Saturday, September 29, 2007
BSF stories - Malawi
While the site of an ‘Azungu’ or ‘White-man’ made little Madalitso Chongo cry with fear, his mother Geneloza Chongo was happy to see the Samaritans Purse and E.A.M. team that were monitoring BioSand water filters in her village of Kambanje, Malawi. Using her filter for purifying over 100 litres of water a day, Geneloza maintains a busy household with her husband and three young children. Responsible for cleaning and maintenance procedures, she ensures the spout is cleaned at least once a week by bleach, the top is always covered, and that the family maintains separate pails for fetching and storing water. She is thankful for the gift of clean water and expressed a desire to maintain and steward this gift.
100Cdn made an impact in the life of Rufina Amini
Labels: water filter Malawi samaritans purse EAM
Stuff to Mull Over
Monday, September 24, 2007
...mommy look what i found
'mommy, mommy... we found an Azungo in the field... can we keep him? PLEASE!?'
Good news today. My parents showed the Samaritans Purse 'Turn on the Tap' Video at their church in an attempt to assist my efforts to raise money to buy water filters. 100.00CDN buys one filter for a family and drastically changes lives. They were able to raise 7,700.00CDN putting the total at 13,100.00CDN! Thank you for the support - that's 131 filters and potentaially 600 or more people served a clean healthy glass of water. For more information about how you can support the BioSand Water Filtration efforts please visit this link for information and an opportunity to donate. Do let me know if you donate so lil'jt can have an accurate tally ;) Zikomo!
Labels: Africa, cute black kids, fields, Malawi, white guys
Sunday, September 23, 2007
more filters?
~Paul~ for the Brazil team :)
Friday, September 21, 2007
Our First Village Visit
I've been getting emails from people wishing me Happy Birthday (thank you everyone btw) and asking me how birthdays are celebrated in Africa/Malawi. The answer is... they don't. Not much in Malawi anyway. I got some congratulatory words from the people in the office that knew, and that's about it. Jeff actually had plans to buy me a bottle of fanta after dinner from the store across the street as a birthday gift, but the store was closed. Hahaha, that's ok though.
We spent the day in the Mpando area, doing a count of households in the surrounding villages to compare to the current number of filters in the new project. We pulled up in the truck, and before you know it, the word when out (Which word you say? Well that's coming up in the next post, so sit tight) and before you know it we had a mass of children around us. After a few minutes, we started walking to the nearest well so we could make some observations, and again, the swarm of children made a semi-circle around us. I thought to myself, this would make a great picture, Jeff walking and the throng of children following him. I hurried on ahead about 30 feet, so that I could pull out my camera, get the right settings, and then take the picture.
Now I'm 30 feet ahead of everyone else, and I've pulled my camera out. I turn around, turn on my camera and am looking down to adjust the settings when I hear kids shrieking and the ground thundering. I look up and saw a dust cloud in front of me:
I didn't even have time to get the settings set up right; hence the blurry picture with one kid's face/hand kind of in focus...
Then it was off for some well inspections; it would be the first time we'd see firsthand the quality of the water our filters would be up against. As we walked to the wells though, the horde of children kept following us, turning our little inspection into a spectacle.
A close-up of the shallow well. Yes, the water really looks like that, and yes, that is what appears to be a plastic bag floating on top.
Here is Gerald talking to Jeff about this shallow well. You can see how low the level of the water is. When it gets to this point, the vilagers get what they can, then wait 10-20 minutes for the water to rise again. Yes, the water here is also pretty turbid and not too clean.
Another village, another shallow well. There was visible algae growth along the side of the uncovered well, and the water was pretty turbid. On the way to this well, one of the men from this village turned to me and simply said, "We drink like pigs." They use this well for everything, from household chores to drinking water.
The Mpando area where this villages are located will be the second area Jeff, Gerald and I go to after Chiwe. The project begins with us building and installing 50 filters in Chiwe before moving to Mpando, to build and install 250 filters. Our project is at a much different state than some of the other countries' (re:Brazil). Since this is only the second year of the project in Malawi, there's still a lot of foundational work to do, from continuing to build up and train local staff as well as even spending time getting our local partner organization here (The Evangelical Association of Malawi, EAM) more enthusiastic about our filters.
Ah there's more to write, but I just need to get some pictures posted, so there it is.
Monday, September 17, 2007
On Hospitality and (Random) Meetings
We haven't been doing much in the office aside from sitting around and checking email, so the prospect of heading out of Lilongwe to go to another district on Saturday was exciting. Limbi, one of the guys from the office, took us to the Kasungu district on Saturday. The youth group from Kaning'a CCP (David's church) was visiting a village in that district and Limbi was one of the leaders. We went to a remote village that required navigating through a series of winding dirt trails. We passed through a series of really old one-story stores, passing a series of mudbrick houses and huts before stopping in a clearing, persumably where the village meets together. There was already a group of people under a long, straw-covered structure, and it looked like a meeting of some sort was going on when arrived.
Stepping out of the vehicle, I looked around and from the meeting area all the children started streaming out, running towards us, but stopping short in front of us. I said "Moni" (hello) to them and smiled, picturing in my head the next few moments, of kids approaching us and either shaking my hand, or waving... but that didn't happen. Instead, they all just stared at us. Esme, one of the youth leaders, told the kids to reply to me but I guess the whiteness of my skin (yeah I know, I'm considered white here, not yellow. It was a surprise to me too) completely overtook the kids' natural inclination to obey their elders. I've never felt more like a stranger than at that moment.
Suddenly from the right, out of nowhere a woman appeared, singing and dancing. Then another, and another. Okaaayyyy... Trust me, it was weird. You imagine being surrounded by 30 African children, all of whom are staring at you like you've got 3 heads, and then behind them from the right come a contingent of women singing and dancing. It was like a musical or something. A really, really, odd musical.
I thought perhaps the singing and dancing women were on their way to the bigger group of already-gathered people, and we just happened to mistakenly park our van in front of their planned route. Picture my utter confusion when they came towards us, and then instead of continuing to walk on, they turned and then surrounded us, still singing and dancing.
I assume most people at this point would be enjoying the sight of a host of women and children singing and dancing 2 feet away from you, but not me. Now I've travelled a decent amount (in Asia anyway) and think that I've got a fair bit of exposure to different cultures, but nothing prepared me for this. I was horrified to tell the truth. All I could think of (in my asian/western mindset) was, "Who am I that I deserve all this? Please stop... I'm not anybody special. I'm not bringing food, money, or even clothes... We're not even doing our water filter project here..." I didn't know what to do, or how to react. Most of all, I wasn't sure how to receive their welcome.
However, they continued singing to us after a few women stepped forward to shake my hand, it was like the floodgates opened and all of a sudden EVERYONE wanted to shake our hand and say hello. I was reminded of something that I just read in our "Cross-Cultural Servanthood" book, regarding hospitality: "You see, most of us know what true hospitality feels like. It means being received openly, warmly, freely, without any need to prove ourselves. Hospitality makes us feel worthy, because our host assumes we are worthy. This is the kind of hospitality that we have experienced from God, and all that God asks is that we go and do likewise..."
Their warmth (yes, the kids then followed the lead of the women and came to shake our hands) overcame my feeling of unworthiness and embarrasment. Actually, overcame is an understatement. Their warmth bludgeoned (yes, everyone, I like this word) the embarrasment away. The "Oh-crap-I-Just-farted-in-a-crowded-but-strangely-silent-room" look on my face disappeared and was filled with one of pure joy. I no longer felt like a stranger. I don't think I would have traded places with anyone at that moment.
We (Jeff and I) have made it a goal to get video of the next time we go to a village and are welcomed. We'll post it as soon as we can.
On Sunday we went to the opening of a one week event here, "Lilongwe for Jesus". Its a one week thing where they'll flood the city with people preaching and sharing the gospel. The last one was 20 years ago I think. Its an event put on by both EAM and Africa Enterprise. We showed up late, and on the field some of the organizers were introducing themselves. I just turned to hear someone say that they were an intern from Canada working with African Enterprise. I thought to myself, hey cool, another intern from Canada! I mentioned this to Jeff, but also shared that maybe I heard wrong, and maybe he said he was from Kenya. We were aways from the pitch, after all.
So we're going up to our seats, and I see the same organizers walking close to us. I look at the guy who introduced himself as the intern from Canada(Kenya?)... and I knew him! It was someone I knew from high school, Tapfuma! We looked at each other for awhile before we both yelled,"NOooo... What are you doing here!?!? WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MALAWI?" Granted, I guess his question to me was more valid, since he and his family are from Zimbabwe after all. But still, who would have thought that I would run into someone I know in Lilongwe???? I realize I shouldn't be surprised at these meetings anymore, since they seem to happen more and more these days. It was so good to see him, and encouraging to see the life that he is leading now. God is good, eh?
Friday, September 14, 2007
September 13, 2007
We made it!
Kenya is beautiful, mostly because of the people. We arrived only yesterday but I already feel encouraged and blessed by the graciousness of the SP staff, and the Kenyan people in general. Teresa and I arrived in Nairobi after 26 hours of problem free traveling and were met by Raymond, the extremely jovial SP Guest Relations guy. He drove us, white-knuckled, to the Nairobi SP guest house and office, and since then we’ve met many of the local staff as well as a number of missionaries and national pastors. The people are wonderful, and if the rest of Kenya is a friendly as the people we’ve met in the last two days, then we will be really really blessed.
Some exciting news: Today we met our fellow Kenyan inters who we’ll be working and living with for the next five months. Their names are Winny and Judy and we’ll be working together in Kwale district to install BioSand Water Filters and do the health and hygiene program in the villages. I was nervous about meeting them, but everything went fine, and we had fun together today. Winny studied marketing and is very good-humoured, and Judy is a counseling and community development major and is quite, thoughtful, and I think, super smart. Both have grown up in middle class families in Nairobi, and haven’t spent any significant time in rural Kenya, so village life will be a big change for them too. I’m praying that we’ll develop strong relationships over the next few weeks and be able to form a good team – we have some huge challenges ahead of us!
The SP Kenya office is also the headquarters for SP Sudan, so I’ve had a chance to talk to Sudan field staff staying at the guest house and around the office. Their work is so challenging: all the churches in the country have been destroyed by the war, so SP is working on a church reconstruction program there. We also met two pastors from Maasai Mara, who lead a church for the Maasai people. One of them told us that his wife and their son are on the way home from Illinois, where SP sent their son for heart surgery (this is the Children’s Heart Project). He said the operation went well and he was excited for their homecoming. It was cool to hear this good news.
Well, that’s all for now. We’re only in Nairobi for a few more days and then we’ll fly to Mombasa to meet the project staff for the Household Water Program. There was a tsunami warning for the Kenyan coast yesterday, so if you think of us, please ask to God to keep the tsunamis away!
Take care everybody,
taya
Wednesday, September 12, 2007
Steve and Jeff Have Finally Stopped Flying
After around 30 hours in transit, we arrived in Lilongwe safe and sound, save for a receipt or two... Let's just stay I'm off to a rousing start at making Chris's life in Finance interesting.
We weren't able to get into London due to time constraints, but at least we got the stamp in our passports. Instead, we managed to find Teresa and Taya at Heathrow, after we had them paged a few times. We were also able to spend a bit of time with my friend Jodi, so that was good too.
We're currently in the EAM office, just relaxing and checking emails. I did some Chichewa cramming on the plane, but everyone's speaking english to us here. I'd prefer to have them start speaking in Chichewa now, but its helping the transitioning I guess.
As soon as we walked in the EAM doors, we saw a BSF water filter! I'm not sure if its in use, since its kind of in the middle of the hallway, but it was good to see.
More to come... when we're not jet-lagged out of our minds. Hope the rest of you are well.
Monday, September 10, 2007
On the road...
Greetings from the Vancouver airport! The first leg of our journey went well. We had a quick and painless flight from Calgary to Vancouver and now we are waiting to board our long flight to Hong Kong. What are the chances that there would be an available wireless network in the airport? We happened to see Jeff in a passing car at the Calgary airport when we were unloading our bags from Kevin Stagg's van - he had just dropped Jen off. However, by the time we made it into the terminal she was nowhere in sight! Sorry we missed you Jen!
We'll check in again when we are across the ocean...