Update from the USA

It’s been so hard to stay in touch with everyone since we got back, as one of my friends said “we did a better job staying connected while you were in Africa!”  Because of that I decided to do another post on my blog with the update since we’ve been back.  

Readjusting has been eerily easy, with us largely stepping back into our former lives after our return.  It would be hard to find 2 places more different than our lives in Minneapolis, and our lives in Livingstonia – yet I feel so comfortable in both.  I guess I’m more flexible than I think I am.  It’s been wonderful to be back and to reconnect with friends and family – in person with hugs!  It’s also been challenging to see everyone we’d like to see and catch up with.  Some of you are far away, and our schedules have been pretty jam packed trying to see everyone and get things done. 

While the adjustment has been pretty easy, there has been so much to catch up on.  Our house was well cared for by our friend who stayed there, but there is still so much that needs to be with any 80 year old house, with large gardens and that had a leaky roof before we left.  John went back to work just days after we returned and I started a part time temporary job just a week or so after we got back that was supposed to be for 6 weeks and lasted for over 12 so far.  I thought with a part time job, I’d have lots of time for other things – projects around the house etc – forgetting what a full time job it is to look for a job in the "spare time" I had after finishing work each day.

We’ve been using our OneSuite 12 cent a minute calling plan(and now I’ve found another – total call that is only 10 cents a minute) to stay in touch with people back in Malawi, and I have included the most recent photos I have of my namesake Baby Susan and her family taken about a month ago by another volunteer who has returned home.  Some of you may know that she got Whooping Cough just a few days after we returned to the US and it was so hard to be so far away with her so sick – they weren’t sure she was going to make it for a couple of days, but she pulled through and as you can see looks healthy and hardy.  She was too young to be vaccinated yet when it happened, just 6 weeks old and vaccinations are done at 8 – Malawi does vaccinate at clinics, but of course mothers have to bring their babies some very long distances oftentimes.

Baby Susan was just diagnosed a week or so ago with Asthma, but her cough doesn’t seem too bad – just at night – and very healthy otherwise fortunately.  They got some medicine, but it hasn't helped and they were told there was no other medicine that could be given until she is older – she’s just 4 ½ months old.

Her father David Mhango had to "gut his way through" a bout of Malaria that had him so weak he could hardly hold his head up or walk more than 100 meters – this from the man that walked for 6 hours to and from his job interview for the Census – in order to take his entrance exams for the Natural Resources College.  He had to walk 18 miles up and down a 1500 foot hill, and take buses for about 10 hours to get there in that condition.  We are still waiting to hear results, and told him before we left that would support him and his family if he is accepted.  If not there, we’ll look at other places where he could continue his education. 

Our other student friend Atusaye, who some friends have helped with school fees, is back for his 3rd year of school and received a tearful sendoff from the clinic he had worked at as a volunteer during his term break.  We helped support his family and made the introductions so he could do that, as we know how much he wants to be a Dr.  This was the same Dr. that treated me when I had Malaria, and we knew he'd be a wonderful help and mentor, which he has been.  He's hoping to go back during the next term break and is saving money so that he can do that.  When we offered to help again, he said he wanted to be independent and do it himself.  He has such spirit and drive.   

So back to the job news for me.  Just this morning I accepted a sales-marketing job with Global Volunteers, a non-profit based in the Twin Cities that was the first organization of it's kind when it started in 1984.  They arrange 1, 2, or 3 week trips for about 2,500 people annually to do volunteer work in 20 countries around the world.  I've known about them for years as they picked up the volunteer project that I worked on at the orphanage in Romania in the early 1990's.  I am very excited about this job, as I will have the opportunity to talk to people who are considering this work that I has had so much meaning for me.  Their web site is http://www.globalvolunteers.org if you want to learn more about them, and I'll give you my new phone number as soon as I have it in case you or someone you know would like to talk to someone about these projects.   Have them ask for me and I'll be happy to help.

It's hard for me to believe that I could find a job that fits so well with my values and interests, and I couldn't be more thrilled.  I'm also excited about the fact that they try annually to send employees to "sample" these trips and learn more.  Talk about getting paid to do something you love.  I'm feeling so fortunate to be able to do work that I love at this point in my life.

Coming Home Today

June 17, 2008

Our last day in Africa.  I think it finally hit me this morning.  I woke up early – in Lilongwe, you hear the call to prayer at the mosque only a half mile away – and found myself thinking “I won’t hear that sound again” and the same thing with the birds singing outside our window, and the traffic starting up on the street nearby. And that’s not to mention the sounds of morning in Livingstonia – roosters starting to crow in the distance at 3 or 4 in the morning, women coming to get water at 5 or so, children playing around that same time, hens clucking at their chicks or having little tussles with other hens, neighbors cleaning and washing and taking goods to market.  And the beautiful sunsets here … I don’t know if it is the dust, or the nearness to the equator, but the sunsets are so beautiful.  I feel like I don’t want to miss a moment of our last few hours here.

Justin arrived around 4 in the afternoon after having gotten up at 3:30 to get to the 6:30 bus from Blantyre.  Unfortunately, there was “a logistics problem” as Justin put it, and the bus didn’t leave until 11:30.  Such a long day for him to come and say goodbye and go to the airport with us – it is so Malawian.  When we left last October, Justin went to the airport with us too, and after we say for an hour or so in the waiting area, when we left we could see Justin waiving his hat at us from the observation deck – all the way to the airplane.  There’ll be more tears today I think. 

One last photo of a sunset in So.Luangwa, but it doesn’t really capture the color.

Back from our Safari

June 13, 2008

I am sitting on the upstairs balcony of our chalet at Track and Trails Camp in South Luangwa National Park in Zambia, and am watching some hippos in the river and listening to them snorting.  We arrived here yesterday around 3pm after about 3 hours on a good paved road, and about 3 hours on a fairly bad dirt road – not as bad as we thought it would be.

This is a budget version of lodging but it is really lovely - a 2-story chalet roofed in a beautiful thatch with an irregular scalloped border and decorative tufting on the top ridge.  There’s a king sized bed on the main level, and a sleeping loft with a double bed on the second floor, along with the second floor knode railed in small peeled logs.  Elephants come through the camp quite regularly, even during the day, and since it is on the river, hippos apparently come quite regularly during the night – although the river is low right now and the banks are steep and about 15 -20 feet high where we are.  The river flooded the entire camp during the rainy season this year, which is hard to picture.

This was a great thing to do after leaving Livingstonia, as it feels totally like vacation, and a distraction from having left all our friends there.  We went on a 4/12 hour game drive starting at 6am this morning, and as we were entering the park only 5 minutes from our lodge, there was a small herd of Elephants by the entrance gate, and only about 20 feet from our open topped vehicle.  I leaned over and asked John if our guide, Gondwe, had a pistol or anything and I’m still not sure but stopped worrying about it very quickly as the animals don’t seem bothered in the least.  Of course we haven’t seen lions, leopards, civits or hyenas yet, so that might get me concerned again.  Hopefully tonight we see one or more of them as this is one of the few parks in Africa that allow, night drives, so we will go back out in a few hours.

On today’s drive we saw elephants, impala, puku antelope, hippos, crocodiles, zebra, giraffes, warthogs, baboons, velvet monkeys, a herd of about 500 cape buffalo and about 30 species of birds – and there are probably some that I don’t remember.  I thought Liwonde was great when we were there last year, but this park is about 8 times the size, and has a much greater variety of species and habitat.  We had to get up around 5am this morning for the drive, so I’m going to take a nap before we go tonight.

June 14, 2008

We are back from today’s morning drive, and both it and last nights drive were amazing. We went out at around 4pm last night so were in the park while it was still light, all the way through dusk and the beautiful sunset.  They use a powerful light after dark to look for the shining eyes mostly, ignoring the ones that we saw through the day especially the antelope, which have eyes that would be damaged by the light.  In fairly short order, we saw hyenas and then came upon a pride of lions with a recently killed zebra.  We couldn’t have been more than 15 or 20 feet from them and at one point I heard the bones crunch.  It was 2 or 3 females and 2 or 3 cubs, and while I thought I’d be horrified by what had happened and what we were watch – including the red muzzles when the lions looked up at us, it was fascinating. 

As we left, there were more hyenas in the area, but our guide says not enough to get the kill away from the lions.  And today when we went back the lions were all lying around in the shade, and I think we got even closer than last night as they didn’t seem to care much about us being there.  The male lion was there too, and Gondwe says that is probably because he needed to come and help protect the kill from the hyenas last night.  The lions were all very sleepy and had eaten most of the zebra and dragged it to the bushes so it wasn’t quite as easy to see them as they were all lying around in the shade of the bushes with their zebra. 

Yesterday it was cloudy all day, so never really got that warm, but today there is not a cloud in the sky so it has warmed up a lot.  It has been very cool at night, but with the clouds, not as cool last night either.  The first night I slept in a fleece top as I didn’t bring any warm nightclothes, but last night was probably around 65 and very comfortable. 

We’re off to brunch shortly and I think I nap will be in order as there were 4 elephants munching on the tree about 10 feet from our door at about 11:30 last night so very little sleep was had until awhile after they left when my heart rate slowed down again.  It was amazing how much noise they made.  John and I were both ready to accuse the other of rummaging around in a large plastic bag that we brought, and I remember thinking “my god, hasn’t he found what he is looking for yet!” and then I saw him standing in the doorway and realized it was something else – got up and saw the elephant.

June 15, 2008

We are back in Lilongwe after another dusty drive, but a little shorter than the drive there.  Last nights drive was amazing.  We went to see the lions again, and pulled up about 15 feet from one of the females who was lying down with a full belly.  Just across a short gully, they had pulled the carcass into the bushes and the male still was with them and mostly they were still resting, and the cubs were playing.  I hadn’t noticed that there was another lion by the one resting closest to us, and it got up to walk passing about 10 feet away from us.  When I saw it I gasped and our guide apologized, because I was kind of scared since our vehicle was wide open. 

Our other big sighting for the night was a leopard, and a civet cat, although we didn’t get close enough to get a photo of either of them.  It was very exciting to see them though.

It was quite amazing to see all those animals so close to our open vehicle the whole time.  And while we were having either breakfast or tea at the hotel, an elephant walked through camp about 20 or 30 feet away from us.  In fact today when we were leaving, there were 3 elephants at the exit to our hotel, and we tried pulling up the vehicle, but that just made the smallest male look a little aggressive, so our driver gunned the engine sounding like a big roar and they finally moved away. I’m putting a selection of the photos from the park.

It gets stranger and stranger to think that we are leaving in 2 days.  As we were driving back today on hours of dirt road that must be just impossible during the rainy season, I said “I’ll never look at Minnesota potholes in quite the same way again”.  While I’m trying to stay present to all that is happening here, I’m trying to find a way to picture myself in Minnesota again.  I was trying to picture working on the garden at home, and thinking that I need to get to a farmers market when we get home, as I don’t think I can tolerate food that’s not fresh anymore.  Also, we both gained so much weight on this trip that I need to start eating much healthier than we have and doubling up on the fruits and vegetables with less fried or heavy foods.

I’m trying to think of what clothes I can leave behind since my suitcase is way too heavy and there are still clothes I don’t need that I know people here will need much more.  Our friend Justin is coming to see us off at the airport, and I have several dresses to give him for Esther and her sisters. 

The internet isn’t working at the hotel in Lilongwe, so it may be tomorrow before I can send this.  

Second Posting about Leaving Malawi

June 11, 2008

We are in Lilongwe, and it has been so busy and emotionally draining that I didn’t get a chance to finish the last blog beofe I published it.  We ran around all day yesterday saying goodbye to people and taking phone calls from people.  I called David to say how sorry we were that we didn’t see him before we left, and he said he saw the car pulling away as he was coming up the hill.  I really felt bad then and said that I had wanted to give him a hug before we left – something that is somewhat unMalawian as people tend to be more formal than that – and he said he had wanted to do the same thing.  I really wanted to cry when I heard him say he saw us driving away.  Than he asked us to call him to let him know we got to Lilongwe safely and to let him know when we get back from Zambia safely. 

Atusaye called us too – John had given him some of his shirts and a book at lunch yesterday – and he wanted to let us know he had bought a shirt for his younger brother and given it to him telling him it was from us and that we had asked Atusaye to tell him that when he wore it he should remember that we loved him even though we were going to be far away.  That one made John cry when he was on the phone and me cry when John told me after hanging up.  He also wanted us to know Dr. Mkandawire let him observe a surgery yesterday – 4 days onto this volunteer job.  He was so excited.  We are so excited that Dr. Mkandawire has seems to take a liking to him, and has taken him under his wing 

Then we went to dinner with the Principal and Bursar from the College of Nursing, who bought dinner for us at an expensive restaurant(which I know they can’t afford), and brought us a carved table to take home as their gift.  We enjoyed working with them so much, and John is really hoping that he can get a partnership going between them and the Nursing College at the U – and maybe get the Principal to the US to visit as well.  Another sad goodbye

It was an emotionally exhausting day, and I was completely shot by the time we got home around 9pm.  Didn’t sleep all that well, getting a cramp in my calf around 4:30 this morning – which hasn’t happened for ages.  We needed to be up by 5:30am to have breakfast at yet another persons place and then head off on the 5 hour drive down here. 

It is so strange, and disorienting to think about going home, and I’m so glad that we have this safari in Zambia to look forward to.  I’m trying to approach this as though we were now on vacation, and even had a beer for lunch when we arrived around 1:30.  I’m sure it will take awhile to process all that is happening in my head and heart, and it all feels pretty unreal for the time being. 

This photo is one of the last sunrises we saw before we left with the rays coming through the clouds onto the lake and the mountains in the background.  It’s hard to believe I won’t see that again.

Leaving Livingstonia

June 7, 2008

It’s hard to believe it’s been a week since I’ve had time to write, and such an eventful week. 

We had a great dinner in Lilongwe with our friend Jeff who just arrived, and David Chapman the U of M Professor who is visiting and working here with his research assistant. Nelson made a wonderful impression with some insightful comments, and Professor Chapman reassured Nelson that he was ready for this program as well as giving him some great practical information.  Unfortunately, Professor Chapman said it would not be possible to get Nelson started in September of this year, and told us it was not wise to start in January since the students move through the program as a cohort.

Nelson has to get funding from somewhere, and he has to secure his student Visa, which he can’t get until he has the funding.  Visa’s take around 3 months to process so you can see why it would be impossible for him to start in September.  We were afraid he’d be very disappointed about the delay, but I think he might have been a little relieved about the extra time, as he will be able to prepare better.  We were just disappointed that we wouldn’t see him this fall, and his father who is a high official with the Presbyterian Church here, is going to be coming to the U.S. for 6 months on a program, so it’s too bad they wouldn’t be in the U.S. at the same time.  There’s a picture of Nelson and John on the blog today taken the next day before we left.

Our bus ride up the next day went smoothly and we had a bit more room than we did on the way down.  I think Jeff got kind of a kick out of the ride, but he seemed a little stunned.  Not quite as much luggage piled in this time either as the bus wasn’t quite as packed at the last time.  The bus has to be emptied out at one checkpoint along the road (these are set up periodically to check for contraband or drugs) and as we exited the bus I noticed a plastic bag on the floor with a live chicken in it – the chicken looked fine, although mightly confused, and I wondered how they got it to just sit there so quietly.

Our time in Mzuzu was a whirlwind, starting with breakfast with the Principal of the Nursing College as we had an assessment report we had prepared for him on their 2003-08 strategic plan requested by their board of directors.  From there we went to lunch at the home of one of the students we have helped and formed a friendship with.  Atusaye Kayuni is a second year student who was our Norwegian friend Bruce’s right hand man for all computer things before Bruce and Karin were sent home.  Atusaye is the kind of kid who helps everyone everywhere, and his financial situation is horrible as his father was a 28 year employee of the government who is owned a lot of money for back pay and retirement that he has been in court trying to get for several years.  Atusaye’s mother died of uterine cancer about 5 years ago, and since he is the eldest, his mother asked him to promise to care for his 4 brothers and sisters – a promise he has taken very seriously.

So we went there for lunch, which Atusaye and his brothers prepared, since there is no woman in the house to do that anymore, and it was a huge feast that made me feel guilty knowing how little money they have to buy such food.  We met his father, who tried to explain his situation and is clearly very vulnerable, nearly breaking into tears several times as he described how first he lost his job, then the 400 cows his father left him got hoof and mouth disease leaving only a few healthy ones, then his wife got cancer and died, and he has not had money to pay school fees for his children so his oldest daughter got married young and is now pregnant. He kept saying he had failed, and I tried to tell him what a fine young man he had raised.  Atusaye obviously has his hands full with his family and acting as the head of the household since about age 15 when his Mother died.

Next he took us to his Aunt’s restaurant to have cake, which was made by a friend who is a baker and caters lots of weddings and celebrations locally.  Atusaye had gotten a cake for Bruce and Karin when they left too, and carried it on a mini-bus for the 3 hour trip from Mzuzu and probably up the 3 hour walk from the main road as well.  That one was a little worse for the wear when it arrived from that long journey but ours was beautiful, and had “Farewell John and Susan” written on it.   His aunt provided sodas for us, and we sat outside in the sunshine and enjoyed our cake, although both John and I almost started to cry when he brought it out.  A photo from the celebration is on the blog today with a little bit of the cake showing at the bottom of the picture.

Atusaye wants so badly to be a Doctor, and we, Bruce and Karin, my Mom, John’s former Brother in Law and his Sister all have helped to pay his school fees for the last year – he is a second year student.  We’ve spoken to the Vice Chancellor and his wife about taking him on to repair and maintain the computers now that Bruce is gone so he can pay his way, and they’ve said they think he should just receive a scholarship with no work strings attached, which we hope they will be able to arrange. 

We made introductions for him to Dr. Mkandawire who is the well-known Dr. who treated my Malaria.  Dr. Mkandawire struggled for a long time to become a Dr. and we knew that he would understand Atusaye’s desire and might be able to advise him.  Atusaye wanted to volunteer in his clinic for the summer, but since his family needed money for food would have to find paying work instead. So we said we would give him that money so he could work with Dr. Mkandawire and learn.  He had his first day this week and called us on his lunch break so excited – he was working in the lab and learning to use the microscope and could hardly contain himself for joy.  That carried us through the whole day.

Our first day back on the plateau, we had 17 visitors, tying our previous record on our fist day here back in January.  After having been gone for 2 weeks, everyone wanted to stop by and greet us and welcome us back.  It was exhausting, but so nice to see everyone again.  We had been gone long enough to really miss our friends here – which helps us to know what it will feel like when we leave here on Tuesday.  As the week went on, we continued to have lots of visitors, most of whom stayed a long time trying to spend all the time they can with us.  When David Mhango came yesterday, he said, “I have to see you tomorrow and Sunday and Monday and what time do you leave on Tuesday  --  I have to spend all the time I can with you because it will be a long time before I can see you again”

Later today we’ll walk down to David's house with our friend Jeff, and see the family and my namesake who is nearly a month old already.  Jeff walked down to see Manchewe Falls yesterday, so that’ll help prepare him for today’s walk.  Unfortunately, I’m not prepared for todays walk and know that I’ll be suffering by the time I get back up here. 

June 8, 2008

I’m actually doing better this time than I did the last time we walked up and down that big hill into the valley.  It was not wet, so the footing was much better and I think that took less effort.  It took us about 35 minutes to go down, and about 45 to come back up, and David does it in about 15 either direction.  The Malawians run down these hills, saying that works better, but I’d break my ankle or head I’m sure.  The paths are full of erosion ruts, rocks and wind all over the place, and are so steep sometimes that I had to put my hand down to steady myself or grab some grass to pull myself up.  I’m starting to get a bit stiff, so we’ll see how tomorrow feels.  Jeff is out hiking again today, so he’s going to be in great shape by the time we leave. 

We purposely told David that we’d come around 1:30 after lunch, thinking that they wouldn’t have to feed us if we came then.  We should have known better, and after having eaten a big sandwich just before we went down, they had prepared lunch for us, with rice, eggs, chicken, chips(French fried potatoes) and then fresh papaya and banana for desert – all from their farm.  David’s mother Ellen was watching us and always wanting us to take more food.  We tried to explain that we had just eaten - I’m not sure it helped and we laughed later about how different the customs are here, like the relatives we remember from our childhood who were insulted if you didn’t take enough of the food they prepared vs. these days feeling like you shouldn’t take too much food if you are a guest.  Times have not changed on that one here.

David has started building his new house, which will be laid out just like the one we have been living in here.  He took all the measurements at our house, and has built a kiln so he could make bricks from the local clay.  He has had the location picked out for a long time, and it is just up the side of the valley a very short walk from his parents with a great view out over the lower part of the vally and their farm.  The money he has made from his job with the census is helping to pay for some cement and iron sheets for the roof, but he is just using mud as mortar for the bricks as cement is too expensive for that.  He’ll use the cement to pour a floor. 

This is a very good job, although it will be a difficult one with 36 enumerators working under him who each need to see 500 families in person over a 3 week period.  He has to check over all of their work, make sure they have all the materials they need and help with any problems they may have.  All on foot over about a 100 square mile area - it seems like an impossible task, but we are so happy for him to have money coming in, along with a real job with real status and responsibilities. We have sent in another resume and retyped his cover letter for him for another government job similar to this one but working on the elections, which are coming up.  When we leave, we are giving him a CD with all these files on them, but since there are really no computers around here, we’re not sure what he will do – although there will be more volunteers coming over the summer that may have computers and be willing to help.  He has been deciding on a program for school too, and is looking at a 2 year certificate program in Agriculture, and we reassured him again that we would pay his tuition when he is accepted. 

Of course we also got to see baby Susan too, and she has grown so much already.  She was sleeping the whole time we were there and I said to David that she seems to be a really good sleeper, and he said “yes, except she sleeps all day and doesn’t sleep at night and wakes up crying and disturbing the whole house.”  His house is only about 1 or 2 small rooms and his brother and mother live within about 50 feet too, so I can see what he means – there is no where to go with a crying baby.  There is a picture of me holding Susan again from this visit and you can see what a cutie she is with her long silky hair.

It is so strange to think that we will not see her again until she is much older.  When we got ready to leave yesterday, David almost had both John and I in tears as he talked about how different it will be when he comes up to Livingstonia and we are not there, and about how much our friendship has meant to him.  He looked like he was about ready to cry too, and his Mother and Father thanked us again for coming to see him, and for all that we have done to help David.  We told him and his parents how much their friendship has meant to us too.  Leaving is going to be very hard for so many reasons like this, but this one particularly will be hard for me. 

June 10, 2008

We have left Livingstonia for the last time, and I intended to publish this blog today since we are back where we can do internet, but the internet was so slow that I decided to wait until tomorrow when we are in Lilongwe hopefully.  I’m sorry this is so lengthy and wish I could have at least broken it up a bit.

It has been a very emotional time leaving.  Yesterday there was a farewell party for us attended by about 30 people and arranged by Jenny Kirk, the vice-chancellors wife who unfortunately was unable to attend because after 10 years of coming to Malawi, she’s got malaria.  While I’m not usually one for those kinds of parties, it was really lovely, and I was afraid there’d be lots of speeches, but there were only a couple of short ones.  In fact it was wonderful to see everyone one more time before leaving.

The idea that we were leaving seemed very strange, and still does.  It’s very hard to believe that we will not get up tomorrow morning and greet Smelton and Tawonge, and have David and Trynos stop by, or be working on one of the projects at the Colleges.  We left around 7:30 this morning, which was good, it didn’t give us much time to think or have to say more goodbyes.  The only unfortunate thing was that David Mhango was going to stop by, and thought we wouldn’t leave until 8am or so, so we didn’t see him – but he was at the party yesterday and we will be calling him from time to time. 

It’s about 4:30pm and all we have done is say our goodbyes today.  Lots of tears have been shed, and we still have more goodbyes to come.  Nelson Nkhoma took a mini-bus for 3 hours to come up and see us only to turn around and go back later today.  He brought me a chitenje, which is the sarong type cloth that is traditional wear for women here.  I have to run, more later.

Exciting news this morning

May 31, 2008

We’ve had an exciting start for the day today, and the emotional roller coaster continues.  Our young friend Nelson Nkhoma, eldest son of the General Secretary of the Presbyterian Synod, which oversees the University of Livingstonia came down to Lilongwe to meet us, and to have dinner with David Chapman from the University of Minnesota as I mentioned in my last blog.  Nelson was one of the first class of graduates at the Livinstonia last fall and John helped him to apply for graduate school at the University of Minnesota, a few months ago.  Nelson has been waiting to hear about his acceptance, but since he has no access to internet at the rural school where he teaches had not been able to check the status of his application for while.

He took a night bus to Lilongwe to be our guests at the our hotel here so he could meet Daved, and arrived very early this morning, around 6:15am (actually it turns out the bus left Mzuzu early and arrived here around 2am and Nelson just slept on the bus waiting to phone us until this morning).  So we went for breakfast as soon as they started serving at 7am, and John suggested that since the hotel has wireless internet access he could get his laptop for Nelson to check email while we waited to be served.  It turned out to be a pretty monumental decision.  When Nelson went to check the status of his application, it said that the decision letter was posted and when he opened the letter learned that he had been accepted. 

It was a pretty amazing thing to witness, as he and John were both sitting across from me, and at first I was worried that Nelson had not been accepted since the look on his face looked almost pained.  Fortunately, I looked at John and could see him break into a big smile as he had read the letter over Nelson’s shoulder (and being a native English speaker, was able to speed read), and was waiting for Nelson to finish reading and realize what it said.  The look on Nelson’s face when he read the news was a mixture of shock, disbelief and ultimately joy that I haven’t had the pleasure of witnessing before, and almost immediately after it registered that he had been accepted, he started to weep with joy and try to hide his face because he was embarrassed to be weeping.  We were all weeping actually as we were the first to congratulate him, and he kept repeating “I have no words” and wiping his eyes on his hand and his shirt. 

So it turns out that when we have dinner early this evening with David Chapman, Nelson will be having dinner with one of his future professors.  The challenge that still remains will be helping him to arrange financing for this.  The cost of the airplane ticket alone is probably equal to more than Nelsons annual salary as a newly graduated Secondary School teacher, but hopefully with the connection of the Presbyterian church, a sponsor can be found for him in the US, maybe from one of the churches in the Twin Cities area. 

As John and I have talked about what we considered to be our greatest accomplishments and the things that have made us the happiest while we have been here, helping David Mhango get a good job was one, and John said that if Nelson got accepted into graduate school that would be his biggest.  After the events in Mzuzu, where we were worried that we had witnessed the destruction of one Malawian’s life (which thank goodness didn’t happen), in less than a week, we get to see a life changing event of a different kind.  And since Nelson’s Master’s program is in Education Management, we know that it will have an even greater impact on all of Malawi when he returns after his schooling. 

John and Nelson have gone to the airport to collect Jeff, and I am going to lay down for a bit as I have a little headache, but the excitement will continue, and the knowledge that our friends Steve and Mary Ellen will be coming back in March, and Nelson will be coming to the US in September will make the leaving easier as there will still be strong connections to this place.  

Back to Lilongwe after relaxing at the beach

May 28, 2008

I’m sitting on the konde of our room at the Livingstonia Beach Hotel where our friends Justin and Esther Funsani arrived yesterday to be our guests for 2 days.  We were afraid Esther would not be able to join us as she has been having problems with her health for the past 6 months or more – very high blood pressure.  She is old enough to retire from her job as Chief of Police at Chileka (near the international airport in Blantyre, the largest city in Malawi), but Justin says she is a workaholic and doesn’t know how to stop.  He retired from his job as librarian at the American Embassy several years ago, and they have been building a home in Mulanje, one of the most beautiful parts of Malawi where Esther is from and where her extended family still lives. 

She has been wanting us to come to Blantyre again to see thrm, but I was reluctant to put that kind of strain on her, as she fusses to make things fancy when we are there, and in addition, it is about a 10- 12 hour trip by bus to get there.  So John and I decided that perhaps if we met at Livingstonia Beach, which is near Justin’s home village, it would be a treat for them that they would never spend the money on, and would be about 5 – 6 hours journey for both of us, so a place kind of halfway in-between that would put less strain on them.

When they arrived yesterday, Esther called me by the Chichewa name for Sister, and Justin took us aside to tell us how grateful they both were for what we were doing.  John has spoken privately with Justin when he last came about providing them with money to make up the difference between Esther’s salary and her pension, in hopes that it will encourage her to retire, as we are concerned that the job is not helping her health. We plan to repeat that offer with Esther present in hopes that they will accept.  Justin and Esther support a lot of family members, and we want to position our gift of monthly support as just another family member helping out, since they consider us to be family and in this tribal culture the extended family helps each other out monetarily and in other ways as well. 

May 29, 2008

Back in Lilongwe at our new favorite hotel the Kiboko Town Hotel.  Both this hotel and the Livingstonia Beach have wireless internet and I’m feeling really spoiled by that – and we were pleasantly surprised at how fast the connection was at Livingstonia Beach considering we were kind of in the boonies.  I think it is because we share the connection with so many more people here in Lilongwe but I’m not sure I’ll have enough speed to put more than one photo on today’s blog, so I’m sending along the photo of Esther and I with the chitenje she gave me.  These sarong type skirts are the traditional garb for women here, and although it isn’t the one in the photo, she bought enough fabric to make 2 chitenje, one for her and one for me, her sister.

May 30, 2008

I fell asleep not long after I finished typing yesterday and I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.  We were both feeling pretty lazy after we arrived yesterday, and when I think about the events of the past few weeks, and the next few weeks, I guess it should come as no surprise that we’d be exhausted.  It was nice to have a down day yesterday and again today, and then Jeff will come tomorrow morning, along with Nelson Nkhoma, the University of Livingstonia graduate John has been helping with an application to graduate school at the U of M – and small world that it is, David Chapman from the U of M will be here in Lilongwe tomorrow as well on a ASAID project, and he would be the head of the graduate program Nelson has applied for.  That’s why we told Nelson we would pay for his lodging if he could make the 6-hour trip down to meet David.  Confirming the small world, Jeff was at a dinner party at a friend’s house in Minneapolis about a month ago, and David was a guest at the same dinner.  Sometimes these coincidences are beyond understanding.

I’ve spent the morning looking at job sites and actually applied for one job online.  It seems very weird to think about as I sit here listening to the sounds of Africa, people, music, cars, and Chichewa being spoken, but our thoughts are turning increasingly to home, and the resumption of our lives there in a few weeks.  

One of our worst days

May 27, 2008

Yesterday was one of the worst, or at least most stressful days we’ve had since we’ve been here.  It started well, with a fairly smooth and timely handoff of the Architecture group to the Kirks at around 9am, with us actually leaving the offices by around 9:30am.  We had hoped to leave Mzuzu at 8am, so I was already feeling a bit stressed, although 2 hours late isn’t bad for Malawi time, especially as it relates to departure by vehicle. But I hadn’t slept well, and was getting tired of the role of “tour guide” even though the group was quite delightful and fun.  My introvert nature was kicking in, and I just wanted to get to our beach place and relax alone with John for the day, since John’s old friends Justin and Esther Funsani will be coming to join us tomorrow.

The trouble came when we were leaving Mzuzu and discovered that one of the students had left their shoes in the vehicle, plus we needed to stop at the bank
ATM for more cash.  To save time, we told Mabvuto to drop us at the bank, and then go back to the University office to give someone the shoes so they could be returned to their owner, and return to pick us up.  The car park was full, and a vehicle was blocking the entrance, so he stopped on the street just long enough for us to hop out.  We got our cash and waited, and waited, and tried to call Mabvuto, and finally he showed up and hopped out of the vehicle saying “I’ve been met with a problem”, and he looked sick. 

We learned that he had been stopped by the police about a block from the bank, and was given a citation for obstructing traffic, plus his license had been taken away and he was to appear in court the next day.  John and I knew immediately that he would lose his job over this, and in Malawi, losing a job isn’t just a problem like it is in the U.S. it’s a disaster.  Mabvuto only has his Junior School Certificate meaning he finished 2 years of Secondary School as his family had no more money to pay the school fees(only primary school is free here), and with a Jr. Certificate, jobs are few and far between. Even with the equivalent of a High School Diploma, there are few jobs and while I haven’t seen an unemployment figure lately it it always over 50%.  Mabvuto has 4 children, and 2 are in Secondary School, which means school fees for them, and without his job he and his wife (who is a Primary School teacher, making little money) would not be able to educate their children, and possibly not be able to eat.

John and I were sick and started trying to problem solve a way to get this fixed.  Mabvuto had already argued with the officer for 20 minutes or so at the time it happened, but the officer gave him his phone number, so John called him.  The officer had moved to a different spot and it was very noisy to hear on the phone, so he suggested that we come there to talk.  We drove a couple of miles and discovered that there were about 10 officers, with radar who had set up a speed trap on a dangerous and busy stretch of road. 

Mabvuto wanted to talk to the officer himself first, so he went off to do that and John and I sat in the van watching and feeling totally helpless and more concerned by the minute.  John said, “I wish he would have let us come with him” and finally decided to go stand outside of the vehicle where the officers could see him.  We had decided that we would say we had insisted he stop in hopes that they would let him off.  You hate to have it be the case, but we thought the mzungu presence might make a difference.  Mabvuto came back after what seemed like forever, and said there was nothing to be done.  John said lets go back, and I stayed with the car since it wasn’t locked – so now I’m the one watching from afar feeling helpless and wanting to cry.  After a short while, Mabvuto came back looking absolutely sick and saying, maybe this was God’s will that he not have this job, and that if he had to go to jail because he couldn’t pay the fine, that would be that.  He just kept shaking his head saying, “I don’t understand, I didn’t kill anyone, and I looked before I stopped and put no one in danger – I’d never put anyone in danger”

He went back to be with John, and for awhile both of them were just standing on the side of the road together talking.  Then John crossed the street and spoke to a woman and came back saying she had told him we should all go back to the station and get this sorted out.  That sounded hopeful so we drove the mile or 2 back to the station and watched her walk back and forth from office to office with Mabvuto, until finally she came and said they had arranged to have his court hearing today.  And then some guy came and gave us the keys to the vehicle and said we could be on our way has they had no problem with us, it was the driver who was at fault and would have to go to court and pay a fine.  I asked what the fine was and started to cry saying the least we could do would be to pay the fine since it was our fault for asking him to stop and he was going to lose his job over this. 

They started talking to each other to determine the fine amount and one of the men told us we could sit in his office to wait.  This man said something about Mabvuto being able to go to court to pay his fine right away, and I started to cry even more saying to him, “ but he is going to lose his job over this and it’s our fault.”  The officer said, “no I don’t think he will lose his job” and we both said “yes he will, they will fire him for this”.  The officer tried to make some small talk with John and John mentioned that we were here as volunteers for the University of Livingstonia.  By this time, I’m blubbering, feeling like we have ruined Mabvuto’s life and wondering to myself how we can help support his family, and trying to figure how to best rearrange the next few days so we can go to court with him and try to talk the judge into dropping these charges.  The officer left the room for awhile, and when he came back it was to say he had decided that, under the circumstances since we were visitors who were there to help Malawi, it was better to give our driver a warning and that we should wait while someone brought his license back. 

At that I started to cry even harder, thanking him profusely.  I was having a hard time stopping crying as he asked more about the work that we were doing, and then telling us that he was also a Baptist minister with a new church and a project around HIV/AIDS which he gave us some information about.  I said perhaps we could find some people in the U.S. to help with his project. He talked about how much Malawi depends on the help of people like us and how important it is for us to have a good experience so we will tell others who may come back to help more.  He introduced us to the woman officer and told us she was the chief traffic officer for Mzuzu, and I think he was the chief of police. 

I was still blubbering a bit, and feeling the strain of the last few hours of worry about Mabvuto, who was in the next room all this time, and after about 15 or 20 more minutes the female officer came in the room with Mabvuto’s license in hand, and they went to get him.  They sat him down and gave him a lecture about safety and the danger involved in what he did, as well as the responsibility to keep us safe.  We chatted some with the woman who was the chief traffic officer and told her that we were on our way to meet Justin and Esther Funsani, and wondered if she might know Esther since Esther was once chief of police in Mzuzu, and is currently chief at Chileka airport district near Blantyre.  Yes, the woman knew Esther and wanted us to greet her.  John’s and my back up plan was to try calling Esther if we couldn’t have any luck any other way to see if there was anything she could do to help, but the anti-corruption movement is very strong, and we didn’t want to “pull strings” in any improper way.  I also mentioned the number of other volunteers that Mabvuto had been driving for the past few days to reinforce how good their decision had been, and how many people would have been negatively affected as we had all become close to Mabvuto. 

Finally we walked off to the vehicle and just sat there for awhile before making off, with Mabvuto talking about how we had saved his life and us talking about how worried sick we had been.  I still couldn’t really even talk without crying.  After a few minutes, we set off – by now it was about noon, so about 2 ½ hours had elapsed.  I was exhausted, and we really didn’t talk much more for the 5 hour drive to Livingstonia Beach – I think we were all exhausted and emotionally drained.  When we arrived at the hotel, I went in to try to sort out the room situation since we had called 3 times and tried to tell them that there would be only one room needed tonight and 2 for the next 2 nights, which even upon checking in didn’t seem to be clear to them so that took the last of my energy to clear up.  John stayed with Mabvuto trying to sort out the car rental since we were returning the vehicle about 3 hours later than we thought, and Mabvuto had to top up the tank with gas before returning it in Lilongwe.

I went back out to say my goodbyes to Mabvuto, and he was still a bit stunned, as were we.  He talked about the wonderful time he had with the group and all the things they had done with and for him, plus what we had done getting him out of the ticket and saving his job and how God had blessed him.  John and I immediately went to the bar for a double gin tonic to talk and process a bit.  It turns out, that even though we weren’t talking on the drive down we were both thinking a lot of the same things – how tired we are of having to work so hard to do everything here, and how hard it is to communicate about everything with English as a second language for everyone here, how much of a responsibility it feels like to help everyone, how crappy it seems that the mzungus have so much power here, etc., etc.  I told John I was feeling for most of the ride how much I just wanted to go home – and how guilty it made me feel that I could just go home and live so comfortably when so many people here have such hard lives.

I was exhausted, and went to sleep around 9pm and slept until 7am this morning, so am feeling much better today, although even writing this description of what happened is difficult.  But I’m sitting on the konde of our room, watching and listening to the big waves crashing in on Lake Malawi – they look almost like ocean waves as the wind came up during the night.  Both John and I are wishing we had more down time in the next few weeks, as Justin and Esther arrive later today sometime and then we head back to Lilongwe to pick up our friend Jeff at the airport.  There’ll be some fun times coming, but for 2 introverts, a lot of “social obligations” too.

It’s 3 weeks today before we leave and the next few weeks are going to take a ot of energy I think – but while I don’t feel the desperation to leave here that I did yesterday, I am ready to go home despite the difficulty of leaving my namesake and so many others.  Photo’s today are just of the beauty of the place.

Architecture Team arrives

May 24, 2008

We arrived here at Ngala Lodge around 5:15 pm yesterday after a memorable journey.  Our driver Mabvuto (which translates to Trouble, and is a fairly common name, but one that seems cruel to saddle a person with for their whole life – no where near as nice as some of the “favorites” I listed on previous blogs) came to pick us up at the hotel to go to the airport and meet the team in time for our flight.  As soon as we got into the mini-bus I got concerned, as it was nice enough, but I couldn’t figure out how we would fit everyone in.  While it was a 15 passenger mini-bus, that would have meant one person sitting on a fold out seat on 3 rows, and there was no place for luggage and no roof rack.  So I figured if we piled luggage on the back row we’d still have to have someone on the fold down seat to accommodate all 9 of us. 

We talked to the guy from the rental company and we decided that it might work if they didn’t have too much luggage, and if they did, we would figure something out.  The plane arrived right one time, and as they starting coming out with their luggage carts, it was clear that they had a LOT of luggage, as they were bringing lots of gifts – each person had a trunk/locker, and their personal suitcase.  I thought we were in big trouble, but the driver and rental guy started piling things in and under seats, and managed to get it all in, but then decided to take 3 of us in a separate car back to the hotel to have one of their mechanics remove the back seat to create space for luggage. 

The team seemed fine, so we went out for a nice dinner and then got up the next morning to have a good breakfast and head out for the appointment with the Malawian architect.  We had a great meeting, and in addition to describing some of the work he has done for the University, he told about how he helped to expand the training program for architects in Malawi when he discovered there were only 17 Malawian architects trained and practicing.  He is also considering a run for Parliament, and I think he’d go a good job from what I’ve seen.

After that we headed went back to town to get people to a bank and to do a few other errands before leaving town around noon.  Off we went to try a different route to the lake that we had told was now paved.  When we started off, it was paved, but after about 30 miles, it became a dirt road that wasn’t in great shape.  We figured maybe it was just a short distance on dirt and kept going even though the road was getting narrower and narrower and worse and worse.  Our driver had to stop to get directions several times to know which turn to take when the road would come to a Y, and I was convinced that we had to have taken a wrong turn somewhere as and hour or so into the drive we were on a 2 track dirt road with grass growing in the middle, and this was supposed to be one of the main roads in the country. 

At one stop, Mabvuto asked a villager how far we were from the paved road and he thought for a bit and said about 20 kms, which would be around 12 miles.  That was a relief as we had by then been traveling for 3 hours or so, and had not eaten and I knew the other route took about 4 hours, so I thought “oh good, this is about the same amount of time”.  The nice thing is that the scenery was wonderful, with small villages that looked more like the traditional round mud and thatch construction that I hadn’t seen since being in Africa.  But we were getting tired.  Finally, we came to a tarred road, but it wasn’t where I thought we would come out, and had already been far more than 12 miles.

This road took us through the Nkhotakota Wildlife Preserve complete with a road crew guarded by a park ranger with a rifle and elephant dung on the road.  Unfortnately, the tar was in horrible shape and disappeared completely every few hundred yards, and when we passed the sign that said 45 kms (28 miles) to the main tarred road I groaned.  Knowing that we had some distance to travel once we reached that road and it would probably take at least 2 hours before we got to our destination, which meant that this “shortcut” was going to take us an extra couple of hours.  On the other hand, the students got to experience some real Malawian roads, and we all got to see some really beautiful scenery.

Mabvuto did a wonderful job and he had to have been tired when we got to Ngala too, so we ordered our dinners right away and got settled in to look around a bit before it got totally dark.  The location is beautiful, and the new owners from South Africa are in the process of doing a lot of renovation, so some of the parts are in need of some work, but they are lovely people and the wonderful location made everyone very happy. 

Today has been a day of relaxation, which I think everyone was more than ready for.  The students and Professor when walking on the beach and met a bunch of the local people which they really enjoyed.  Plus they had some time to chill out, make sketches which they love, and they are having a watercolor class right now with their Teaching Assistant(TA) - photo attached..  We’ve all had fun getting to know Mabvuto too, and the students have had some time to ask us questions and get better settled and oriented before we head for Mzuzu tomorrow.  It should be a pretty easy day with at most a 3 hour drive on roads that we know – and know are bad for part of the way, but the scenery as we climb up the from the Great Rift valley will be spectacular for the young people to see.

May 25, 2008

I think everyone really enjoyed the day yesterday, and Mabvuto was invited to join the watercolor class, which he really seemed to enjoy.  He said at dinner last night that this has been a “once in a lifetime” experience, to be invited to meals and to be a part of the group.  I’m sure most people treat the driver as a servant, and since there is a daily allowance of $25 paid, send off the driver to their own devices.  Leslie, who is the Professor that organized and is paying for all this, has been wonderful about including him in all the meals and buying drinks for him so he could relax and enjoy Ngala Lodge with the rest of us.  And it has been very special for the students too, to be able to spend time with a Malawian.  So the plan today is to drive up to Nkhata Bay so the students can have Chambo, the local fish from Lake Malawi, for lunch, and hopefully arrive in good time to Mzuzu. 

We started our day today chatting with some people who are here from Wisconsin visiting their son who is ending his time in the Peace Corps.  They rented a car from Avis and drove up to Nyika National Park, got in an accident and totaled the vehicle.  Amazingly, Avis didn’t tell them that they should have 4 wheel drive to go on that road, and they made it to Nyika but not without a great deal of difficulty.  Then on the way down, they were in an accident with a truck, probably because of how narrow the road is, totaled the car, and it took them 6 hours before another car even came down the road to be able to help them.  Despite the fact that they had taken the optional insurance, they were held responsible for the damages to the car, and are now stranded and trying to figure out how to get to Liwonde National Park.  I gave them some information about our car rental company and the local bus company that travels on this road, and a taxi driver who has driven people all the way to Lilongwe.  Hope they are able to get on their way at some point soon.

More travels Malawi Style

May 21, 2008

We are safely arrived in Lilongwe after our 6-hour bus ride today.  We took the AXA Luxury coach which left Mzuzu for Lilongwe at 6:30 am and arrived here at 12:30, after paying $12 for the trip rather than the $200 or so that we have been paying for diesel fuel round trip in one of the University vehicles.  We decided after the last trip that it was just too expensive and we would try this bus, which looked and sounded quite nice.

Now that we have taken it, I would say it is a huge step up from a mini-bus, but quite far from what I was thinking of as “luxury coach”.  The seats were kind of like school bus seats with headrests rather than the big comfy seats I was picturing, and were made for small Malawian rear ends, not large American ones.  There were 2 seats on one side and 3 on the other, and the side with 3 seats was just about right for the 2 of us, but we only had that much room for the first hour and a half until we made our first stop.  From then on, the bus was packed, to the point that the aisles were standing room only for the final 2 hours after our last stop.  So while my knees were hitting the seat in front of me, and I had one bun on the seat and the other in the gap between my seat and the seat on the aisle(I’m not sure what the poor guy on the aisle had left to sit on), I was happy to be sitting rather than standing.

The luggage compartment under the bus ran out of space before we even left Lilongwe, and since we were in the next to the front seat we watched the front seat get piled almost to the ceiling and spilling into the aisle, with suitcases, bundles of corn, or tobacco.  In addition to that luggage I saw one chicken come on cradled firmly in the arms of a young girl that looked to be about 15 but was probably in her 20’s, heading for the back of the bus.  There were plenty of the usual babies strapped onto the backs of mothers, mixed in with a few “business man” types” who you could recognize because of their suits, which are often second hand and a bit shabby, but suits nonetheless, and a mixture of other Malawians mostly, although there were a handful of mzungus. Compared to the other options this is the nicest form of transport available if you don’t have money for a car, which is completely out of reach for most people. 

I was ready to be done with the trip about 2 hours before we arrived here, but even when we have taken a private vehicle or rented a car that was true.  For those people who can’t afford the $12 for the “luxury coach” there is always a minibus, which probably costs $7 or $8 and since they stop everywhere, probably takes 8 to 10 hours rather than 6, if the mini-bus doesn’t break down – which happens regularly, like I said, these mini-buses would be in the junk yard rather than on the road in the U.S.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention no bathroom on the bus either, although we did stop long enough to run off and find someplace at a bus stop several times along the way, but of course one never knows how long the bus will be stopped, so John and I chose not to drink anything before getting on or during the ride.  That worked fine, but I was getting a headache by the time we got here, which I assume was at least party from dehydration, and possibly hunger since we hadn’t brought much for food either and had left the hotel too early for breakfast.  I had read in one of our guidebooks that there was a luxury bus that had stewards with food on board, and had facilities, but it turns out that was the Shire Bus Line, which is no longer in business and whose routes have been taken over by AXA. 

May 22, 2008

We are staying at a new hotel in Lilongwe, and I really like it.  It’s called the Kiboko, is right in the middle of the old part of town where we know our way around and do most of our shopping, and has a lovely little courtyard behind the hotel and a 2^nd floor terrace bar that is nice and quiet and really cute.  It’s pretty minimalist, but very cute décor and actually cheaper than the place we have stayed here at only $55 per night for their standard room, which is small but perfectly nice. 

There is something going on with burning nearby though, and while we are coming on to the season where people burn off their fields, there seems to be even more smoke than that, which started last night around 5:30pm.  The power went out shortly after the smoke started so I thought maybe it was a fire somewhere, and it seemed to be clearing off by the time we finished dinner, but it is still very thick this morning, so maybe we can find out more when we go out. 

I woke up earlier than John so am sitting in the little courtyard having my coffee, and we’ll go do some shopping after we have breakfast, mostly for gifts for our workers and Malawian friends.  There are a lot of shops in Mzuzu, but they mostly carry the same things, so we enjoy coming down here where there is more to chose from.  We also took in a CD with loads of digital photos that we have taken so we can give them to people before we go, as there is no where in Mzuzu to get digital developed.

Later today we will have our mini-bus (very different than the public mini-buses, or so I hope) delivered, along with a driver to go pick up the team of 6 people from the school of Architecture at the U who are coming to do some work at the University in Livingstonia.  We’re meeting them at the airport, bringing them back to this hotel for the night, then tomorrow morning meeting with the Malawian Architect who designed the Women’s dormitory the President of Malawi promised to pay for at last years graduation that we came to attend.  The team will be here for about a month and are hoping to be able to help create a master plan for the layout of buildings at the College of Education mainly, but will probably get involved in a variety of things. 

After the meeting, we will head off for a short stay at a new resort on Lake Malawi that we found on the internet.  We wanted to take them to the Nkhotakota Safari Lodge, which we stayed at a month or so ago and loved, but they were booked, so we are trying this one instead.  Hopefully it will be nice.  They are here mainly to work, but we wanted them to have time for a little rest before they start, and for them to be able to see one of the beautiful tourist attractions of Malawi – the Lake.  The other reason for taking them is that they arrive so close to the weekend, and for reasons of culture and “protocol” they need to be formally introduced to the Synod officials in Mzuzu and Ekwendeni before going up to Livingstonia.  They would have had to wait until Monday for that anyway, so we figured they might as well enjoy ourselves at the lake while we wait. 

Today's photo is just a really cute one that John took of a couple of kids in Lilongwe.

Traveling in Malawi

May 20, 2008

This will be my description of the adventures we experienced in traveling to visit Dr. Trywell Nyirongo yesterday in Nchenachena, the town which is about 20 miles from Livingstonia, and then continuing on for anotherr 80 miles or so to Mzuzu. 

As we were getting ready to leave Livingstonia yesterday, it began to rain lightly, and I had no idea the excitement that was going to cause.  David Mhango came to the house around 8:15 so after having dropped his luggage on the way to the hospital around 6am to see his wife and new baby one last time before going back for 2 weeks to complete his training.  We told him we’d feed him breakfast before the local transport we hired came to pick us up at 9am for the trip to Nchenachena.  We asked them to come at 9am and they actually arrived even earlier than that, but unfortunately it was raining by then, and it was the same tiny pick up truck we had used a few weeks ago for the trip to our cook, Smelton’s house. 

That meant a quick search for plastic bags to put our travel bags/luggage into, and something for David to wear since we would be riding in the back.  I had brought a rain poncho thank goodness, and I was feeling very guilty and privileged to be in the cab, even though I had to sit sideways the whole way as it is not really meant for 3 people.  John was in the middle this time, so he was the one that had to lift up his behind every time the driver needed to shift which was often.  Just now when he came out of the shower I saw a perfect circle bruise on the back of his thigh about 3 inches across.  I told John I was feeling the preferential treatment routinely given to whites/mzungus here, and he reminded me that we would have been ridden in the cab just by virtue of our age – which made me feel a little better.

I could tell it was going to be an interesting ride when we started going down the back road off the plateau to Vunguvungu and began almost immediately sliding uncontrollably sideways on the mud.  Somehow during the time we’ve been here, we have never really driven on the slick mud before (one time on another stretch of road off the plateau, but the rain had stopped and it only lasted for a few hundred meters, but was pretty terrifying), and it is just like driving on hard packed snow with a little water on top, or on ice. No traction or control.  The difference was the road we were traveling on which was very different from the roads back home – a very bumpy, sometimes deeply rutted, or thickly mudded, mountain road with steep hills, hairpin turns and no guardrail.  There were several times when I wondered whether I should plan to open the door and jump from the vehicle if it went over the side, or stay with it.  We went into the ditch a couple of times, I think on purpose a couple of times as at least there he could get some traction and stop sliding sideways down a hill – and the 4 wheel drive didn’t help except to get out of ditches or thick mud.  The roads have quite a pronounced “crown” in the middle and big drainage ditches to deal with all the water during the rainy season, and when we were going into the ditches I kept thinking the truck was just going to flop over on it’s side.  In addition to David, we picked up quite a few passengers (and one live chicken in a bag), and I was worried for them also.

There were a few places where there was some gravel or rocks that hadn’t been packed deeply into the road so we could occasionally get traction, but most of the road was like driving on ice, and on a very dangerous road.  It is normally about a 1 hour trip to Nchenachena from Livingstonia and it took us about 3 hours, and we were pretty wrung out by the time we got there.  Dr. Nyirongo had been expecting us for nearly 2 hours and he and his wife Marilyn greeted us warmly and let us settle down a bit.  Dr. Nyirongo attended Richfield high school in 1961, and went to finish College in the US, going on to Medical School in Iran and Belgium – all sponsored by the Unity Unitarian Church that we have attended in St. Paul.  His son Thomas just graduated Cum Laude from Lawrence University in Appleton, also sponsored by Unity.  Thomas hopes to attend medical school and follow in his father’s footsteps here in Malawi. 

It was a reminder of what a small world it is when we learned about this just before leaving Minnesota back in December.  The only “disaster” was when I opened my travel bag last night and discovered that it wasn’t completely wrapped in plastic and wasn’t waterproof.  It had gotten wet and muddy, and my already skimpy wardrobe for this 2-week trip was wet, and one of the t-shirts was covered in red mud.  I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that as I tried washing it out in the hotel just now and it I can’t get that mud out of a white t-shirt - so my wardrobe might be even skimpier than I had planned.  I am amazed at how many times I can wear something here in comparison with at home. 

We really enjoyed spending time with him and learning more about all the things he has done to help the community, including the building of a rural hospital in Nchenachena.  We went to a celebration in the village and met a young couple who are Peace Corps volunteers teaching in the local secondary school.  We also were introduced to the Traditional Authority or Paramount Chief of the whole area, including Livingstonia – I mentioned meeting a local chief in one of my earlier blogs, and I still don’t entirely understand the structure of the traditional governance that operates parallel to the elected government, but hope to get John’s friend Justin to sort it out for me.  Trywell is considering a run for parliament, as he has not seen that the current M.P. has done anything for his entire term and is frustrated at the number of things that need to be done. 

We got up early this morning and Trywell planned on giving us a lift with one of his ambulance vehicles to Phwezi, which is only about 4 miles away on the tarred road, where we could catch a mini-bus to Mzuzu today.  Trywell goes to Mzuzu most every week, and had planned on transporting us the whole way, but then was asked to attend an important meeting a few miles back up the road to Livingstonia, and I had told him before we came that we could take a mini-bus, but would need help getting to a pick up point. 

I don’t think I’ve talked yet about the transport system here.  There are a few nice buses that go on a schedule between the major cities (one or 2 a day in most cases), and we are taking one for the first time tomorrow to the capital city of Lilongwe.  Most of the transport however, is an informal system of privately owned mini-buses that go between most all of the cities including some of the smaller villages – not including Livingstonia unfortunately, because of the horrible roads leading there. Mini-buses operate on a fill up and go basis and while there are regular places where they stop, you can flag one down and they may stop.  There is no schedule and because they operate on a “fill up and go” basis, there are times when you can sit there for a long time waiting to leave.  They are regulated (supposedly) by the government, in that they control the raising of fares, and the number of people that can be carried.  They used to just pack people in like sardines literally, and after a few accidents where a lot of people were killed or injured, the government said they had to carry no more than 3 people per seat (supposedly).  This prompted a near strike, as the price of petrol has recently gone up and the mini-bus drivers were being told they could not raise fares and had to carry fewer passengers. 

So we finished our breakfast this morning, and were getting ready to ride over to Phwezi, except that the ambulance wouldn’t run.  They tried fixing it, they tried to push start it, and finally after an hour Trywell came into the house and said he had flagged down one of the local Matola, which is another form of transport.  These are also privately owned, but are unregulated and operate informally, although usually on certain days, and are pickup trucks you just pile into the back of.  He said we should take that to Rumphi and then get a mini-bus to Mzuzu.  So in we piled with the 10 or so people already there.  We stopped in various places along the way and picked up an additional 10 people along with 4 large bags of corn, a passenger vehicle tire, and various luggages - with some people sitting on the sides of the truck, others like myself sitting on the bed, and a few standing and holding on to a “roll bar” like metal thing behind the cab.  There was not a spare inch of space in the bed of that truck.  We were crossing our fingers and hoping it wasn’t going to rain again as it was looking a bit threatening, and since it was fairly cool – probably 60’s – it would have been really miserable if it had, but under the circumstances the matola ride was was a bit of an adventure. 

In Rumphi, we immediately hopped on to a mini bus to Mzuzu, and at the beginning of the journey, we had the “regulation” 3 per seat for a total of 15 passengers, but at one point we had 20 people it there too.  I was in the back seat were the ceiling sloped and couldn’t sit up straight without hitting my head so rode kind of stooped over.   This mini-bus would have junked years ago in the U.S.   Total travel time for both vehicles – about 2 hours.  I had been feeling like my time in Malawi wouldn’t be complete without a ride in a Matola and a Mini-bus, and after we left Nchenachena, we stopped in Mhuju which is where John attended the wedding of Pete and Pat Dalum, while he was in the Peace Corps – so without the matola ride, I’d have missed that too.  Pete and Pat live in Wisconsin and we have seen them several times, so it was really fun to see the place where they were married and where the wedding I’ve heard about occurred – they had a catholic church wedding and then a village wedding complete with the exchange of cows.  All in all, quite an adventure, this next to the last trip to Mzuzu – and I didn’t have to go down the Gorode road that I mentioned a few blogs ago was starting to really bug me.  I guess you have to be careful what you ask for. 

Quite the beginning for the next 2 weeks of travels for us.  Tomorrow we go to Lilongwe to pick up a group of 5 architecture students, a graduate assistant and architecture professor who we will bring back up to Mzuzu via Lake Malawi for 2 days.  After we hand that group over to the University to be shuttled up to the plateau to work for the next month on a campus master plan, we head back to Lilongwe.  We hope to spend a few more days at a different place on Lake Malawi with John’s old friend Justin and his wife, see Justins home village which is nearby, then head back to Lilongwe again where we will pick up another friend, and go back up to Livingstonia for our last week.  It’s going to be pretty crazy for the next few weeks, living out of a very small travel bag – hopefully I can get some laundry done when we are at the lake resorts, and maybe even restore the one t-shirt with the red clay stain.  We’ll see, and I should have pretty frequent internet connections to keep you posted along with some photo’s I hope. 

May 21, 2008

We just arrived in Lilongwe and I'll be doing more posts soon.  The photos today are of me with Dr. Nyirongo and his wife, and a photo taken at the water tap near the hospital where people must come to carry water to their homes.  In addition, there is a photo taken from the back of the Matolo when we were in Mhuju.