MALAWI 10-17-10

It has been an active week since our last posting. On Monday, determined to get one of the boy’s school fees paid, we set off for Chinsapo to confer with the young man. While he appreciated our urgency to get him back into school, he wanted to go to a fairly new school that he believed would be far superior and more expensive. He is correct about the inadequacies of his present school, which is formed by teachers from Chinsapo Secondary School. Instead of teaching a full day, the teachers teach in the morning, and then in the afternoon present classes for a few hours in what they call Chinsapo Night, charging the same fees that would be collected in the government secondary school. This allows the teachers to double their meager salary without increasing their hours, a common practice.

We asked our young man to speak to the staff at the school he preferred, tell them his story, and see if they are willing to accept him in at the same cost. If so, we would commit ourselves by supporting his change. After lunch, we were told that the staff at Unity school wanted to talk to us, so we went together up the dusty road to a cluster of mud brick class rooms and a few falling apart two room structures used for offices, library and storage. This school began three years ago by a group of Malawian 2 or 3 year college students and newly graduated teachers. So far 95% of their second year students have past the junior national exams. They are still waiting for the results of their first group of fourth year students. If one thing is clear from our visit, the teachers and its combination administration make up the real hope for Malawi’s education. The Administrator himself was once in the same situation as the young man we are trying to help.

With some conversation, they did accept our proposition to prepare our student for the national exams, starting at seven am Tuesday morning. Looking over their library, we loaded the young administrator in our truck to introduce him to the National Library’s unadvertised program to assist fledgling librarys and schools with books donated by publishers and librarys in the U.S., Canada and the UK. For 500 Kwacha ($3.30) per year he can select from the shipping containers as many books as he can carry as often as he can get to town.

Tuesday began our adventure to visit Karonga, 590Km to the north, where a CRS funded project has been in operation for six years supporting now 66 community based child care centers along with eleven different programs targeting all levels of the community. We have noted before, the red clay dust and the smoke in the air. We traveled through national game reserves, pine and Eucalyptus forests, and rubber plantations, natural native forests high in the mountains, sugar cane fields, and casaba fields and everywhere fires are consuming the grasses and many native trees. There seems to be a belief that the new grass will not come unless the old is burnt away. The government discourages this practice but lacks the ability to implement change. Even with the smoke limiting the visibility of what would be a 100 mile view during the rainy season, the view descending the high mountains to the lake and the river plains is spectacular.  The Lake Malawi itself is a place of refuge and peaceful beauty.

Remembering that Malawi and its beautiful lake is formed by Africa’s Great Rift Valley, it’s not surprising that the Karonga area, at the northern end of the lake, experienced a series of earthquakes the end of 2009. Some of the larger structures, churches and warehouses, are still not usable. A number of groups are working on the reconstruction as well as continuing their education and humanitarian efforts

We are back in Lilongwe just in time to say our good byes and pack ourselves up for our return home starting Monday.

Sunday after7:00 am English Mass, we met with a Malawian woman we have known from our previous stay, you might say she has been a cultural guide for us. In her early years she received post graduate degrees from, Boston University, in areas of health and education. She returned to Malawi, worked in a variety of government offices, coordinated activities with the Peace Corps in Malawi for a number of years and continues to work on women’s issues in the various Malawian cultures. With her niece, we drove to the lake exchanging life experiences, cultural awareness, challenges and needs. It was a full day, where we are brought to a fuller appreciation of the challenges ahead for the people of Malawi and of the many agencies working to bring about a sustainable growing Malawi.

As we return to the city, power is out, a fairly predictable event on Tuesday, Thursday and Sundays from sunset, say 6:00pm to roughly 8:00pm, so finding our way through unfamiliar streets to drop off our guide is possible only through her guidance. Finding our way out of her neighborhood is hoping we remember all her directions as we face the high beams of oncoming traffic and the uncertainty of street locations as red dust and smoke in the air hides the stars from any possible light coming through to aid us. It’s about 6:30 when we find our way into the compound where the Sisters of Mary Mediatrix have provided us with housing. We pull up next to our little house, collect our bags from the day’s activities, find our way in, light a few candles, find a snack to share and look to get a comfortable chair under us to relax for a few minutes. The heavy shadows from the few candles cast their own disappointing mood. We fumble to find the scripture reading for the day to reflect on in the dim light, and suddenly realize that we are hearing the voices of the sixty girls that are staying with the sisters, their voices moving in a variety of harmonies from one praise song to another without skipping a beat.  With their very strong Chichewa accent on the English language it’s hard to know when they are singing in Chichewa or English. The harmony and joy in the voices is enough to calm any moment, so we simply sit quietly and listen, rather in awe at their variety and smoothness as one song ends and a voice starts another, and within a word or two the harmony with all the variations are in place. “How Precious Is Your Name”, “Oh Lord”, Repeated with many variations in music and harmony caught us relaxing away any tension and singing in our hearts. Just as suddenly as the power came back at 7:48pm the scramble of those sixty girls voices all speaking at the same time, each, it seemed, having something very important to say, filled the air at a continuous volume and urgency for ten solid minutes before dissolving into complete silence.

How fortunate we are to be able to hear such sounds.

MALAWI week 2 1/2

The hardest part of assisting the young men and women to move beyond the helpless state they find themselves in once they attain that sought after secondary school certificate, is  to wade through the accumulated experiences, attitudes and advice coming from those who have spent their life trying to make a difference in the lives of the forgotten. No one wants to create a dependent society, where each step of enlightenment or material improvement first requires some input from the outside. Most of us, no matter how many years spent working in the developing world, are products of a first world childhood development and education background. As I think about it, we have no appreciation for the personal resources and education we received through osmosis, simply by living in our families’ chosen environment. We can look at our surroundings, recognize the opportunity for change and know that we can bring about that change, if we so choose. This is, an automatic, for us. We may choose not to put out the effort to make the change, but we know we can. I marvel at how many learned experiences have made it possible for us to imagine alternatives, options, and to know of our capacity to move beyond our present state. We now see many different life experiences at play.

So we offer incentives, pay for some school fees in a household that does not see the value of school over food. After a while we say that they are not taking the initiative and that they need to participate more. We begin to imagine that they think with our minds experience. We set up barriers and incentives that make sense to us, and we often fail to see the results we would expect from ourselves or our children.

In actuality, the good experienced missionaries and developers are taking all manner of approaches to influence improved living environments. There are outright grants to put in place needed infrastructures. There are participation and assistance programs where vital essential materials are provided to support community efforts. There are training programs in child development and home based care for the sick and disabled, given to community volunteers.   

There are also many examples of unconditional love lived on a personal level. Not an uncommon example comes from one of the international staff we visited this past weekend. Their house keeper, a woman we knew well and a guide to Malawian cooking for us, living with them with her children for a few years, suddenly took sick and died. The young son remains with our friends as a member of their family. The older children are being supported in private boarding schools.

We continue to be challenged to push the envelope of openness and love.

MALAWI week two

This past weekend’s effort to include a few more potential students in the Don Bosco Youth Technical School, netted one more addition. On Monday afternoon we located Godfrey at his home informing him that if he could get himself to Don Bosco by 8:00 am Tuesday, he could quickly go through the application process, take an entrance exam, be interviewed and learn whether he would be accepted into training for a certification in electrical installation (electrician). On Wednesday, Godfrey joined the six other previously selected students to meet with Fr. Julio for their conduct and final preparation instructions before moving to the other side of town on Sunday. There, they will be guided by a former student, Ian, now member of the Don Bosco Board. Living in groups, they will be on their own, cooking, washing, cleaning, finding fire wood, as well as studying while living in neighborhood structures without water and power. I would not look forward to walk through those streets during the rainy season—deep mud!

Our personal experience includes a good bit of time spent trying to find a spot in the city where we can make an internet connection. We have a memory stick device that sometimes lets us connect through the cell-phone networks and a card that gives us access at some hotels and shopping centers. Power being the key to all these modern conveniences, we live in an on again off again world. I should mention, the living facility we are enjoying utilizes a gravity fed solar water heating arrangement that often finds us taking frightfully quick cold showers of questionable value. So much for the fun side of life.

Wednesday afternoon was spent in the Sunbird Capitol hotel lobby where Pia sent out pre-constructed messages to our girls, a few close friends and, because she is the connector of our family, every one she could connect with in the time we have left on our card and before we met with Fr. Julio and the new students for Don Bosco. Anselm tried to imagine himself somewhere else, starting up a little business that would employ those kids without the opportunity for special training. It is very clear that a long term presence is required. There are many cultural norms that require stretching, different ways to approach problem solving, developing a creative environment and learning to thrive in that setting, experiencing transparency and over time valuing and fostering, even promoting, the effects of that openness with each other, are all part of the puzzle.

We should give you an idea of the tuition that some of you are helping with regarding the new group of Don Bosco students. The student have been asked to focus on the least expensive courses of study, so we have three, which includes one girl, taking the Auto Mechanic course at $350 for the first year. We have two taking Construction at $300 and two taking Electrical Installation at $400 for the first year.

This afternoon, there is a possible soccer game between the youth from the Chinsapo Rainbow youth and the St. Denis youth.

Just before we return home, there is a possibility that we will visit a C.R.S. project up north that we have heard about and followed from a distance for a number of years. We look forward to that.

Malawi, Week One

 While we have only been here in Malawi one week, it seems as though we have been here for months. We are approaching the end of the dry season, so the red clay dust is everywhere and the accumulated smoke from burning of fields, the daily meal and the burning of trash for the past six months brings its flavor to every breath.

We were overwhelmingly welcomed at the airport by Sr. Valsama, Bishop Remi St.Marie and Sr. Revocate, the sister heading the project we were a part of, who was meeting another sister from Kenya. Malawi’s warm heart has been evident everywhere we have visited. We immediately acquired a local cell phone, picked up a vehicle, borrowed an internet connection device for our computer and settled into our little house with the Sisters of Mary Mediatrics.

Tuesday we drove through Lilongwe and out to Chinsapo to reacquaint ourselves with our surroundings. We were struck by the new construction that is in progress everywhere, a new Malawi Parliament building recently completed by the Chinese, with a new hotel complex adjacent to Parliament in progress, also a Chinese project, many new homes sprouting up everywhere, even street lights on the road to Chinsapo. Having been away for a few years, we are struck by the dwindling tree population. As cooking requires fire wood, every tree has suffered the machete blows required to secure firewood. The Chinsapo facility we once worked at is adjacent to the cemetery, originally hidden by trees, is now fully exposed with few branches remaining. There is even new construction here, though with much more primitive means, most without water or electricity.  How can there be just as many poor when there is so much development?  Is this the way of the world?  When we left Malawi all we could see was mostly poverty with a few in between.  Now that we are back, the crowded poverty is still here, though there seems to be development in the city.  All the external sense of progress is here through the structures, but the people are still living under harsh conditions. Children in rags covered with the red flying dust have not given up.  They continue to strive to be in a better place, but will that happen as they get further behind? How can they get ahead when the young do not have the proper education?  At the Chinsapo Rainbow Center, students have come forward to help those who will be taking their exams soon but what will they do once they pass? They do not have the funds for the training they need. This cycle will end once a door of possibility is opened. Meanwhile, they wait expectantly on the Lords help.

Most importantly, our particular Orphan Outreach Program stands as a model for others to learn from. The outstation church, built by the community about a mile away, has been given parish status. Fr. Julio Feliu, a Missioner of Africa, from Spain, now the pastor of the new St. Denis, is working very closely with Sr. Revocate to continue the work of the center. Some of the volunteers from the center are now involved with the parish facilities, presently building a house for the catechist.

 As all of these startup parishes in the poor unacknowledged areas are relying on the few meagerly employed, Fr. is stretching every Kwacha. Fr. Julio and Sr. Revocate, having worked in these conditions most of their life, rely heavily on providence for everything. The center in Chinsapo together with the Small Faith Communities of the parish have identified many needy  secondary school graduates that they are now supporting at the Don Bosco school, with many waiting. The Salesian’s Don Bosco school here is the equivalent to a trade tech, for those not qualified for university. With the school system as it exist in the outskirts of the city, no one here goes to university. Thousands of children who pass the national exams have no job opportunities nor technical training. Yes, there are for profit trade schools that start up to make money with very questionable benefit. As it is at home the Don Bosco schools are well respected here for training young men and women in their chosen field.

We have visited Don Bosco in the past, so yesterday we found our way there to speak with the administration about letting a few more squeak in even though the normal test and interview period has past, and classes begin Oct 4. We have been assured that those that come on Monday the 27^th will be given every opportunity to enter in those disciplines that are not already overcrowded after passing the entrance exam.

Here lies our first opportunity to participate with Providence, thanks to all of your expressed support.

Blessing to all.

Nairobi stop

This first stop on this new journey has been full of new experiences. We were greeted at the Nairobi airport by Mary Oldham, former C.R.S. volunteer and now, Maryknoll Lay Missioners, which leads us to being hosted at the Maryknoll house with it's current staff of dedicated priests wich comprise over two hundred years of missionary stories, one richer than the other. We could easily spend most of our time here listening to stories. Between these shared life experiences,Mary has managed for us to visit a giraffe protection center, an elephant  orphanage, take a safari in the Nairobi National Park, visit with Father John Lange some of the sick identified by one of his social workers, in one of the slums surrounding Nairobi and attend a beautiful Sunday Liturgy.

The highlight of our activities is sharing in the celebration of Mass with the people we view as most in need. This morning, Fr. John picked us up to join him at one of the out station churches located in the middle of a Nairobi slum.We arrived early to find a group of men and women praying the rosary together and singing as the church filled with worshipers. Before we knew it, the youth choir and groups of youthful dancers had taken their places ready to greet the celebrant. Out of their 8' X 10' corrugated steel living quarters emerged the faithful dressed for the rich celebration they were about to participate in. Hundreds of all ages packed under one roof. Approaching the little church through the sewer muddied rutted streets one might think that they are seeing the wealthy monied people from the developed world coming to  bring hope. A more prepared people, for the celebration, one would be hard pressed to find anywhere. When the celebration began, every mouth sang and every hand was raised to applaud His coming. Anyone who has had the opportunity to witness the faith of people from these slum communities will know that God has a special relationship here, and wonder how we have drifted away.

What a rich experience this has been for us! 

Thank you Mary, for sharing with us God's love!  By taking care of every detail for us we have been filled.  What a grace it is for us to be here with you and to meet some of your wonderful friends in Maryknoll.  May the Lord richly bless you and them in the work that you are doing here in Kenya

This is a test. As we have been away from the blog mode for some time, we are just now beginning to re-learn the process.

September 14 will begin a new phase in our journey through life together, stepping away from the comfortable life we now share with our family and friends. We are filled with excitement, uncertainty, hopes, questions, dreams, possibly unwarranted expectations, and a memory that sometimes modifies experiences.
Hopefully we have anticipated our packing needs sufficiently, and can open ourselves up enough to listen to the stories of life as the young men and women we left behind in Malawi 2 years ago have come to experience it. Every day we think of some other bit of knowledge we might have spent more energy acquiring. Something to work on when we return.

Are we ready? Of course not! Have we ever been ready for the next challenging experience just around the corner? Not yet, and yet we have always been provided with enough so that we find ourselves learning and becoming with each step. Even starting this new blog is proving to be an introduction into a world we somehow miss with all those eager and hope filled faces.