Our First Four (!?) Days

June 27, 2009

 

So many things that I want to say.  So many sights, sounds and experiences in the past 24 hours.  So many thoughts and prayers.  But tonight I am just too tired.  After a year of thinking, hoping and planning, 6 days of travel, 7 airports,  27 hours in the air, and a seriously, seriously harrowing 3 hour car ride, we have arrived in our home for the next month.  I have already saved Tim from a giant spider (by Alaska standards) in the bathroom and saw my first lizard in the house.  I have crawled into my bed with my mosquito net tucked in around me and am ready to lay my head down for a great night’s sleep as I listen to the palm trees swaying in the breeze.  We are profoundly grateful for safety and great attitudes all around on this trip so far.  The kids have been amazing troopers and I am deeply proud of them.  (Tim is grateful for his mosquito net.  He is safe in there from giant spiders.)  Love to all and thanks for the thoughts and prayers. 

 

June 29, 2009

 

It’s hard to even begin to talk about all that we have experienced in the past 2 days.  We have seen many, many things but what is so exciting and heartwarming is the number of hellos, warm handshakes and big smiles we have received.  We have met SO MANY people and cannot begin to keep them straight.  It is probable that in the past 2 days we have met literally hundreds of Malawians, but also Americans, Germans, Canadians, Brits, Irish and South Africans, all doing similar things to what we are doing here. 

 

We were picked up at the airport in Blantyre on Saturday by Danny who owns and runs the Palm Beach resort.  He was so good to take us to the big grocery store in Blantyre where we quickly figured out that the ATM machine wasn’t going to take our card.  We had plenty of dollars but no kwacha, the Malawian currency.  No one takes credit cards here and we had rushed out of the airport without changing money there.  Danny tracked down a shop owner that he knew who changed money for us (we found out afterward that means that we had done it on the “black market”) so we could heave a sigh of relief.  The grocery store is similar to what we have back in the U.S.  I would guess that most of the same things that we have at home are available at the Shoprite here.  (Except chocolate!  There was a little bit, but very expensive.  Note to self:  Next time, pack the giant bag of M&M’s from Costco.)   The  prices are very similar to home, meaning Alaska prices.  After buying the basics (Ruth Nighswander had given me an excellent list of what to buy including the ingredients for Michael Patrick’s fabulous pound cake, more about that later) we were able to begin the 3 hour drive to Palm Beach. 

 

Remember when I said a few days ago that while we were in New York we went to Coney Island?  Well, we rode the world famous Cyclone while we were there which is a very old wooden roller coaster.  It was definitely exhilarating, but I have been on much faster and higher roller coasters.  Still, I was terrified on this one.  Mostly because I just kept envisioning a nail or a bolt popping out of the wood and the car shooting off the edge into the Atlantic ocean.  I say all of this to say this:  The drive from Blantyre to Palm Beach was like three hours of being on the Cyclone.  The van was very rattly and noisy, it is pretty common to drive pretty fast, at least it seems fast, and there are people EVERYWHERE along the road.  People lining both sides, bicycles, kids, goats, chickens.  And every time we passed I was holding my breath certain that one of them was going to fall over into the path of our hurtling vehicle.  Malawi is almost completely rural, but Mark pointed out that in our whole trip there was never a time when he couldn’t see someone walking along the road. 

 

About an hour out of Blantyre, Danny pulls over to announce that we had a flat.  Not too big of a deal, he and Mark changed it very quickly (and it was big entertainment for the families living along the side of the road there) but the tire that he put on was the baldest that I have ever seen.  It seemed like after that the car was swerving all over the road and that we were going to roll over, take out about 20 pedestrians, and all of the Thorndike’s die in the process as well.  (Did I mention that there weren’t any seat belts?)  The upside is that the kids and I were in the very back, all of the luggage was in the middle seat but poor Mark had the birds-eye view in the passenger seat.  You know those prayers that you say that go, “God, if you just get me out of this….?”, well, we said them.  For three hours.  Funny thing is, the kids didn’t notice a thing.  They thought it was totally fun and Annie fell asleep.  Tim kept talking about how much easier it is to drive in Malawi because there isn’t a lot of traffic!  When we arrived in Palm Beach I felt like getting down and kissing the ground, just like in the movies.  (Some other Americans arrived just after us, we had met them on the plane, and had been driven down by a Malawian friend.  They had the same terrified look on their faces when they got out of the car, so it’s all just part of the experience.)

 

The electricity was out when we pulled into Palm Beach (very common for that time of the evening all though we have had electricity without interruption for the past two nights) but Danny and Rita’s resort has a generator who we were escorted to the bar for nice cold drinks, much appreciated after our long, long trip.  That was followed by a huge meal of homemade bread, roast meat, potatoes, three vegetables, soup, and fruit salad.  The electricity came on during dinner so we could make our way to Ruth and Tom’s house which will be our home for the month. 

 

The house is so wonderful!   It is very large, surrounded by palm trees and tropical plants.  It was spotlessly clean and there were fresh flower arrangements in three of the rooms, this all thanks to our house helper Michael Patrick.  He is here 5 days a week from 7:00-5:00pm.  Around 5:30 pm Patrick (Michael Patrick’s father) comes.   He is our house guard and patrols the grounds until 6 or so in the morning.  We are extremely well looked after. 

 

Our biggest help so far has come from Jess and Jesse.  They are recent college grads who are spending a year teaching in the secondary school at MCV.  They both teach science and math and have been here 6 or 7 months now.  We met them at MCV on Sunday morning. 

 

(Let me orient you as far as town names.  Mangochi is the closest big sized town.  About 8 km past that is the little village of Palm Beach which also includes the resort and our house.  The resort is just 100 yards or so from our house so we can pop over there to have a drink, sit around the fire, play pool or even watch television(!) in the evening.  Another 8 km or so beyond that is the MCV campus which includes the secondary school, the administrative offices, a free medical clinic, the offices of the village outreach service, vocational schools, and the Open Arms nursery. )

 

So, Jess and Jesse (Jess is short for Jessica so she is the girl) showed us all around the campus which was closed because it was a Sunday and did their very best to orient us to MCV and to Malawi.  We had endless questions which they answered tirelessly.  They then rode into Mangochi with us to show us where the stores are including Metro, which is the Mangochi version of Costco (you have to buy everything in twos) and you can buy a cell phone for ten bucks (they were out) and sim cards for internet or phone access for about $1 per hour of connect time.  Coke in a glass bottle is only 40 cents.  (No diet, Malawians aren’t big on fake sugar, they need all the calories they can get.)  We went to the vegetable market which is awesome.  The kids really loved it.  Jesse is a great bargainer, but we will never attain his level of firmness and expertise.  He and Jesse are living at near Malawian salaries so every kwacha counts.  A very big cabbage is about 75 cents, beautiful asian eggplants were about 20 cents each.  There are many different types of dried beans.  We found fresh garlic (luckily, it’s sometimes hard to find) and tiny, tiny bright orange peppers.  I am fearful that they are VERY hot.  Tomatoes are generally 15-20 kwacha which would be 10 or 15 cents.  And, oh yeah, a meter long stick of sugar cane is 20 kwacha.  You said kids and young people chewing it every where. 

 

We then came back to Palm Beach where we spent an hour or two out on the beach of the lake.  The sand is beautiful and the water is very clear.  It is cool here by their standards and the water is quite chilly so not many people were swimming.  We met more people.  Nettie is here.  She is from Washington DC and has been running the sewing vocational training program at MCV since 2002.  It’s so exciting to hear the things that she is doing and she is a delight to be around, but the work of getting contracts for the sewing school is very difficult.  After dinner that night we went back to the beach, sat around the bonfire and talked with lots of other folks who are doing work in Malawi.  It feels like a really great place to be.

 

Monday:  We were up bright and early (6 AM, painful) to get ready to be at the Gracious Secondary School (MCV’s school) by 7:30 for the opening assembly.  We arrived on time, but there was some sort of glitch and the person who has the keys wasn’t there so school didn’t start on time.  It was a lot like (but probably worse) than being the new kid in school.  Most of the kids just stared at us, but some of the brave and outgoing ones started a conversation with Mark.  They then had us all come sit up front with all of the teachers for the assembly.  In other words, we were on the stage.  Mark and I expected this and Tim said he was OK with it, but none of the Thorndike’s enjoy the spotlight.  The assembly began with the Malawi national song which was just beautiful.  No surprise that the Malawi kids have beautiful voices and sing out.  Then two of the kids who are really good singers came forward to do a song for everyone.  Apparently, they had gotten together over the weekend and written a song as a memorial to Michael Jackson.  It was awesome!  There was harmonizing and then rapping in the middle (no instrument accompaniment) and one of the kids held an air microphone in his hand the whole time.  The kids loved it. 

When they introduced us a cheer went up from the crowd after each introduction.  And when they introduced Annie one of the girls in front shouted, “She is beautiful!”  We felt very welcome.  We shook hands with all of the teachers and have already forgotten everybody’s name.  It is so hard!

 

We went around and introduced ourselves to all of the people that we knew we would be working with.  Mr. Sibale, the executive director, is out of town right now at a funeral in the northern part of the state.  We met his wife, Faith, who is a nurse and runs a free clinic at the campus.  Florence runs the village outreach program.  They are both very smart and beautiful women.  Also, I didn’t mention that the principal of the school is also a woman, Loni, very professional.  Felix is the assistant director and we spent time with him and Florence arranging for an AIDS education training program that Sandra and Bob (Mark’s parents) will be doing while they are here. 

 

Many of you know that one of the things that I have looking forward to doing while we are here is working in the nursery with the babies and toddlers.  The nursery burned to the ground about a year ago and this facility is brand new and recently taken over by the organization Open Arms which is based in the UK and strongly supported by Johnson and Johnson.  A British volunteer, Antony, was on the MCV campus and heard us planning to go over to the nursery so he showed us around, introduced us to the manager and the head matron.  They are very excited to have medical people here who can do routine exams on the kids.  When we walked in all about half of the babies were out in a patio area playing.  They were unbelievably CUTE!  I was told that I was welcome to play with them and as soon as I walked over one of them toddled over with arms extended.  What a sweetie.  I sat down on the floor to play with him and immediately had 4 other round bottoms in my lap.  Tim said, “Uh, Mom.”  I looked up and Tim was just standing there stiff as a board with a little toddlers arms wrapped tightly around his legs.  He had no idea what to do.  I don’t know any of their stories, but you would have to see them to believe them.  They don’t act like my kids did when they were toddlers!  I will write more as we are in the nursery more.  It will definitely be a favorite place for me and they are doing great work.  Mark already did an exam on one of the babies who needs a surgical work up but probably won’t get it. 

 

July 1, 2009

 

There has been so little time for me to get to the blog that I have lost track of many  little things that I wanted to write about.  I never realized that helping out at the school was going to mean that I am studying every night!  AND I didn’t think that I would be so tired.  I am sure that there are two sources for this and one of them isn’t that I am not sleeping well.  I am sleeping VERY well.  One reason is that we are still catching up from the travel and the second is just the energy that it takes to navigate a very different culture where almost everything is new.  It is very rewarding and hasn’t been physically demanding thus far, but emotionally draining.  The kids and I especially feel it. 

 

So, back to what we are doing here.

 

In the afternoon we help out in the classroom.  The end of term exams are coming up and so there is time set aside every afternoon for “prep”.  I am writing this after experiencing a few days of this.  It has taken me a while to figure things out.  I figured out that prep time means that they are in the classroom, sometimes with a teacher, most times on their own, with the notes that they have taken in class or written down from the board.  The kids would come to me with their notes asking questions about what was written there.  I would look at what they had and trying to figure out an answer I would ask to see their book.  They stared at me, not understanding.  “This is my book”, they would say.  Jesse had given me some books so that I would know what they were studying.  Turns out that I was the only one that had a book.  They can only study from their notes.  The books are small paperbacks, only 120 pages long or so, but the school can’t afford to provide a book for each child.  I don’t know how I could have prepared for a term long exam without a reference!  Apparently they don’t do very well with the exams which isn’t surprising.  So now, I review a 30 page section of the book so that I have something specific to go over with them during the prep time.  I am working with Form 1 which would be freshman age.  They love to be quizzed. 

 

Another thing that no one mentions that they study here is the Bible.  The first day some of the kids started asking Mark a bunch of questions about the Bible, which is not his area of expertise.  He immediately told Tim, “Go get your Mom.”   One kid asked me, “We need you to tell us how to write an essay of the Bible.”  Whoa, could you narrow it down a little bit?  The boy offered to go home that evening, write an essay and have me mark it the next day.  He showed up with the essay as he said he would and had done a great job. We have found out that all kids in Malawi are required to take Bible as part of their schooling.  MCV isn’t a religious school at all.  It must be frustrating to them.  They don’t teach concepts from the Bible, rather it is facts and details that probably won’t serve them overly well in their futures. 

 

Mark has been in a lot of classrooms.  Jesse uses him most days in his math class to go over problems with the kids and a couple of the other math teachers have asked him to come and help as well.  He was with the Form Four kids today.  He says that he ended up giving an impromptu lecture on the endocrine system.  He’s not of much use in math at that level. 

 

Tim and Annie hang out with me during the prep time.  Annie sets in on the review sessions and then answers the questions right along with the students.  Tim is actually able to help with some of the math and science but he also spends a lot of time answering questions about soccer and rap music.  (Neither of which he knows anything about.) 

 

We got to do examinations on the babies at Open Arms today.  You can see why Madonna wants to take these kids home!  They are all gorgeous little creatures and I have found that “baby head smell” is the same any where you go.  The babies are well cared for and as clean as they possibly could be given the fact that the nursery workers do ALL of the laundry by hand (they have a really nice, brand new washer but they don’t have enough electricity to run it yet).  Diapers may be a thickish muslin cloth or something that looks like a worn out dish towel.  Most of them are quite round and are very well fed.  The older kids (around 2 years old) are very quiet, sit down themselves when it is time to eat and wait patiently for their food and milk to come. 

 

Exams:  They all have an official medical booklet (everybody in the country is supposed to have one) which contains a growth chart and information about medical problems or hospital visits.  Most of them have growth chart info but nothing else as they are all pretty young, most had been at the nursery a few weeks.  We were examining the youngest ones today.  They also have one sheet of information that the nursery keeps on them which includes their name, date of birth, day they came to the nursery, religion, information on the mother (which sadly, means what she died of or what she is dying of), what the baby’s appearance and health status was when she came in, maybe a little social history, and whether or not the family will be responsible for the body if the baby dies there. 

 

These very young babies were shockingly calm and compliant while Mark pokes and prodded.  Almost all of them were perfectly healthy as far as we could tell, but many have mothers who had AIDS and in Malawi the baby has a 1 in 5 chance of contracting the disease as well.  Many times the nursery has no idea whether or not the babies are at risk of being HIV positive because the mother who has passed away may not have told any of her relatives that she had the disease.  The babies are not tested automatically as the test is too expensive.  If they get a child who has been ill a few times with fevers or possible signs of HIV, then they will get the test.  There are some babies at the nursery who are on medication for AIDS but they cannot get it until their CD4 counts indicate that they are severely immunocompromised.  We deeply fear that one of the babies that we saw today will not live and there is nothing that we can do about it.  The nurses try to take her to the hospital but they will not spend limited resources on a tiny, unhealthy baby who might have AIDS.  I so admire the work that the women are doing with the babies every day and how hard it must be to watch babies die and be able to do so little.