Farewell to the Warm Heart of Africa

It’s hard to believe our January session is over. We are all home safe and sound trying to get back into the swing of things in the “Western World.” Although it was sad to leave Malawi, I’m definitely ready to be back in a place where toilets with seats and running water are the norm.

During our last week in Malawi we continued our home stay in Mchezi and worked with the other half of Standard 7 at Mkhosa Full Primary School. In addition to teaching the regular curriculum in the mornings, we each took on projects with Mchezi Community Based Organization in the afternoons. I teamed up with Christine and our Field Assistant Rejoyce to work with an HIV+ women’s support group. We talked a lot about nutrition on the first day and focused on empowerment paintings on the second day. With a limited amount of time, we found this to be an easy, creative way for the women to bond and express themselves in an artistic manner they haven’t necessarily been exposed to in the past.  

Mark had a great time teaching Mchezi’s youth group how to play baseball in a two-day mini-camp. By the end of the week, all participants were excited and proud that they had mastered the “simple sport.”Tucker partnered with Field Assistant Cyrus to talk with local farmers about permaculture. The farmers were fond of the new techniques introduced, and many of them were already familiar with them and were excited to put them to use. They talked about water catchment systems, planting beds instead of rows, and the benefits of intercropping. The farmers viewed permaculture as a potential solution to the community’s struggles with poverty and poor nutrition.

All in all it was a great week. We met so many friendly and inspiring people in Mchezi, especially at the CBO and we are confident they will continue to do amazing working in their community long after we are gone.

To finish off the session we headed to Lake Malawi for the weekend, where we basked in the sun by day and sat around a bonfire by night.  For our last day as a group, we woke up at 5am and watched the sun rise over Lake Malawi. There couldn’t have been a better way to end the trip. 
 
It seems like a lifetime ago we all sat together at the airport for the first time, awkwardly introducing ourselves. We’ve come a long way since then, we’ve met so many remarkable people, seen some astonishing sights, and been inspired by so many stories. We’ve grown, learned, inspired and changed, and of course learned some really great dance moves along the way.

Zikomo, chinuo, peace and love,

Cara (with Christine, Mark and Tucker)

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."

Hot Water...

"We love bathing in a bucket, pooping in a hole is much easier and cleaner than we had predicted and nsima is totally the new sushi.
This morning, just after our bucket bath, we were introduced to the entire primary school (all 2800 students). It wasn’t the introduction we could have forseen.
While preparing for the day we were surprised to witness our Malawian mayi (mother) Lilian sprint out of the house in the direction of all the school children. Amazed, we followed suit to see what was going on. Our mistake. As soon as we were in sight of the growing crowd, we became the object of everyones attention.
The running of the bulls is the best description for what happened next. Before we could blink the school children had rushed towards us, completely engulfing the unsuspecting ‘wazungus’ (white folk). They chanted wazungu and laughed and stared. It was a bit overwhelming. Out of nowhere two older students pushed their way to the center of the circle. One held a microphone which was attached to a brick, held by the other. We were then interviewed for Malawi TV.
Making sure they got everything on brick, we were escorted by the herd of students to our house. Lilian came appeared to save the day as she pushed us inside and shooed away the mob of school children. Good morning!
We later learned that what had originally taken place is very similar to what we call a ‘snow day’ in the States. Rumors of a Satanic Person had spread like wildfire throughout the community, reaching the primary school at prime time. Supposedly this Satanic Person was headed towards the school to drink the blood of the little children. Students dispersed in great numbers and school was forced to close. This wasn’t the first time something like this took place. It is a common occurance throughout Malawi.
We spent the remainder of the morning at the satellite office working on OVC spreadsheets and writing a proposal to the Nike (RED) Campaign. MCBO is applying for a grant from Nike which supports organzations who fight HIV through soccer. We created a pretty sweet application and will send it in tomorrow.
After lunch we had our first official lesson with the MCBO executive staff. Today’s topic: Leadership skills. We introduced it with a really fun activity that was basically follow the leader, blindfolded. It was certainly a sight to be seen. Afterwards we spent the next hour discussing different types of leadership methods and when it is deemed necessary to utilize each method. We concluded the lesson with an assessment quiz to identify each members’ leadership type and were pleased when they asked for more copies of the quiz to be used in the future."
"Overall a very successful day!"

"Tomorrow’s topic: Teamwork. We’ll let you know how the Trust Fall goes!"

Week 1 Concludes at Mchezi!

We have finished our first week of assessments and are feeling right at home here. Our week was busy meeting community members and assisting the Mchezi CBO staff through some housekeeping affairs and we are looking forward to our schedule for this week! Exciting reports should be coming in daily as we begin our training with CBO staff and helping with various outreach projects. Check back each day!

This week we experienced our first Mchezi CBO executive meeting.







Pictured above (from right to left) is Christopher the MCBO Director, Jordan the Youth Coordinator, William OVC Coordinator, and Mackenzie the Vocational Skills Leader.
***
The agenda included:

1. "How/where are we going to sell 256 chickens and at what price? They have been growing for the past six weeks and are now plump enough to have their heads chopped off. Every day they aren’t sold we lose money on their feed and security."
2. "Prices for school uniforms that have been made by the tailor workshop. Selling them is not a problem. They are in high demand throughout the community."
3. OVC Sundays. We had a few simple ideas that could improve the efficiency and order of registering the orphans we didn’t get to. Yesterday was kind of mayhem with some kids running around, some filling out forms, and some getting pictures taken. It’s going to take a few days of shuffling through papers to match all the info up.
   
   

Molly working with William, the OVC Coordinator, compiling the information we gathered yesterday about each orphan. This is the lone computer for the CBO at their satellite office across town.

This was their first introduction to Excel and we think that it will make their lives a lot easier if they stick with it.
***

We had our first experience making and eating Nsima (pronounced ‘n-seema’) which is pretty much papp, or maize flour and boiled water. Bland but filling. Gotta learn to love it. It’s all we have out here in the bush.
EDUCATE.INSPIRE.CHANGE.

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.