To BP or not to BP...

Murmurs of a gas crisis have been heard ever since we orginally crossed the border into Malawi. We thought we were invincible with our 80 liter tank and our two full 20 liter gerry-cans locked and loaded on the roof. We couldn’t imagine the crisis hitting the capital.

Yesterday we were proven wrong. We walked out of the World Camp house to see a (no exaggeration) kilometer long line of cars waiting to fill up with petrol. At this point we had under a quarter of a tank (+ 1 gerry-can) and we assumed that deliveries would be made. Again, we were proven wrong.

We headed into Lilongwe today with finding petrol as a priority. We are hoping to go to the lake this weekend with Momma Levitt.

As we reached the city, lines were forming at every gas station, but to our surprise, there was no gas. They were lining up in hopes that that station received the coveted petrol. We followed suit and parked our car in line at the BP in the government district. All the cars were abandoned; it seemed like the drivers went on with their daily activities and used the line as a parking lot.

We visited two of MCBO’s partners, Goods4Good and Theater for Change, within walking distance of the car to escape the heat and use Internet.
(Sidenote: We discovered that MCBO + Goods4Good are featured in November’s issue of Vogue…check it out!)

A few hours later, we had lost all hope. We gave up on gas and realized the Lake would not be a possible excursion this weekend. Minutes later, MCBO’s director, Chris, called to inform us that the BP on the drive out to Mchezi had just received a shipment of gas. We raced to the car in an attempt to make the cut.

It took only an hour until we were smiling and singing, with a full tank!

The remainder of the day was spent at MCBO where the volunteers distributed TOMs shoes to the OVCs. They looked so fashionable! Songs and soccer with the neighborhood gang until dark…and of course, beloved nsima. Its good to be home!

The Chicken of the Sea

"This morning we got off to an early start. Christopher joined us on an excursion to Lilongwe. To Molly’s delight, Christopher brought a friend…a smelly friend…a loud, flapping friend. That’s right…a living chicken “sample” to persuade restaurant owners that MCBO chickens are plump and healthy. Today, our main priority was finding a home for 230 chickens. We had two successful visits to a hotel and a local restaurant. We await confirmation phone calls tomorrow, but both owners seemed confident that they were interested in buying the whole lot of chicks.


While in Lilongwe, we also ran a few other errands. We stopped by the hospital to pick up a few thousand male and female condoms. We also made a visit to the vet because some of our chickens have fallen ill; he provided us with some medicine. Lastly, we headed over to the Ministry of Education’s office to hand deliver an invitation to MCBO’s Distribution Day next friday. Distribution Day is a community-wide event where the volunteers at MCBO will hand out school supplies and clothing (all donated by Goods4Good) to school children and OVCs in the community. The guest list includes: the Minister and Secretary of Education, 10 student reps and 2 teacher reps from 7 of the neighboring schools, 46 village headmen and their favorite of their often, many wives, MBC TV, and the most special of all, Cheryl Levitt. You read correctly…Mama Levitt is gracing MCBO with her presence in ten days!

The remainder of our day was filled with a long executive meeting and a fight amongst travel companions over canned tuna. If Darren used silverware, maybe this debacle could have been avoided. We are finally friends again, but Darren is not permitted in arms distance from Molly until the tuna has had 24 hours to remove itself through whatever bodily excretions are necessary."

Hello from Mchezi!!!!

Hello everyone! Molly and Darren here from Mchezi in Lilongwe, Malawi.
We have officially begun our very mini peace corps. We are going to try to keep the updates coming as often as we can get them written.
When we first arrived around noon on Sunday we were immediately put to work. On most Sundays at Mchezi CBO all the OVCs (Orphans and Vulnerable Children) gather together to sing songs, play games and mingle. Today however was a unique situation. Our arrival coincided with the lone computer at Mchezi CBO crashing earlier in the week and the OVC register was completely lost. Today we spent a few hours going child to child gathering their information. To rebuild the OVC registry we needed to conduct face-to-face interviews to collect the lost information. This included name, age, grade, reason if dropped out of school, which parent had passed if not both, current guardian, living situation and any acute problems, such as lack of clothing, food, school supplies, etc. It was a tiresome experience. Molly filled out paperwork while Darren took head-shots of each child to upload onto the new register.
Molly wants to bring home every single child. The little girls sat on her lap the entire time, and one even fell asleep there. Later we learned that she was positive for HIV...
The OVC gathering concluded with the children lining up while we passed out pens (from a pharmaceutical company in the states, thanks to Goods for Good) to each child. They were ecstatic.
After the kids had left, we finally got the chance to move into our new abode.
We know, it looks (and is) a lot nicer than you would expect to find in the African bush. It comes complete with solar powered lighting, a kitchen (a camping stove and trash can full of water), a room with a hole leading outside (aka shower), an outhouse with feet placement and a key hole pee hole, and three bedrooms. It was built for the staff of the primary school, but as we know they are lacking teachers. Our next door neighbor is Mr. Kumanga, the headmaster.
After we moved in we got a brief neighborhood tour which ended at the hut of the local village headman. He is in his late 70s and is responsible for 34 different villages. He welcomed us with open arms and an open heart.
‘Zikomo’ means thank you in Chichewa. It was just about the only word we heard all day long.
We walked back to our house under an African painted sunset as children from all directions came running up to hold our hands and laugh at Darren's funny hair color.
We are very excited for this next chapter.
Check back tomorrow for more on life at Mchezi!
EDUCATE.INSPIRE.CHANGE.