What We've Been Doing

We’ve been here for 2 ½ weeks now and I haven’t posted in nearly a week. Mark went in to Lilongwe last Friday to pick up Bob and Sandra at the airport. We are so happy to have them here with us. They have been to Africa several times before (Uganda, Ghana and Kenya, I think, never been to Malawi) and came to present an AIDS educational program to the village outreach volunteers for MCV. They are presenting daily all this week. It has been great to be able to introduce them to the friends that we have made here and the places in which we live and work. The weather has turned warm and beautiful since they got here.

Mark took the car that we are borrowing from Tom and Ruth into Lilongwe. The car overheated on the way end and guzzled a tons of oil. It then started putt-putting along. The good news is that he had hired the local mechanic to ride with him and guide him around Lilongwe which was extremely helpful on all fronts. They all made it back safe and sound without mishap. It is a very beautiful drive between here and there and I look forward to seeing it when we drive that way for our safari. They got to stop in Dedza which has a large and beautiful pottery works. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t along. I wouldn’t have been able to resist buying a teapot which I probably wouldn’t be able to get home safely. We did get mugs though.

On Saturday, we just hung around the house and the beach, taking it easy and letting Bob and Sandra catch up on jet lag. Earlier in the week Mark had met the acting Chief Health Officer for the Mangochi district who OK’d him to operate in Malawi. Her name is Julie, she seems quite young and is originally from the Congo. She now works for the U.N. but is considered a volunteer and receives a stipend. She had worked for several years in Zimbabwe and has been here for just about a year. She is the only M.D. at the Mangochi hospital. The other MD is off in China learning acupuncture. Just before she arrived our friend, Frank, stopped by to see if we would be coming to church the next day. We invited him to stay for dinner as well and it that enabled us to have special insight as we all discussed politics, history and issues that are troubling Africa.

On Sunday we started out the day with our friend Nettie and her famous Dutch pancakes. Wow! Similar to crepes but a little thicker. I think that I should make them this Saturday. Then we borrowed Rita and Danny’s Venture (has a bit of clearance) for a trip to Cape Maclear. We had to use the Venture because the road in (18 km for the highway) is really, really bad. Washboards so bad that if you try to accelerate at all on them you slide sideways and then off the road. Mark is a really, really good driver though. People go to Cape Maclear because it has great snorkeling and kayaking and a nice little tourist area has built up there. Rita directed us to find the Eagle’s nest which is down at the end of the beach by itself and get a ride out on the catamaran for $20 each. It was a beautiful little resort. The ride out was great and then we anchored to do some snorkeling. It is pretty warm here, but it wasn’t really hot that day and I am not a good swimmer so I didn’t get in. Tim jumped right in and was diving down after the fish. They were very abundant but not particularly varied. Bright, bright blue is a common color for them. When we got back to the resort we were surprised to find Barack Obama on the satellite television station talking about being in Africa. We were on the same continent with our President! Then we had great food there. Here’s something interesting, nice vegetables come with your order of French fries here. There were green beans, carrots, green onions and tomatoes as a side dish. Takes away the guilt of eating “chips”!

The rest of the week has been dedicated to assisting Bob and Sandra with their program. Mark got them set up with all of their contacts on Monday and the program has come off with very few glitches. (There was some intense concern when the carver who had been commissioned to carve 6 wooden penises didn’t show up with those items until minutes before Mark was supposed to demonstrate proper use of a condom.) There are 74 outreach volunteers between 37 villages and 70 of the volunteers are participating. There’s no way we could get that kind of turn out in the U.S. Bob and Sandra are providing them with a small per diem ($2 each per day) as well as refreshments at break time. That all adds up quickly.

It is very, very informative to set in on this program, to help teach and to try to identify the obstacles to condom use and safe sex practices. Yesterday, when asked why AIDS was such a huge problem in Malawi, one of the participants said that it was because of the poverty. Sandra was hoping that they would clearly see that even poor people can make decisions to keep themselves from getting the illness and that poverty isn’t the cause of the illness. Yet, there is no doubt that poverty is the issue that is swirling around, in and through all of the other issues that are faced in a country like this. So, definitely, AIDS is not caused by poverty. However, it is much more difficult to combat in the face of great poverty like we see here. Supposedly, condoms are completely free to anyone here, but you have to get them from (a) hospital, (b) clinic, (c) pharmacy. Well, you can probably guess that there are no pharmacies, hospitals or clinics in our little village here. You would have to be very pro-active and forward thinking to obtain condoms and doubtless, there are people who do. Also, people don’t live beyond the money that they have in their hands today because so very, very few of them are able to save any money at all. They are always just surviving. So, there is not a lot of planning for the future if you are an uneducated villager. Death is a constant specter here, not just from AIDS, but from the simplest infections, accidents and, of course, the ubiquitous malaria. So, if faced with the possibility of a little excitement and fun from a night of unprotected sex, it might seem like the best choice. There is always a chance that they are not going to catch the virus.

It is very, very surprising to me that sleeping with multiple partners, both premarital and extramarital, is very common here. It surprises me because it is a very religious country, mostly Christian but with a good proportion of Muslims, both of which teach faithfulness and abstinence. Most people here attend a church of some kind.