the hospital. 

It did give us a chance to go to our favorite Italian restaurant in Lilongwe, but we would much rather have had Flemmings family healthy enough for us to visit.

We got to meet the Dean of the main nursing and midwifery college in Malawi, who was very impressive.  She and Flemmings have known each other for a long time and she is the president of the board at the association where he now works.  She was just made an adjunct professor at University of Michigan, has connections with the Gates Foundation etc.  Quite a dynamo.

After our meeting we had lunch at an amazing place called The Four Seasons – this is a photo of their gardens from where we were at lunch.  It felt like we had stepped into an alternative universe,

It was so emotional saying goodbye to Flemmings family last night – and Flemmings drove us to the bus stop this morning.  His wife was feeling a bit better but still quite weak and Rejoice still had a fever and they were trying the second line of Malaria medicine thinking that she might have resistant Malaria.

The bus ride was another out of body experience – with only half the seats filled and snacks and drinks served.  And the scenery between Lilongwe and Blantyre is quite beautiful with lots of granite massif’s rising up and green river valleys,  Both John and I remarked that there seemed to be more trees, and I could see stands that had been planted so the reforestation program must be having some success. 

Blantyre is more prosperous looking, green and hilly and feels a bit like an oasis.  The little lodge I found it just charming – spacious, on a hilly tree lined street, there is a small pool I didn’t know about and a lovely restaurant.  We even have a shower with tile and a glass door and a pretty view out our window.  Heavenly.

Latest from Lilongwe

The little guesthouse we are staying at in Lilongwe was a bit disappointing when we first arrived.  Much different that the picture we had seen (what a surprise, huh!?) and the bathroom was the kind where the shower isn’t separate so your whole bathroom floor gets wet, and we couldn’t open the wardrobe door because there was a desk in the way so there was nowhere to put stuff.  I was just thinking it would be a long week, when the proprietress came up and said  “you know we have a little flat with a cooking area and even though it is normally more expensive I can offer it to you at the same price as your room and it would be more comfortable for a weeks stay.”  It is indeed more comfortable, large and with a nice tub and hand shower – and best of all a square mosquito bednet over a canopy bed frame which is so much more comfortable to sleep under, we bought some bread and peanut butter and can get some yogurt, cold water etc. since we have a little fridge.  I boiled up some water so we don’t have to keep buying it and I put some left over chicken in the fridge after lunch today – more things for which I am grateful. 

Our little flat has a little patio over looking their very pretty courtyard, and when the proprietress saw me hanging my hand laundry on the porch furniture this morning she said “can I put those in the sun for you”.  Very kind and more for which to be grateful.

Flemmings stopped over on his way home from work Wednesday night, to make a plan for us to help him during our time here and just as he left the power went off.  He commented on how much more common it is here in Lilongwe than it was in the north in Ekwenedni, his former home.  The innkeeper said it happens several times a week now and that there might be a protest march today.  The population is so much denser here in the capitol city, and although only 10% of Malawians even have electricity, most of them who do live here in Lilongwe – and just 5 years ago only 5% had electricity so demand has doubled in a short time.  They are very challenged to meet the increasing demand for electricity in this developing nation.  The power was only off for about 2 hours that night, but has been off from noon until bedtime the past 2 days.  Flemmings was right, it is noticeably worse here in Lilongwe than it was in the north.

Flemmings was going to pick us up at 10am Thursday morning but called to let us know his niece had been ill for 2 days and he had to take her to the hospital so came at 1:30  instead – his youngest was also vomiting and had diarrhea.  This is so normal for life here.  We complain about everyone being late or things not happening on time, but it is often for reasons like this that it happens.  Life is hard and frequently unpredictable here for people.  This Friday morning he was an hour late because his daughter had to take an entrance exam for a primary school in their new neighborhood, and when he told her she could walk home when she got done she started to cry.  It felt like too much for a 9 year old, new neighborhood, new everything here in Lilongwe.

It is now Saturday morning here, and we are down to the last 10 days in Malawi.  Last night we went to the grocery store and got some yogurt and fruit so we didn’t have to eat the usual fare for dinner – tonight, we may go to dinner at our favorite restaurant in town – Italian – which will be a huge treat!

More things for which I am grateful

·      Washing machines – there is an amazing amount of red dirt still coming out everything I wash by hand here, even on the 3^rd rinse so I can’t wait to put it through the washing machine. Plus hand washing and wringing is so hard on things,.

·      Fast reliable internet connections

·      Predictability

·      Good friends

·      Long summer days – I am really noticing the 12 hour days here, and am ready to go to sleep by about 8pm most nights.  The sun has already been down for 2 hours.

·      Street lights – this is kind of a love hate thing since I do love seeing all the stars, but I am totally night blind and can’t do anything without a flashlight at night here

·      Paved roads – not only because they are smooth, but I remember the mud during the rainy season, but now I have grit in my teeth all the time from road dirt being kicked up, and my clothes and shoes are all a different color from all the dust

·      Water pressure – this morning we had some in the shower and it was heavenly

This morning we took the “Deluxe Coach” from Mzuzu to the capitol city of Lilongwe.  It left from a much nicer location than the bus depot, which can be a scary place, not to mention confusing.  And it had reserved seats, plus we understood that they only sold the seats not standing room on this one.  We were impressed that the 7am bus left at 7:03 and only had a few people standing.  We were told it would take just over 4 hours, making it the fastest trip we have ever made if it happened.

It didn’t make the stop that other buses make in Mzimba, another northern town off the main road so I’m thinking “Wow”. But then at about the 2 hour mark, we stopped and picked up enough people that the aisles were totally packed.  And about 20 minutes later packed in a few more.  John leaned over and said “there’s always room for a few more, but at least we don’t have chickens this time (which we remembered from our 2008 bus trip), and just then he looked over and saw one of the women in the aisle cradling a chicken – to which I said, but no extra charge for the chicken or the children.

We still managed to arrive in about 4 ½ hours, which was great, and for which I am truly grateful as they had really loud music playing on the sound system the whole way.  Checked in to a lodge we found on line, which is not quite what it appeared to be in the web site, but both fell on the bed for a short nap.  The internet is painfully slow, so I’ll have to hold off on the picture of the chicken. 

Leaving Mzuzu - Safari Plans!

This is our last day in Mzuzu and I am ready for a change of scenery.  We were able to accomplish a lot, but were also not able to do one of the projects we hoped to do due to some complex internal politics - which we don't really understand as outsiders.

Tomorrow will be a long bus ride back to Lilongwe and a new place to stay that we have never tried before so that will be interesting.  Looks like a nice place and the location is better for us to work with Flemmings Nkhandwe.

What I am really excited about is a safari we just booked to Majete Wildlife Park near Blantyre.  It was nearly defunct of wildlife 20 years ago and after a concerted effort in the community to stop poaching and to protect the local farmers from damages they have successfully reintroduced wildlife to the area and hope to become a "Big 5" destination.

Here is the lodge we will stay at:
http://www.tripadvisor.co.uk/Hotel_Review-g2266232-d2641102-Reviews-Thawale_Lodge-Chikwawa_Southern_Region.html

It gets rave reviews!

Quite a weekend

We were able to see Easu on Friday before we left Ekwendeni for the northern regional capitol of Mzuzu.  He has so much on his plate right now with the students coming back from their break today, he is still teaching while function as the acting Dean of the College, and the death of his daughter.  We were surprised that he would be back to work so soon, but also not surprised with so much going on for which he is responsible.   On top of all that he said they wanted to have some kind of celebration with all the people we met to thank us.  We will phone him today and see if that will work out today or tomorrow as we think we may be leaving for Lilongwe on Wednesday. 

As usual, plans are tentative and we hope to get more information today to help us decide our next steps.  We still don’t know whether we will work for the University office in Mzuzu as there is a bunch of internal political stuff going on and find work for 2 volunteers is not their top priority right now.  We will call Flemmings Nkhandwe in Lilongwe to see if he has projects for us.  And we are not having much luck in finding a fun side trip during our time.  The one we wanted most to the National Park up in the north looks like it is not possible unless  we want to spend a small fortune – the one in the south that we wanted to the lake and the former capitol is not available until October and I hope to find out about our last option to a national park in the south.  Email is tentative, phone numbers are not always working so it is hard to make plans.

Now to our weekend!  Friday when we moved over to Mzuzu, we were in contact with Atusaye as he was coming down to Mzuzu from Livingstonia and we planned to spend time together.  Unfortunately, the University was late in issuing his paycheck to him, which he wanted to bring to town to cash.  By the time he and friend Christy left it was 3 or 4 pm when they arrived in Mzuzu so we had a late lunch with them and then they started back the 3 hours to Livingstonia.  It was great to see him one more time before we leave, but he was bummed that the time was so short as they planned to be in Mzuzu by lunch time and Christy had some shopping she wanted to do also.

We talked to Nelson on Friday and he wanted us to come to his Mom and Dad’s for dinner on Saturday night.   We arrived at their house and Nelson’s cousin Alfred, who drove us to Matiya and Mariya’s house at the lake last weekend was there with his wife who had just returned from 2 years in the US.  She is finishing up her PhD in Special Ed at the University of Missouri.  It was fun talking to her and hearing about her adventures in the US.  What a sacrafice to leave your husband and child for 2 years! 

Next, Matiya announced that the Presidential Candidate from the Malawi Congress Party(MCP) would be joining us for dinner.  He is an old friend of Matiya’s from the days that Matiya was head of the northern synod of the Presbyterian church – the candidate was head of Assemblies of God in Malawi, and they had worked together on several projects.

John and I had no idea of the protocols involved so there were a lot of awkward silences, but eventually I tried to just make conversation with him.  He seemed a delightful guy, raised by subsistence farmers like most everyone in Malawi and taught by Peace Corp volunteer teachers so his English has a southern accent which was a hoot.  At the end of the night when he was leaving he waved and said “Bye y’all”.  Matiya is very high on him and he talked about the need to end tribal differences and become one Malawi – and about the importance of education.  All of which sounded great.  John said afterwards that he had a lot of questions but didn’t dare ask them for protocol sake since the MCP was the party of the former dictator who was in power when John was here in the Peace Corps, and had been the party of a pretty bad guy left from that time also.  He is seen to be a strong candidate though, so we may be able to say we had dinner with the President of Malawi after the elections next May.

Here we all are: 

Then on to Sunday.  We phoned Nelson to see if he wanted to have lunch with us since he may be leaving to work on his research and we may be leaving soon for the south too.  After a nice lunch to get caught up on his PhD research, he asked if we wanted to attend a soccer game.  Great, we said having no plans for the day at all.  We got tickets in the VVIP section, which meant we were in the shade and got to sit on chairs, some of which had backs.  Then before the game was to begin, the man sitting next to us said that sometimes to show respect, he would bring people onto the field honor the players and would we join him.  We’re not sure what is going on but he says to just follow his lead when the time comes.

The first local game ends and then the Premier League teams take the field and he gives us the signal to get up and follow him, which we do.  We go down on the field, follow him out to where the players are lined to and shake the hand of each of the players.  As we leave the field, a guy with a “media” vest on stops us to write down our names and where we are from.  At one point I looked around, saw that there were around 1000 people at the game and we were the only ones who were white.  Apparently, that made us celebrities.  We still aren’t sure what it was about but it was fun.

It is however a bit of an embarrassment to be a celebrity simply by virtue of your skin color and place of origin.

Gratutude

Things I am grateful for - that I take for granted at home:

• Enough food to eat - and variety in the food
• Mosquitos are annoying but I don't fear getting malaria from one
• Electricity that works 99% of the time
• Plentiful hot water
• A beautiful home that would be like a palace here
• My own automobile - a luxury beyond imagination for most people here
• A predictable and comfortable public transportation system

This is only a small start of things that easily come to mind. 

The halfway point

Tuesday was my birthday – the first one I have ever celebrated in Malawi and it was fun.  Our friends from University of Washington left in the morning and we hitched a ride with them to the northern regional capitol of Mzuzu.  I was sung the happy birthday song at breakfast by John and the Washington ladies and on the phone a bit later by Flemmings. 

It was a treat to go to town and have a great cup of coffee at the Mzuzu Coffee Den and Internet café.  At one point there were 10 laptops sharing the connection so it was painfully slow, but nice to get caught up on email although I didn't catch up on my blog that day.  We had a nice lunch at my favorite A1 Indian restaurant.  Fish Masala – a nice change from all the stewed chicken, rice and veggies.

It is officially halfway through our time here and I have mixed feelings about that.  When we were here in 2008 for 6 months I think I remember going through a time where I really missed home, but knowing we were going to be here for a long time I got past it.  This time it is either because the time is shorter, or that our work is still up in the air, but I find myself wishing we had not booked 5 weeks here.

I have spent some time online at the Coffee Den on Tuesday looking for a safari or something at Lake Malawi while we are here and think we will do that after we get to Lilongwe.  Yesterday I went to bed aT 8pm and slept until morning so maybe I am just tired.

Here are a couple of scenes from everyday here.  The first was a herd of cows passing us on the walk path next to the main road here in Ekwendeni.  I said to John this is someone with some wealth if they have this many cows.  The second is a typical shot of someone working their tail off - in this case carrying a piece of furniture in a wheelbarrow like set up.  The loads people carry here over long distances are amazing.

Tragedy on Monday

This has been a very emotional day and this will be a long blog post as John received a message during the night that the Acting Principal (Dean) of the College of Health Science, Esau Kasonda, lost his 8 year old daughter during the night.  She was in the hospital when we arrived and began working with him last week, ill from Malaria but while she was there they discovered that a cancer she was diagnosed with more than a year ago had returned.  It was during the week that they learned that the cancer had spread and could not be operated on.  They had seen an oncologist and the situation didn’t look good, but we never dreamed that she would die so quickly.

We were all so saddened by the news and quite confused about what to do, both personally and culturally.  And of course, we felt the pain of every parent’s nightmare losing a child especially when we have come to know and care about Esau.  Would we try to proceed with our work, and if so when?  And the Drs. From U of Washington were planning to start their seminar at 8am this morning, but Esau’s wife was a teacher at one of the schools they expected to attend, and in a small town like Ekwendeni which is also a Presbyterian mission station, we knew that many people would know Easu’s family, or be members of the same church and thus touched by this awful loss.

The Drs. are leaving for home tomorrow so rescheduling the workshop was not an option, and many of the people coming to the seminar would have traveled long distances, so we with Flemmings good advice decided to go to the seminar site and start a bit late after paying a condolence call on Esau’s family.  It turned out that Esau was away attending to a casket and other arrangements so we started the seminar a little bit late and discovered that most of the people who were going to attend had come.  We would plan to pay our condolence call sometime during the day.

At lunchtime we learned that Esau was back home and went to the house to pay our respects and offer our sympathy.  When we arrived at the house we saw that the small casket was in the yard on a table covered with flowers and surrounded by hundreds of people there all over the yard and porch.  Flemmings explained  that service was being held to send off the body for the funeral, which will be held in their home village about 3 hours away. After the service, the family was to use the College’s small bus to travel to their home town with the body, transport was arranged for a few others but many of those 100 or so people would travel to the funeral to be joined by even more family and friends from the village. It was an amazing display of community support and love – and the power of familiar rituals at such a difficult time since the death was only about 8 hours before we arrived.  Everyone knew what to expect and how to play a part in supporting the family who has experienced such a terrible loss.  It was a very moving experience and comforting to know how much Esau would be supported.

We were about 30 minutes late in starting the session after lunch, but people were very understanding about it, and the session itself was a resounding success.  It brought together both health professionals and educators to learn more about mental/emotional health in children and how it can affect their learning.  It sounds like the Drs. are committed to an ongoing relationship with people here and were talking last night about coming back once a year to continue the work.  We are really going to miss them! Our guest house has 4 rooms, and it has been Flemmings and the 3 women here since last week when we arrived.  We have bonded over a number of experiences, not to mention today, and the guesthouse will be very quiet indeed for the rest of our time.

Of course, in addition to our sadness for Easu and his family we can’t help but wonder what will happen with our project.  We had planned on completing our interviews today and tomorrow and interviewing Esau again to fill in any of the blanks we might have on Wednesday or Thursday which would wrap up our project by the end of the week.  The College offices were closed today and will be closed again tomorrow for the funeral and burial.  It is difficult to say when Esau may be back at work or whether out interviews can be scheduled with him away since he would be the one doing the scheduling.

We were all overwhelmed by how different deaths are handled here in Africa, and how much more commonly they impact people’s lives and work – and by the amazing community support.  And I’m sure as parents, all of us were overcome with the emotion of the loss of an 8 year old child. 

The weekend

It is Saturday afternoon and I can hear children, a flute playing and our new friends from the University of Washington working with Flemmings to prepare for their Monday workshop on child mental health.  The wind is rustling the trees a bit, I am waiting for some clothes to dry and for our trip to A1 Indian restaurant in Mzuzu later tonight.

This morning I started the day with a brisk 1 mile walk to the Library to use the internet – I would be in a lot better shape if I had to do this at home!  I experimented with taking a walking path back to the guesthouse since it looked shorter to do that rather than the road.  I found a path that wasn’t too steep or slippery and cut the distance home a bit while I had a little adventure – at one point I just followed a kid on a bike as I can’t always tell where the pathways are since it is all dirt in the dry season here.

We had a pretty easy going day today with some work on our project, which we now think we may complete by the end of next week.  I read a little, did some laundry by hand to hang on the line and had a short nap after lunch.  We called some of our Malawian friends and are shocked by the cost of a call.  A 4 minute call cost about $1 US which is just crazy when we have a call plan we use from the US to call people here that only costs about $.10 per minute – so it would have been half the cost to call them from the USA.  Phones take up a huge part of people’s limited resources here, but communication is so vital people will pay for it.

Now it is Sunday and we just returned from Flemmings village where we visited his mother and attended the small church his Father dreamed of building and which Flemmings promised his Father on his deathbed that he and his brothers would complete.  We were most honored guests, sitting at the front of the church next to Flemmings who was preaching as a church elder.  We learned later that they had wanted one of us to preach and he explained that they could not spring that on us – such things were not done in America!  Thank goodness!!

Here is the church service with a little boy making himself comfortable.

The village is about 25 miles but takes about an hour to reach because only half that distance is paved and the dirt roads here are usually in pretty bad shape with this one as no exception.  Flemmings and his brothers have built his mother a very nice house by  Malawian standards, the inside is finished with cement rather than being bare brick and it has a corrugated iron roof, not thatch.  Of course it is far enough out that it has no electricity or running water. 

Here is the house.

Flemmings, of course was welcomed with great love by his family, and we were shown such love and respect too.  It is hard to accept being treated so well for no reason except that we are “visitors from America”.  We were asked to say a few words, entertained with more wonderful singing and music from handmade instruments, and after the service were invited to join in the dancing and singing.  The nursery school from the village was there and our friends from Washington had soap, stickers, books and some other gifts for the adorable kids. 

Here I am with the women from Washington, joining in the dancing and singing.

His mother had prepared a light lunch for us with tea, and after some family photos we headed back home to Ekwendeni.  Another amazing day!!

Here is Flemmings with his Mom and family. 

2 weeks now

It is hard to believe it has been 2 weeks since we left- as of tomorrow that is.  As always, the time is so packed full of experience and people that it seems impossible that we haven't been here for a month.

We are settled in Ekwendeni and enjoying the company of our good friend Flemmings Nkhandwe as well as three doctors from Washington State who are doing a needs assessment to see if they can help with child mental health.  They are so energetic and enthusiastic about trying to help schools, hospitals, the College and others with training for mental health issues.

Yesterday was the farewell party for Flemmings Nkhandwe who is leaving his job as Principal )Dean in US terms)of the College of Health Sciences here after 17 years.  He has provided amazing leadership in that time and transformed the tiny nursing and midwifery college offering certificates for about 10 students a year to the College of Health Sciences with over 200 students in certificate and diploma programs.  This fall they will start their program for Clinical Officers who function very much like doctors here.

The shortage of health care professionals is huge and the College has dreams of offering a Bachelors degree in the health science field as soon as they can upgrade their infrastructure and curriculum.  In the past 5 years they have moved their campus, built dormitories, classrooms, a library with internet service (where I am sitting right now) a food service and they have plans to do even more in the next 5 years.   They need to build housing for 90 more students and 5 or more teachers in addition to increasing the education level of teachers.

Our project is helping them assess where they are on the strategic plan that ends in 2014 so both the board and the incoming Principal will have this information.

Here is a photo from last nights celebration with Flemmings giving his speech.  Rather than taking stretch breaks during the proceedings, we took dancing breaks.  We need more of that in the US!!

Days in Ekwendeni

After returning from a leisurely 1 mile walk back from the Library at the College of Health Sciences where we did our internet work today, we had our lunch and started working on our evaluation project for the College. 

Since yesterday’s meeting with the Acting Principal we have been zeroing in on a vision for this report and today we set up a format and some tables corresponding with their 17 Strategic Objectives so we have a way to report status on each.  We took our computers out onto the khonde(cement porch) at our guest house and as we worked we could hear a cow or 2 bellowing nearby and children playing down the hill.  For a time, there was some kind of musical group practicing close by – the music was loud, but they had wonderful voices. 

The seats on the khonde are a little hard, and it does get hard on the back to sit with your computer on your lap – but it was worth it for the ambiance. We can’t see a lot of our neighbors because our guesthouse has about an 8 foot high brick fence around it, but we can see the hazy hills in the background. 

I have missed the sights and sounds of Africa.  In addition to the cows today there were children laughing and playing all afternoon within earshot. Right now I can hear what sounds like a soccer game somewhere down the hill from us – lots of voices, yelling and cheering.  Maybe it is because there is no airplane and little vehicle noise that the people noises become so prominent here, but I know I love it.  There are almost always the sounds of talking and laughing in the air.

The air is very hazy this time of year.  It is the end of their winter and dry season.  The rains will start in another month or 2 and until then there is dust everywhere.  Plus, the practice here is to burn off the fields before planting begins so there is extra smoke beyond the usual cooking fires since almost no one has electricity.

Here is the view from our Khonde

In Ekwendeni

We have finally settled somewhere long enough to unpack and not live our of our suitcases and it is wonderful!

We decided to phone Innocent, the taxi driver we used when we were here in 2008 and who our Norwegian friends have stayed in contact with, for a lift over to Ekwendeni from Mzuzu.  We had used a different taxi driver that another friend had suggested when we arrived last Tuesday, but the rate he charged us for a short trip to our hotel was quite high.  That trip was only about 3 to 5 kms and cost 2000 of the local currency (about $8) and Innocent only charged us 5000 for a trip of 20+kms.  Plus it was wonderful to see him again!  We told him how many times we had repeated something he said in 2008 about the departure of our Norwegian friends.  He is a very wise man.

Our friend Flemmings Nkhandawe arranged for us to stay at the Chizotera Guest House in Ekwendeni which is owned by his brother Sangster.  It is a very comfortable and quiet location, and to our surprise last night we were joined by 3 women who we met briefly at the Nkhoma's celebration.  They are child mental health specialists from Washington state and were recruited by the Kirk's to come and do a needs assessment with the College of Health Sciences.  The area they hope to specialize in is mental health techniques especially in dealing with orphans, and the grief that can cause problems for them.  There are over 600,000 orphans here, some due to HIV/AIDS, others to TB which has made a resurgence in drug resistant strains, malaria, and very high maternal death rates.  It has been a treat to get to know them better!

We had a wonderful meeting with the Acting Principal at the College of Health Sciences yesterday and feel reassured that we will be able to complete our project without too much trouble in the short period of time that we have.  The guesthouse is some distance from the offices and from the library which has internet, so that is a bit of a drawback.  We figured it was about 1 mile walk in each direction and we were able to get a lift over this morning from the Washington women who were coming for meeting and will only have to walk back home - hopefully with fairly cool temperatures this morning.

Weather has been good - maybe a high near 80 so very pleasant compared to what we understand is happening back home in Minnesota with temps near 100.

We haven't taken any photos since we arrived but I wanted to post this one the other day in Livingstonia and wasn't able to do so because of the internet.  This is me giving some backpacks filled with coloring books and things my Mom got for our Malawian son David Mhango's girls Ellen and Susan (born 2008 and named after me).  David's wife Naomi looks so beautiful in her Malawian dress.

I tried to upload a video of the traditional dancing from the Nkhoma's but it did not succeed, though I think it still appears below.  The internet is just not capable of doing this I'm afraid.  Maybe when we get home I can put some of the videos on. 

Monday Monday

Last night we had a great dinner with Gome Mkandawire and his wife Susan at our favorite Indian restaurant.  Not a lot of Malawians are adventurous enough to try foods that are different, but we are going again tonight to "stock up" on different foods as we will be back to rice, chicken, tomato and greens again tomorrow.

Today has been a bit relaxed as we have no where to travel and will not start our project until tomorrow probably.  The challenges of the day have been - no hot water this morning for a shower, and this afternoon there was water running out of the ceiling in the hallway, no electricity and no internet at our hotel.

We've been sitting at an internet cafe, a new one which is quite nice and in trying to charge my laptop while we sit here, my plug with the adaptor won't stay in the wall tight enough to charge so I now have my chair jammed up against it.  Soon it will be dark and we'll head home to our hotel where we hope to have electricity.

In the meantime here are a couple of more photos from yesterday.  Tomorrow we move to a small guesthouse in a small town about 10 miles away where we may or may not have hot water and don't know how far we will need to walk to find internet.

So in the meantime since I couldn't post these on the last update here are a couple of more photos from yesterday.

People gathering on the lawn at Nkhoma's

Matiya and Mariya Nkhoma joining in the traditional dancing.  I was hoping to post a video but the internet speed won't allow it. 

Nelson Nkhoma, our PhD student in Minnesota joining in the dancing. 

Sunday in Malawi

What a day it was!!

We were invited to a church service, memorial, and celebration at the home of Rev. Matiya Nhkoma - father of PhD student and Malawian son Nelson Nkhoma.

The we drove about 2 hours to a place called Chinteche, which is on Lake Malawi - one of the great lakes of Africa and the one that we had such a beautiful view of from our little home on the Livingstonia plateau in 2008.  It is a beautiful drive down from the highlands of Mzuzu, which sits about about 4200 ft elevation to the Lake, which is the color of Caribbean blue.

Chinteche is the village where Nelson grew up and where Matiya and Mariya Nkhoma have their main home.  People here are much more tied to their homelands than we are used to in the US.  If you ask someone where they are from, they will tell you the name of the village where they grew up.  If you as them where they stay, they will tell you where they are living now, and most people have a piece of land and have built or are building a home in the villages where they were born.  They will visit those homes or keep them for when they retire from work.

We attended a church service that lasted for 3 hours but which was filled with the most amazing music from the local choirs.  The service was about love and was quite delightful.  At the end Rev. Nkhoma told the history of involvement for each of the 25 or so foreign visitors who were at the 10th Anniversary celebration.  Each was recognized in front of the congregation and thanked. Here is a photo of the congregation with the Women's Guild in their black and white uniforms.

After the service, there was a brief graveside memorial for the mother of Jenny Kirk, who with her husband Henry of Chehalis Washington, helped found the University 10 years ago.  Jenny’s mother died when John and I were here in 2008, and they held a memorial service for her as she had come to love Malawi through visits from the Nkhomas to the Kirks and from the Kirks stories of their time here.  John held up a cell phone for Jenny at that 2008 service so she could hear, and her Mother requested to be buried next to the little church in Chinteche where she had helped to support orphan care.  It was very touching as those of us who played a part were given small bouquets of bouganvilla and other flowers to place on the grave.  Both the Women's Guild and the Mzuzu church's choir (in brown) paid tribute.

We were then taken to the home of the Nkhoma’s where 30 or 40 people were present, all the visitors from Mzuzu and the foreign visitors like John and I.  Matiya introduced his family – Nelson’s youngest brother Andrew was there as was Matiya’s 84 year old sister.  The Nkhoma’s house is large and the land is beautiful and just a short distance from the Lake, but does not have running water although there was electricity.  So the local women prepared food for around 50 – 60 people at an outdoor kitchen with no running water.  And it was delicious!!

When the food was eaten we walked the short distance to the lakeshore where local villagers had gathered for traditional dancing and music.  It reminded me a bit of a powwow in the US with various drum groups and dancers taking turns.  They had carried down the big chairs and loveseats we were sitting in outside at the Nkhoma’s so the honored guests would have comfortable seating.  Children were crowding around greeting us and one little girl wanted to hold my hand while we were walking down.  John said that one of the men we had been talking to up at Nkhoma’s took his hand when they were walking down and he was glad that he knew what was happening as men holding hands is a very normal sign of companionship and affection here.

We remarked that a percussionist would have a field day listening to and working with these musicians because the rhythms are so complicated.  Several of the foreign guests joined or tried to join the dancers but the foot work was quite complicated too – I thought about it but there was only one rhythm I could make sense of so I decided to sit it out. We managed to leave just in time to get back to Mzuzu before dark as the roads are quite dangerous after dark with people, cows, goats, chickens and people all on them – and potholes or other damage harder to see.  We almost hit one chicken looked like he was crossing the street but then stopped in the middle and changed direction.  Since it was getting close to dark the chickens were going home to roost and the goat and cow herders where moving their animals back home too.

The singing and dancing was still going strong and I’m sure lasted well into the night.  It was quite a magical day that we felt privileged to be invited to be a part of.

I'm going to publish a separate page with some photo's of the celebration and dancing at Nkhoma's.

As usual, an eventful couple of days!

Yesterday’s graduation was wonderful to see, almost 120 students – 3 or 4 times the number as when we were here in 2008.  The valedictorian was a woman and that showed some real change in attitude, just as we were remarking on the fact that a woman did a bible reading at the Baccalaureate service – we didn’t see women in positions of respect like that in 2008.

The graduation started about 3 or 4 hours behind schedule but I’m almost used to that by now, except that we were standing in our robes for that whole time.  Here we are waiting with Atusaye.

After the ceremony we had our first free time and walked over to where our old house was in 2008 where we found our housekeeper/cook Smelton Mkandawire who we loved and trusted so much.  He heard we were in town and was hoping to find us.  He told us he has only worked a few times since we left because there is only one volunteer house now where there were 2 then. But he will have some work for the next 4 months or so with one of the volunteers who will be teaching a course and staying in one of those houses which is occupied by a professor who is away right now.  Here are John and Smelton.

As we were walking back to Atusaye’s house we ran into the Vice-Chancellor Matiya Nkhoma, Nelson’s (the PhD student) father.  He had mentioned trying to organize a gathering at his village home by Lake Malawi this weekend and asked when we were heading back to Mzuzu.  We were waiting to hear from him or someone else with the University about transportation and he said the University’s bus would be going down to Mzuzu in about an hour’s time.  We were feeling pretty fortunate that we had bumped into him as we would not have known otherwise.

All the plans had changed from what we had last heard and from the sounds of it there would be no other transport until Monday if we didn’t do take the bus now so we decided we’d have to run home, tell Atusaye we were leaving and pack up.  The University’s controller overheard our conversation and said  that he had a car at the bottom of the escarpment and would be leaving at 10 or so today if we could get down there as the ride he was getting down had no more room.  He suggested that Atusaye may have some ideas of who to call for transport but we only made it a short distance when he ran up to tell us he had found someone who could take us if we would pay fuel cost of about $20.  That seemed worth it not to have to rush or to have to tell Atusaye we were leaving on such short notice.  So home we went, where we had a lovely evening with Atusaye chatting and just hanging out confident we were all set for this morning.  Atusaye is such a delightful and bright young man and we were so honored to be invited to be his guest - plus it gave us more time with him!

The only other loose end was our desire to see Smelton and give him some gifts and money, but since our transport was to pick us up around 9am today we figured we’d have time this morning to run over or stop on the way down.  When I awoke, John was making plans to go over to give Smelton our gifts, but when I walked out our bedroom door, Atusaye had some news.  He had phoned to check on our transport and learned that the person who was to take us down the escarpment didn’t have any fuel.  Atusaye had been trying to find someone else and come up dry so suggested we phone the vice chancellor to see if the University’s vehicle could take us down, then we phoned the controller to see if we could still have a lift if we could get to the bottom.  After about 4 or 5 schedule changes before 8am, we finally got transport arranged and ended up with a full car load down the escarpment road with about 15 minutes notice to departure – during the day so we could see some of the improvements on the road, just intended to keep it from washing out and isolating Livingstonia – still the most challenging road I have ever seen.  The controller had other transport arranged to get down the escarpment and would meet us there for the 10am departure. 

Atusaye and the driver waited with us at a little store in the village at the bottom of the escarpment until about 11:30 when the controller arrived.  Atusaye was going to ride with us, but there wasn’t enough room in the vehicle when all the luggage was loaded so he ended up taking a bus to Mzuzu.  Here we are waiting at that little store watching the action including the mini-bus stop with banana sellers.

Right now, we are in the northern regional capitol of Mzuzu, having made it to our old favorite hotel The Mimosa Court.  The rooms have wireless internet now, the location is just around the corner from 2 banks with cash machines so we stocked up on money and went to a convenience store to buy cold drinks – it felt like the Ritz.  It always felt like the height of luxury to stay at this hotel with a hot shower, large rooms, a nice restaurant and breakfast buffet – they even do laundry so we gave them our first weeks worth to be ready for next week.  It wouldn't make the 1 star list in the USA but it is luxurious here. 

So we arrived, enjoyed our hot shower, got some internet time and met Atusaye’s friend – maybe girlfriend but he is trying to decide about that – a Peace Corp volunteer who is posted a short distance away from Livingstonia.  Atusaye came down to Mzuzu to meet her after she has been gone for a month in the capitol city.  And we just got a phone call to say that our plans for tomorrow have been changed and we are being picked up at 6:30 in the morning rather than at 10am as we last heard.  All I could do was laugh!  Flexibility is the name of the game here!!!