a day in our life in malawi

Well we have only been "working" here for a couple of days but what a lot we have seen and done though we seem to do a lot of waiting on "AFRICAN" time.

Our schedule is set day to day and then also changes ...day to day. We are a very flexible group of four though so it makes it rather exciting that we know not what is in store for us at any given time.

Today we were back in the slums of Mgona. By 9 am we were at the community centre which is just an open air shelter that doubles as a gathering place/school etc. We were to help cook and serve 'porridge' to about 140 2-6 year olds! Well, cooking the porridge was done in an enclosed hut over an open fire --with no chimney. When we asked why there was no chimney we were told because that is the way it is done here! Thus the answer why none us could tolerate the wood smoke to stir the pot except for one of the native women. We did get to wash the cups and serve the porridge in a rather orderly fashion to amazingly patient tiny hungry mouths after playing rounds of "ring around the rosie,"and blowing soap bubbles in the breeze.

The school house was a cement floor covered with straw mats, a ragged black board and the alphabet written on a piece of cardboard. That was it for supplies. We had been asked to provide slates for lessons but could not bring the poundage on our flight.

Striking to us all was how content these tiny souls seemed in this school though with so little.

Later Lydia did a wonderful bible study with the "widows' with the rest of us doing our "broadway" debuts as the characters. The widows loved it and with the help of our translator

truly got involved in the story of Naomi & Ruth identifying with the need for a redeemer in their lives.

Our afternoon was first a crash course in herbal medicine from a local trained herbal nutritionist who is also the chair for the AIDS support group. Gray was a wealth of information on how these natural foods and herbs helped the HIV positive clients. There was then a rather impromptu medical clinic in the same building when we were paired up with part of a medical team from Mesa. We saw and treated about 36 women 3 men and one child in about 2 hours. The team from Mesa had brought an amazing amount of basic drugs but considering the amount of people that were HIV positive - a drop in the bucket of the need.

An amazing day with the ride home always filled by the amazing singing of the Somebody Cares workers.