Friday, August 31, 2007
This weekend two of my favorite groups of people are getting together in Ohio. I want you to know that I am thinking of you all, and I wish I could be with you!! Eat a s'more for me and devour a bag of chips, too!
-Rachel
-Rachel
Homecoming for the babies
Today two babies from the nursery went home with their families. Joseph's two aunts and father picked him up, and Peter's grandmother took him home.
We went to the social services office with 15 babies--the last Friday of the month, grandmas and dads and uncles and aunts come to the office to see their baby. It was really neat to see the proud and happy family members. Prince looks exactly like his dad. So does Bikiel, actually--his dad is small too! Shalon's dad is a good-looking, friendly guy, and Moses and Miriam's dad was so delighted to see his twins. It was such a good experience.
-Rachel
We went to the social services office with 15 babies--the last Friday of the month, grandmas and dads and uncles and aunts come to the office to see their baby. It was really neat to see the proud and happy family members. Prince looks exactly like his dad. So does Bikiel, actually--his dad is small too! Shalon's dad is a good-looking, friendly guy, and Moses and Miriam's dad was so delighted to see his twins. It was such a good experience.
-Rachel
Friday, August 24, 2007
Malawi Mayhem
Two American nursing students have been in Lilongwe for the last three weeks. Amy is from Pasadena and knows Uncle Don, and Ann is from Chicago (Lincoln Park! which is very close to the neighborhood where I lived). We have met with them several times, and Thursday we got to go to the N.O.A.H. Project with them and another American they met while here.
The N.O.A.H. Project has a feeding center and a private primary school for orphaned children (having lost one or both parents, living with a guardian). There were tons of Americans there yesterday--some doctors, a dentist, an organization called Samaritan's Feet, and another organization called Missions 4 Jesus.
Samaritan's Feet was started by a Nigerian man named Manning who grew up in a village and was given a pair of shoes (along with the gospel) when he was nine years old. The missionary gave Manning the shoes and told him that he could do something for people with his life. He ended up getting a scholarship to play basketball in the States. He got a degree, started Samaritan's Feet, and travels all over the world washing villagers' feet and giving them a free pair of shoes.
Missions 4 Jesus is members from a church in Charlotte, NC. I didn't get what the organization does, but for this trip they teamed up with Samaritan's Feet.
The project is on the same side of Lilongwe as Likuni, so David Nixon (the American who started the N.O.A.H. Project) picked us up right outside our "neighborhood." We drove down a dirt road for at least half an hour. The other Americans were not there yet when we arrived, so we sat around for a bit before bringing out two bottles of bubbles. Ann took one bottle, and thus a crowd of twenty children, and I took the other. It was so much fun. The kids did not all know how to blow bubbles, so they learned and looked so wonderful doing it!
After bubbles, we set up triage. In the first room, Amy listened to their lungs, and I took temperatures and checked teeth. Then we sent them with their paperwork (a chart made on a piece of notebook paper, handwritten in pen) to the next room, where Adam and Amy were checking pulse, respiration, and blood pressure. There were also two clinical officers who were doing checkups.
That was a bit tiring. After every child had been through, I wandered off to see what the rest of the group was doing. A child walked by me with a pair of brand-new white shoes, which is a bit strange to see in dusty Africa. I found the building where kids were getting their feet washed (and massaged and tickled) and presented with a pair of new shoes.
Next, we took vitals on the guardians of the children. Oh my goodness, it was at least 200 women. Adam, Amy, and Ann all were taking blood pressure, and I had a very important task: I took temperatures. So I got to touch 200 strange women's armpits...and subsequently their breasts or nursing children! I thought that the earlier part of the day was tiring, but after standing in the hot sun with little water and no food, we were exhausted.
David bought tons of loaves of bread, which we tried to pass out later. That was terrible. Unless you consider that some people got food, which is great. There had been a line of students, then others started to jump the line, and soon we had crowds around us, all reaching and urging us to give them bread. That was really hard for me emotionally--I only had so much bread, and there were three times as many people around me, all demanding it, all hungry, all needing it. David decided to give it to the children the next day at school instead of trying to figure out what to do with the mob.
Despite the desperate attempt to distribute bread and our exhaustion, we felt pleased with the day.
-Rachel
Life in Malawi is good. I have spending more and more of my time volunteering with the different organizations that Rachel has been involved with. I have especially enjoyed being at the Youth Ministries Safe Haven. The boys there are really great and a lot of fun. We play chess, soccer, and they have even taught me Bau, a type of Malawian mancala game.
I have had some really interesting medical experiences. For a few days I got to follow an American doctor around Kamuzu Central Hospital. The conditions there are dire. It is overcrowded, with people lying everywhere on the concrete floor. They are extremely short staffed and so many patients go undiagnosed and untreated. I followed the doctor around on rounds for just a couple of days, but I saw so much. I really got to see just how much of a need there is, something I won't be able to forget for the rest of life.
As you probably gathered from Rachel's post, yesterday was crazy. But it was a lot of fun as well. Even if we didn't make much of medical difference, I still felt that at the very least we were giving all these women and children the kind of attention they deserve and never get. If anything, I hope that we made them feel a little more comforted by our presence.
-Adam
ps- Sorry, we had alot of images to put up but this internet cafe isn't any good.
The N.O.A.H. Project has a feeding center and a private primary school for orphaned children (having lost one or both parents, living with a guardian). There were tons of Americans there yesterday--some doctors, a dentist, an organization called Samaritan's Feet, and another organization called Missions 4 Jesus.
Samaritan's Feet was started by a Nigerian man named Manning who grew up in a village and was given a pair of shoes (along with the gospel) when he was nine years old. The missionary gave Manning the shoes and told him that he could do something for people with his life. He ended up getting a scholarship to play basketball in the States. He got a degree, started Samaritan's Feet, and travels all over the world washing villagers' feet and giving them a free pair of shoes.
Missions 4 Jesus is members from a church in Charlotte, NC. I didn't get what the organization does, but for this trip they teamed up with Samaritan's Feet.
The project is on the same side of Lilongwe as Likuni, so David Nixon (the American who started the N.O.A.H. Project) picked us up right outside our "neighborhood." We drove down a dirt road for at least half an hour. The other Americans were not there yet when we arrived, so we sat around for a bit before bringing out two bottles of bubbles. Ann took one bottle, and thus a crowd of twenty children, and I took the other. It was so much fun. The kids did not all know how to blow bubbles, so they learned and looked so wonderful doing it!
After bubbles, we set up triage. In the first room, Amy listened to their lungs, and I took temperatures and checked teeth. Then we sent them with their paperwork (a chart made on a piece of notebook paper, handwritten in pen) to the next room, where Adam and Amy were checking pulse, respiration, and blood pressure. There were also two clinical officers who were doing checkups.
That was a bit tiring. After every child had been through, I wandered off to see what the rest of the group was doing. A child walked by me with a pair of brand-new white shoes, which is a bit strange to see in dusty Africa. I found the building where kids were getting their feet washed (and massaged and tickled) and presented with a pair of new shoes.
Next, we took vitals on the guardians of the children. Oh my goodness, it was at least 200 women. Adam, Amy, and Ann all were taking blood pressure, and I had a very important task: I took temperatures. So I got to touch 200 strange women's armpits...and subsequently their breasts or nursing children! I thought that the earlier part of the day was tiring, but after standing in the hot sun with little water and no food, we were exhausted.
David bought tons of loaves of bread, which we tried to pass out later. That was terrible. Unless you consider that some people got food, which is great. There had been a line of students, then others started to jump the line, and soon we had crowds around us, all reaching and urging us to give them bread. That was really hard for me emotionally--I only had so much bread, and there were three times as many people around me, all demanding it, all hungry, all needing it. David decided to give it to the children the next day at school instead of trying to figure out what to do with the mob.
Despite the desperate attempt to distribute bread and our exhaustion, we felt pleased with the day.
-Rachel
Life in Malawi is good. I have spending more and more of my time volunteering with the different organizations that Rachel has been involved with. I have especially enjoyed being at the Youth Ministries Safe Haven. The boys there are really great and a lot of fun. We play chess, soccer, and they have even taught me Bau, a type of Malawian mancala game.
I have had some really interesting medical experiences. For a few days I got to follow an American doctor around Kamuzu Central Hospital. The conditions there are dire. It is overcrowded, with people lying everywhere on the concrete floor. They are extremely short staffed and so many patients go undiagnosed and untreated. I followed the doctor around on rounds for just a couple of days, but I saw so much. I really got to see just how much of a need there is, something I won't be able to forget for the rest of life.
As you probably gathered from Rachel's post, yesterday was crazy. But it was a lot of fun as well. Even if we didn't make much of medical difference, I still felt that at the very least we were giving all these women and children the kind of attention they deserve and never get. If anything, I hope that we made them feel a little more comforted by our presence.
-Adam
ps- Sorry, we had alot of images to put up but this internet cafe isn't any good.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Engagement
Saturday we went to an engagement in area 23 with Catherine. It consisted of people dancing up the aisles to the front of the hall to put kwacha (money) in an orange plastic saucer...for several hours. The only varation from that theme:
*Women from the man's family went outside and covered up the groom and three of his friends with chitenje cloths. The whole group processed inside, and people put money in the saucer to guess which one was the groom.
*Repeat above, substituting bride and her three friends.
*The uncle from the groom's side and the uncle from the bride's side each held one leg of a roasted chicken, which they pulled apart.
*The same men exchanged a rooster and a hen.
We also got soft drinks and some snacks. The chairs were set up in rows of three, so Adam and I did not get to sit by each other or talk the whole time. And here is a random piece of information--last year at this time, we were not engaged!
Anyway, the "cultural experience" was interesting...but I prefer engagements in the U.S.--less boring for the expats in the crowd...
You can also tell that I took the photos:), but I wanted to point out that in the first one, the woman in the middle of the picture is grooving with a baby on her back! Nothing will slow Africans down while dancing!
Babies, babies everywhere
Lotsa babies and no adults around! The one in pink stripes is a boy--Tamanda-- and Joseph is behind him. Fanny is the one sitting up facing the camera (in the back), and Madalitso (the prettiest one at the nursery) is the one with the little puffs of hair, her back to the camera. Moses is the little one lying in the front. He has a twin sister, Miriam.
Rachel and Tamanda
Fiuni
The bedroom of the smallest (and often sick/most sick babies).
Bikiel, Margo's favoriteThursday, August 9, 2007
We continue our respective volunteering. I find it harder and harder to leave the babies at the Crisis Nursery each time I go there. I finally made it (by minibus) out to KASO, only to find that no one was there! They are training volunteers this week. Youth Care Ministries will slow way down for the "winter holiday," so the boys get a break from lessons. The teacher there plans on doing two hours or so of lessons each day. I am not completely sure I want to spend as much time there in that case, but I think I will take over some DVDs (good English language practice for the boys!:) and maybe Boggle (I brought that game with us from the US).
We got tickets for the CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) delegation, as well as an email with bios on our teammates. The next three months still holds a lot for us!
We got tickets for the CPT (Christian Peacemaker Teams) delegation, as well as an email with bios on our teammates. The next three months still holds a lot for us!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Its all in your head
Sunday I was (sortof) bragging to my parents that neither of us have gotten really sick since arriving in Malawi.
And on Monday Luzu was talking about how expats come to Africa are fearful of illnesses--not wanting to get bitten by mosquitoes, not drinking the water, washing hands/using hand sanitizer after playing with orphans. Adam and I tried to reason that, while the placebo effect certainly exists, people get sick from germs to which their bodies are not accustomed.
Then early Tuesday morning I woke up nauseous and with "loose bowels," as Luzu put it. I stayed in bed most of the day and had some bread, banana, and apple for dinner.
This morning Adam woke up with what I had yesterday. How frustrating! While Adam stayed in bed, I had a nice breakfast for someone coming off of a sickness-fast:
doughnuts
a fried egg
french fries
Fortunately, it is 12:30, and so far my body has not revolted from my greasy breakfast! Plus, I am feeling 100% better. Now you can pray that Adam will recover quickly as well!
-Rachel
And on Monday Luzu was talking about how expats come to Africa are fearful of illnesses--not wanting to get bitten by mosquitoes, not drinking the water, washing hands/using hand sanitizer after playing with orphans. Adam and I tried to reason that, while the placebo effect certainly exists, people get sick from germs to which their bodies are not accustomed.
Then early Tuesday morning I woke up nauseous and with "loose bowels," as Luzu put it. I stayed in bed most of the day and had some bread, banana, and apple for dinner.
This morning Adam woke up with what I had yesterday. How frustrating! While Adam stayed in bed, I had a nice breakfast for someone coming off of a sickness-fast:
doughnuts
a fried egg
french fries
Fortunately, it is 12:30, and so far my body has not revolted from my greasy breakfast! Plus, I am feeling 100% better. Now you can pray that Adam will recover quickly as well!
-Rachel
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