Goodbye Malawi

It’s now been almost five months since the six of us step foot on Malawian ground and embraced this place as our new home. Friday 27^th June is our last day working with Assemblies of God Relief and Development Services (AGREDS) in Salima, where we have been based since the beginning of February.

It feels so strange looking back on these past few months, especially looking back to that first week where everything was so unfamiliar and uncertain, and now, now it’s our last week. We went through many emotions during those first few weeks, ups and downs, and that still applies now. Yes, it’s really exciting to think of returning home; to seeing friends and family, to have British food, to sleep without mosquito nets and to use a scrubber and PedEgg on my feet which have a permanent black colour from the dusty ground. But, the thought of parting with Malawi, the friends we’ve made, the people we’ve met, the projects we’ve been involved with and grown so passionate about, that will be so difficult.

Like we did for our first blog post in Malawi, during our first week in Salima, we’ve taken time to reflect on how these past five months have affected us, the thoughts and feelings we’ve had and still have, and our attitude towards both the trip and returning to Britain.

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 (1) What has been the highlight(s) of this trip?

Laurie: There have been many, but the times that I will remember most fondly are visits to the field where we have just sat with community members, listened to their stories of transformation and their songs, chatted to them about their lives and the problems they face, worked alongside them in harvesting or making fuel efficient stoves and just sharing in the joy they have.

Ben: Mount Mulanje. The views, the challenge, the time together and the freezing cold water were all fantastic. Dropping my iPhone into one of the pools wasn’t so fantastic.

(2) What are the challenges you've faced?

David: Malawian time!! Missing family and friends, particularly after Grandma and Grandpa’s death. Another challenge has been health with my back abscesses and being on IV antibiotics.

Laurie: The flexibility of Malawian plans- you can make plans to do something but it can easily be changed to a latter time, another day or cancelled altogether, or people will not turn up on time so you have to wait around for ages. This was a bigger problem at the beginning of the visits when we were writing reports, but it has taught us of patience and adaptability.

(3) Has there been anything in particular that’s stood out/surprised you during this trip?

Jonny: How we’ve bonded as a team. We are quite different individuals with different personalities but we’ve all got on really well and built up close relationships, as a team and with one another.

Nia: Peoples attitude towards combating climate change has both surprised and excited me. I never realized how much of a problem it is in sub-Saharan Africa. To see ruined crops and land that’s fallen away because of soil erosion has been shocking, but, the village people’s attitude towards adaption and protection has been so positive. We’ve seen this both in schools at climate change clubs and also in the communities. Tree planting committees and farming clubs are two examples where villagers have been adapting planting and harvesting techniques so that their maize yield does not decrease despite the challenges climate change has caused.

(4) What will you miss most about Malawi?

Ben: I’ll definitely miss the kids who live near our lodge the most. Not only are they immeasurably adorable, but we’ve come to get to know them quite well. We have a great time with them, whether we’re playing football with them, swinging them around or carrying them on our shoulders.

Nia: I will miss what I see with my eyes every day- beautiful mothers in colourful chitenji wraps, baby tied onto their back, seeing ox carts pulling mountains of maize cobs, bike taxis swerving into the road as a honking car approaches, children’s shy smiles and giggly whispers as a reaction to our unfamiliar, white faces and being greeted so warmly by villagers in the rural communities.

(5) What are you looking forwards to in Britain?

Laurie: My friends and family (obviously), fast and constantly available internet and food that is not drowning in oil. Also, I am looking forwards to there being no language barriers between me and those around me.

Jonny: Just the little things. There are a lot of simple things we take for granted, take plug sockets for example. You probably expect that your plug socket should be attached to the wall?, that it’s easy to plug and unplug things from it?, and that it’s safe and doesn’t spark? Well then maybe Malawi isn’t the best place for you…

(6) What have you learnt whilst out in Malawi?

David: I’ve learnt a lot about development work and about the importance of Christian fellowship, especially with Christians in other parts of the world.

Nia: The saying ‘God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called’ has stood out for me this trip. In my struggles, where I didn’t feel equipped, God has been moulding me, responding to my prayers and given me strength to carry on. He has filled me with peace and patience when I’ve been frustrated at team members or at changes of plan. He has given me joy and a big heart for development work and the people of Malawi, in particular the women whom I admire so much. I feel that this trip has been a time of equipping and I look forwards to returning home and going to university and putting all I’ve learnt into practice.

(7) What can you take back to Britain with you?

Jonny: A sense of community and hospitality, which you really feel in the villages and that we should be welcoming to everyone and enjoy meeting others, even if they’re complete strangers.

Ben: I’ve been challenged to act more justly towards, and speak out on behalf of, our brothers and sisters globally. Britain is wrapped in a warm blanket. A combination of distance and a lack of exposure makes us numb to the reality and harshness of poverty. We live far away from the people who work their hardest in factories and mines with dire working conditions. Although I feel like I’m someone who has a good understanding of the problems of global consumerism, it’s not something I’ve actually responded to before. I’ve carried on seeking convenience rather than justice.
Although I haven’t met anyone who has been affected directly by an unethical corporation, meeting people who are so poor and seeing the conditions they are in despite their hard work has awoken in me the Father’s desire for us to be a global church – one that supports and blesses our less fortunate brothers and sisters around the world. That could be through shopping more ethically (take a look at ethicalconsumer.org/buyersguides.aspx to find out how ethical brands you use are), switching to a more ethical bank (moveyourmoney.org.uk), petitioning and boycotting, and writing and speaking to my MP about issues. Although I might be just one person, I now believe that that doesn’t excuse me from doing my part and encouraging others to do the same.

Lois: As I've already come back to the UK I've noticed how my concern for the environment has increased. I think this is from seeing the horrific impacts of climate change on the daily lives of Malawians. Also I am challenging myself to be more content with what I have which is something I've learnt from Malawians, not to moan at the things I have but instead be grateful for what God has blessed me with.

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I hope you appreciate that for your own sake, all our thoughts, feeling, comments and stories can’t be put into writing because it would take you forever to read (and this also means I won’t get blistered fingers from all the typing!) But please, when we all get back home; ask us, because we would love to share with you. Be aware though, that you might regret asking that question when we dive into a step by step description of how to make fuel efficient stoves or how to make manure.

So this is it. This is our last team blog from Malawi! We now have a week’s holiday before we make our 17ish hour journey back to Britain on the 8^th of July! We will be ending our wonderful experience of Malawi in Liwonde, on safari, and then in Dedza and Lilongwe, the capital city.

Although departing will be very emotional and difficult, we all look forwards to landing at Heathrow, embracing the family, ordering a Costa latte (definitely!) and returning back to our homes.

Being here in Malawi has been such an experience and will stay with us for the rest of our lives. (I’m afraid I’m going down the emotional route at the moment but I feel that this is inevitable at a time like this –please bear with me!)

I wasn’t that homesick when I arrived Malawi but I’m quite certain that I’ll be very home-sick for Malawi when I’m back in in UK. The six of us have been family for the past 5 months. It’s so strange to think that we didn’t know eachother at all before coming out here! Being scattered around the UK and not living together in the same compound will be sad and incredibly bizarre.

I’m sure we’ll even miss some of the things that annoyed us about Malawian life, like the uncertainty of whether there’ll be running water in the morning. That’s not to say I can’t wait to have a warm power shower, and be certain that there will be water, but there will always be fond memories when looking back at the struggles we had whilst adapting to the Malawian way of life, such as having to wash out of a bucket.

Although British life is so different, there are so many things we can take from here and apply to our lives back in the UK. Examples could include having an attitude of joy in work, a heart to welcome strangers, and flexibility in adapting to things when they don’t go according to plan.

And of course, to end, we wouldn’t be here together if it weren’t for one thing we have in common: our faith and hope in Jesus Christ. This is ultimately why we all came out here. Yes it’s been incredible to make new friends, explore a new place, experience a different culture, but that’s not why we came here- we came to serve God.

Team Malawi vision statement:

“Love Humbly

Bring Hope &
Be Changed for

God’s Glory”

Goodbye and Much Love,

Nia, Ben, Laurie, Jonny, Lois and David

Team Malawi 2014 

What went down on the Mulanje trip....

Organising a holiday to have it delayed not once, but twice is no fun. Malawi’s been a bit uncertain during the month of May with a lot of palaver concerning the elections. There were cases of rigging votes, the possibility of a recount and even some violence in some of the big cities. The night before we were due to leave for holiday on our third attempt, the president was announced at 11pm and we went to bed uncertain as to whether we’d have to delay it for the third time.

If that wasn’t bad enough, I had pulled my leg muscle badly and was hobbling like a pregnant lady and David had a very nasty infection on his back:- Dr Lois Smith and Dr BJ Hampson had to step in and poke around with a sterile needle!

Monday 26^th May, we woke up and got the all clear to go on holiday, but, (we should’ve been used to it by now) troubles galore.. Ben was very ill. Despite his sickness, he was pretty determined that we should carry on and so we took the 7hour journey to Blantyre (the driver said it would take 2.5 hours- what a joke!) with him throwing up into see-through sandwich bags. I had the joy of tying them up, poking my head out of the bus window and flinging them out whilst also checking out for cyclists- I didn’t want the bag to land on their head!

Blantyre was our first stop: Malawis old capital city. The bus depo was a pretty scary place with swarms of men calling “sista, sista” or “my friend, my friend” trying to entice us into their bus. The contrast between wealth and poverty struck me in Blantyre. In the centre of town was a big, swish KFC with comfy seats and an automatic hand dryer in the toilets (a big luxury for us!) but then outside, begging and children in rags. Even writing about it makes me feel uncomfortable and very sad. It is very sad.

Had another bit of trouble in Blantyre with our hire car. With mix ups on booking, we didn’t get the Land Cruiser we’d booked and had to wait 7 hours in the office. However, we were greeted by a big, white, beasty Toyota Fortuner and we named him Gus. Gus was a joy to have during our trip and took us safely from A to B, even when we made a wrong turn and had to drive down an incredibly bumpy, pot-holey dirt track. Lois did some great driving (and us licence holders had a cheeky little go down a dirt track too) and our ‘Mulanje Playlist’ was blasting out the tunes.

Gus, the beast

After Blantyre, Gus took us south to Zomba Plateau where we had the luxury of strawberries, raspberries and gooseberries by a dam with beautiful, mountainous views.

the lovely zomba plateau

With a little trouble finding it, we came to our cottage which was tucked away in the trees. The CCAP Cottage was beautiful with wooden furniture, a big fireplace and a fully stocked kitchen, and the view out of the porch was stunning. The troubles of the past few days (and weeks) were dissolving away. But, oho, guess what? There was a knock on the door… a double booking! Huzzah! At this point I was honestly pretty disheartened: nothing was going to plan (and I was still hobbling slightly). Why can’t everything just go smoothly??

I can however say that I was proved wrong. I was a massive pessimist, and we had a very blessed time with the American couple that turned up at our door. They were very grateful that we let them share with us (the six of us slept in the four-bed room) and they were so hospitable. The wife, Beth, baked us a delicious raspberry sponge pudding and they gave us chocolate for our climb too. It was very nice to have them stay with us and the whole experience taught me that in life things aren’t going to go according to plan, in fact, it hardly ever does, and that adapting to these changes with a joyful attitude is far better than wallowing.

On Tuesday 3^rd we visited Makoka Coffee Estate where we were given a tour of the plantation and were given a tasting sesh. We placed a hefty order and now our suitcases smell incredible of ground coffee beans. This is possibly my favourite smell (although it’s a tossup between that, freshly baked bread and the smell of dry swimming costumes after they’ve been in chlorinated water).

the incredible smelling beans

Then, the main focus of the trip... MULANJE! Here’s a breakdown of our three day trip up Malawi’s highest mountain…

DAY 1:- very steep, very sweaty, very beautiful

Day one of climbing was tough, very tough and it was harder to spot dry areas to our t-shirts than it was to find sweat soaked patches. Sorry, grim, but true. The route we took had thick, jungle-like greenery, waterfalls and natural pools with views of giant peaks around and above us. By lunch time we were so hot and were grateful to strip down and take a dip in a very cold water pool.

beautiful streams, pools and waterfalls were all along our day 1 route

A very sad side to day one was when Ben’s iPhone dove head first into the pool too. The phone, like us, must’ve been feeling the heat of the day and just couldn’t take it anymore. Sorry, I shouldn’t joke about this. The iPhone is currently undergoing intense methods of resurrection- I believe it’s currently lying in a bed of dry rice.

After lunch we reached the top of the ascent and journeyed along the open plateau. It was a very different experience and felt like we were walking the Welsh or Scottish countryside.

The lodge which we stayed the night at was a big wooden hut we had to ourselves. The housekeeper boiled water over an open fire so that we could each have a warm bucket shower in a shack. The shack had an opening from the shoulders upwards so that we were facing an incredible mountain view whilst showering- not bad at all!

the view from our lodge

Our toilets were a hole in the ground in an outdoor wooden shack and we all felt proud of ourselves after our first ever longdrop poo experience. Very emosh times.

The stars that evening were incredible, especially when we did a midnight loo dash. We all slept on mattress’ on the floor and had to cocoon up in the sleeping bag as it was pretty chilly.

DAY 2: strolling the valleys

Day two was much more leisurely (thank goodness!) as we walked across the open plateau. Our guide Wesley told us about how there had been a huge bushfire around 6 years ago which spread across the huge plateau and burnt down all the pine trees. They currently have a tree nursery full of pine trees and hope to replant this summer. We arrived our next lodge (equally as lovely) around 1pm and after a supernoodle lunch we walked an incredibly steep descent to a natural pool which was numbingly cold. The evening was very cold too and I was wrapped in a blanket before the fire with three pairs of socks on my feet.

so cold but so worth it

Another British guy shared our lodge and it was very nice to share food with him, he shared his coffee with us and we had chats about religion, world affairs, politics etc (David was thoroughly entertained).

DAY 3: toe bashing and soaking in the killer views

Day three we descended Mulanje taking a different route to that on day one. It was very steep and so it was pretty harsh on the poor feet, but the incredible views were such a distraction that it didn’t really bother us at all. On arriving the bottom 5 hours after setting off, we took a cold refreshing swim in a nearby pool and pulled off the boots and slipped the blistered feed into a pair of comfy flippies.

climb complete! here we are with our excellent guide and two porters

So there you have it. That’s an outline of our trip. And what a trip it was. Amazes me to look back on everything that I was concerned about, everything I thought was going wrong.

My leg muscle was healed and gave me no grief whilst walking, David was able to walk up the mountain with the porter carrying his day sack, Ben’s sickness only lasted that one day on route to Blantyre and although Laurie was unwell whilst climbing Mulanje, she showed her stomach who’s boss and ploughed on. What seemed like disruptions with unexpected guests meant not only fellowship but also pudding and coffee! We were protected on the roads and had no injuries on the mountain. It was God moments to the max up Mulanje looking at His incredible creation, and team bonding was top notch with banter galore. We feel so blessed and refreshed after our holiday.

Now we are back in Salima. Sadly, Lois leaves us on Saturday and we’re going to miss her big time! For the rest of us, we have 3 weeks left working with AGREDS and we’re busy putting together a month plan so that we can do as much as possible during our time here.

We do have some prayer points and would really appreciate your support in praying for these things:-

•  The healing of Davids back – David is visiting the nearby district hospital twice a day and is on antibiotics. Please pray for a speedy recovery and protection against further infection.
• Lois – for a safe journey back to the UK on Saturday and also as she starts her teacher training with Teacher First
• Ben’s iPhone – no explanation needed
• Motivation during our remaining time here

Much love to you blog followers

Nia and the team x

please take a moment to appreciate this great, great picture of Ben