Muli Bwangi! More specifically, madzuca bwangi (which means good morning, or literally, how are you waking up), to which you reply dazuca bwino, caen (I am waking up good, how about you?). I have also added some other words to my vocabulary…bongono “a little” (helpful when you are being served unidentifiable food!), gogongola “beautiful” (good to use when taking pictures of people), and momaconda “I like very much” (good when people ask you how you are finding Malawi.) In case you ever find yourself here, I just want you to be prepared…

We have been without wifi for a while which is why I have not written. Over the weekend we were out in the bush. A funny story along those lines…
We did a play for a Sunday school in Ntchisi, at the CCAP church (Church of Central Africa Presbyterian) there which is becoming a sister church with St. Andrews. Our story was about the anointing of David as king. It is told in the book of 1 Samuel, if you want to look it up, but basically Samuel, a prophet, goes to Jesse, the father of David, to anoint the next king because God has told him the king will come from one of Jesse’s sons. Jesse brings his 7 strong, big, powerful sons before Samuel, and each time God tells Samuel, this is not the one. Finally Samuel asks if there are any other sons. Yes, there is David, but he is out tending the sheep. Well, after the story is over we were quizzing the children, which is their custom, and the question was asked where David was. One of the children raised his hand and said “out in the bush, with the wild animals.” Somehow David out with the giraffes was a different image than I had in Sunday school! The end of the story? David is anointed as the next king and the moral is that God does not look on the outward appearance (strong, powerful…white, American…?) but on the heart.

The reason that we were in the bush for the weekend was to go visit the village of Nthondo, where the 600+ children are that St. Andrews people sponsor through World Vision. I got to meet my mom’s two sponsored children! Khokho is an orphan and came with the woman who cares for him. They walked over an hour to come to meet me. Rita came with her mother and father, and they live more than a three hour walk from where we met them!! It was really incredible to see the children gathered there, each one holding up a sign with the name of their sponsor on it. The World Vision sponsorship money goes for providing clean water, health education, food security, HIV/AIDS prevention and support/treatment (often the treatment in such a remote location is through herbal remedies that they have easy access to—garlic, aloe vera, ginger and other plant substances). I am really impressed with World Vision’s attempts to bring relief to the community as a whole, yet in a way that empowers the community and does not create dependence.

One of the things we have learned since being here is how much money comes into the countries through NGOs (Non-governmental Organizations) but how little of that money actually gets to the people in need. The common phrase is that the NGO’s have nice cars and nice buildings…and that somehow the money never trickles all the way down. The three organizations that we have visited with, Ministry of Hope (the Crisis Nursery and orphan centers), World Vision and Opportunity International (a microfinance institution that makes small loans to the poor so that they can start their own businesses—more on that in a minute!) seem to be examples of the money actually making it all the way to help those in need.

There are two other things that I cannot neglect when talking about our weekend—the Mbolebole Motel and the singing…

The Mbolebole is where we stayed so that we could be closer to Ntchisi and Nthondo. From Lilongwe (our base for the trip) it is about a hour (paved) drive to the Mbolebole and from there it is about another hour over BUMPY dirt roads to Ntchisi and another 45 minutes over BUMPY roads to Nthondo. How does one describe the Mbolebole without experiencing it? Don’t be deceived by the advertisements of “a fan in every room” or “hot water.” Yes, there was hot water at the Mbolebole, which I enjoyed our first morning there as the Mbolebole alarm clock (a rooster) woke me up at 5:30AM. Some who were later had cold water, and those who were even later had no water, as the amount that was in the tank (like a pila in Guasmo, Ecuador!) had run out and it would not refill again until that evening. I guess the rooster was not so bad after all. We did have flush toilets, which was more than I was expecting, but there were no seats. We did have a fan in our room, but it was a European plug (two round prongs) and the sockets here are British (three rectangular plugs). So, the first night we went fanless, humid and breezeless air trapped in the cobalt blue mosquito nights tucked tightly in around the mattress (though mine had large holes in it which makes one wonder about its effectiveness…). Silly Americans, for giving up so easily. I asked one of the workers at the motel if he could help us with our fan. He saw the problematic plug so he went to get a British plug power strip, which he could wedge the European plug into (good to know) but then the power strip would not plug in as the top prong of the socket was blocked. So, in an ingenious move that was reminiscent of things I saw the summer I lived in the Dominican Republic, he pulled the plug off the end of the wire, split the wires, and stuck them directly into the socket—sure enough, fresh air!

Aside from meeting Khokho and Rita, the most incredible part of the weekend was the singing. Imagine being on Broadway to see the Lion King. Imagine being in the front row when all of a sudden the entire cast bursts into song. That volume and beauty of singing is what greeted us when we arrived in Nthondo on Friday and continued at every stop along our journey. In church on Sunday the service began with each of the various choirs—there were about 6-8 of them, singing. I felt either like I was in a movie soundtrack, or in heaven, or perhaps a bit of both! After church we had a picnic at the manse (the pastor’s house) of the usual—seema, Chinese (which is what they call greens), rice, a tomato sauce, and various meat (I have become a temporary vegetarian!). After having lunch we went back into the church for a choir festival in which each of the choirs shared a song. At one point all the women from one of the mother’s choirs asked our women to join them singing and dancing, which we did, to their enjoyment or humor, I am not sure which! We do have video tape of the experience, which I may have to destroy!

It is time to go down for breakfast before our last day working with the kids. For now, tionanna (see you later).

Muli Bwangi from Malawi!

Muli Bwangi is the standard greeting, and means ‘how are you?’ Your answer, just in case anyone ever asks you, is ‘dili bwino, caen?” which means ‘I am good, and you?’

After traveling for about 36 hours (and stopping in London and Johannesburg) we arrived in Malawi Monday afternoon.  Needless to say, Monday was mostly a rest day!

Tuesday morning (after a great night’s sleep due to pure exhaustion!) we met in the lobby of our hotel, the Capital Hotel, to be picked up by Ministry of Hope. Just a side note, the Capital Hotel is very nice with friendly staff and it reminds me somewhat of the hotel in Hotel Rwanda…it is sort of an interesting contrast to the surrounding area… Anyway, back to Ministry of Hope, which we were introduced to by its new director, Tony Bell. He and his wife moved here about a year ago from none other than New Jersey! When one of our group asked Tony what he missed about the US? You guessed it, Dunkin Donuts coffee!! (I knew I liked him.)

Ministry of Hope is an organization that is working in the communities/villages around Lilongwe (the capital, where we are staying) with the children and specifically orphans. On Tuesday we helped out in their crisis nursery, which is for babies who have been orphaned mostly because the mother has died during childbirth or of AIDS and the father is either also dead or cannot care for the infant. Some of the babies in the nursery do have families that will take the children back once they have been weaned, but many are without any family.

On Wednesday (today–we are 9 hours ahead of California) we spent the day working at one of the Ministry of Hope centers in the town of Mponela, about an hour’s drive (on good roads). Along the way we drove through many communities and saw a surprising number of coffin makers…apparently there is quite a market for coffins here. One of them was called “Energy Coffins”–seems like an interesting name. We also drove past the Blessings Bottlestore and the Slow But Sure Grocery.

Once we arrived at the center we began playing with the children. Let’s just say, the digital cameras and the video camera were a big hit! The children (and adults, for that matter) love to see their picture and request it after every picture is taken (good thing I have an extra battery!).

Other impressions…the vegetation is quite lush. I was surprised. I guess I thought (incorrectly) that all of Africa was dry and dusty.  The people are friendly.

I made friends with the women cooks for the center (they make lunch each day for the children—it may be the only meal they receive each day) who taught me how to make ‘seema’ which is sort of like Cream of Wheat but made with a corn meal flour. They also call it porridge, which I guess is a residual from the British colonial influence. The ladies laughed at how I stirred the seema (it was in a huge pot on an open fire, and stirred with something that resembled a large wooden oar) and taught me how to say “I am stirring seema” (sorry, I can’t remember that one…).

We left the St. Andrews church parking lot at 4:30PM on Saturday for the drive up to LAX to begin the journey…we arrived to our hotel (The Capitol, quite nice and even set-up with a fitness center so I can at least attempt to continue my marathon training on the treadmill…) at about 2PM on Monday…it was quite a journey, and I am feeling rather jet lagged, but am trying to put off sleep until it is at least a somewhat reasonable bed time.

The air feels very tropical here. It reminds me of the DR or of Hawaii–even those same orange blossomed trees (I don’t know my flora) that are so beautiful in Hawaii. It is pouring rain outside…and even though I own multiple rain coats in Southern California I did not make room for said rain coats in my luggage, so we will see how it goes. The area that we drove through to get from the airport to the hotel (about 30 minutes) was green and quite lush. I am surprised at the tropical-ness of it.

That’s all for now, hopefully there will be more interesting strories once we start our stuff tomorrow..oh yeah, and I want to test which way the water goes down the drain–isn’t it different in the Southern Hemisphere? Yes, these are the things that intrigue me!