No path is straight.
The leather-bound pages of my black Moleskine are covered in crowded scribbles, neon highlighter drawings, and post-its. Notes from the last day of Athens, waiting in the airport, remind me of how to just “let days go.” My European and South East Asian backpacking adventures taught me how to venture off the beaten path— to take obstacles and adventures day by day as they come, and to accept and appreciate the beauty brought along. Along the way, I met lifelong friends, changed my own mindset about life, learned new perspectives, made mistakes, but, all over again, just let it go.
Let me wander, let me breathe. My semi-corporate job is so flexible, and inflexible and straight and unbending as any, and I am itching, craving, dying to breathe. This is exactly where I’m supposed to be, and at a moment in time, totally not where I am aching to be at.
So. I’m planning my next few trips for the end of 2011 + middle + end of 2012, and thus I’m re-starting my tumblr and sharing with the world again; hope you’re ready!
“There isn’t a should about this or a right or wrong to any of it. You do what you do because that’s what the harmony of the universe requires.”
—Ram Dass
It is, truly, about the circle of life.
In the beginning, Kyson and I were struck by stark similarities between our project expectations and the humble realities of Malawi. Our project focuses on cutting back on deforestation, but we didn’t expect to see charcoal to be so engrained in everybody’s lives. We sure didn’t expect charcoal traders pushing bicycles toppling with maize bags full of charcoal to be the first thing we see; neither did we expect to be again and again engulfed in smoke from burning trees and forests on the streets by storefronts, by our house in the mountains.
Through our talks with district commissioners, a professor and head of the Department of Forestry, bamboo enthusiasts, charcoal producers, traders and consumers, anti-charcoal law enforcers, farmers, USAID/Emmanuel International employees, small business owners, church congregations, consultants, chiefs of villages, agroforestry groups, and, most importantly, communities, Bamboo Lota has received an overwhelming welcome in Malawi. We are everlastingly thankful for Helen and Paul of Emmanuel International, who has not only let us stay in their home, but allowed us access to their most important resources—to be able to see village projects and to have EI’s credibility of promoting good work behind us.
Our journey to Malawi has brought new insights and further desire to instigate change. You have seen through my camera’s lens, my typed words, a significantly small percentage of what is actually going on in this country. There are many, many more pressing needs than I have presented. Food is scarce—oftentimes, our leftovers are collected, cooked again and fed to those who are less fortunate; some children eat an average of two meals a week; and droughts and flooding ruin many agricultural harvests. Daily nutritional necessities are even categorized as six food groups—things cooked with oil being one. Main agricultural exports include tobacco and tea; neither of which are particularly booming. Other agricultural staples are maize and wheat—not any of these productions are sufficient to feed the 14 million people living in Malawi.
The need for a recycling program is duly noted for plastics and compost—but much of what people buy is reused over, and over and over and over, in a way that would put Americans to utter shame. A child once came up to me and asked, “Can I have your plastic?” and smiled delightedly when I handed my bottle to him. Where a bottle would otherwise be tossed, helping create that awful Texas-sized plastic island in the Pacific Ocean, here it is used for Tippy Taps or refilled over again. Plastic is not waste to the impoverished. Even our food at home was wrapped in their bowls by reusable shower caps that were probably tens of years old.
Helaine, Pezo and the Govala community taught us about the importance of education, which has always been the first priority in my life, my family’s, my friends and neighbors. It is through education that poverty can be alleviated, yet the programs in Malawi are so unorganized and unenforced that the future of Malawi is further compromised. It is not necessary for children to go to school—some children have never stepped in school at ages 9 or 10, because there is no pressure insisting the importance of education in the big picture. There is a shortage of teachers—classes of 4-year-olds in public primary schools have sizes up to 200 students. Just imagine the outrage if this occurred in ANY other country!
I’ve talked about the state of water sanitation in the country for Blog Action Day, and facts about how the predicted spike in population growth combined with declining resources will lead to increased strife. @font-face { font-family: “Cambria”; }@font-face { font-family: “Georgia”; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0in 0in 10pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: “Times New Roman”; }div.Section1 { page: Section1; }Kyson and I are sure to return back to the States with changed perceptions of waste and consumption. Americans are about 4% of the entire world’s population, but consume about 40% of the earth’s resources. If you can personally decrease your water and carbon footprints, be conscious of what you consume, encourage others to do the same, you can move the Earth.
Electricity is rare, most nights are spent in complete darkness as blackouts are more common than not. Blackouts during the day are much like when there is poop in the kiddie pool where I worked as a lifeguard—you cheer and get to take the day off; how unproductive is that? Inefficiency is frustrating even to patient individuals like Kyson and myself—we are used to America’s pressure to multitask efficiently. Here, one cooks one pot at a time, spends eight hours on a project that could be done in an hour. It is entirely different, but slow is the way of life out here.
As we watched Aunt Mary’s wedding video from the 90s, she pointed out at various moments family members or friends who have passed; what struck me the most was that it seemed like most of her relatives and friends (who were all so young, even children who would have been my age at that time) were gone. Malaria and sexually transmitted diseases plague the lives of many, and many do not even see the ripe age of 20.
All in all, Malawians are tied together through their united faith in God. There are differences between churches, yes, there are Catholics, Muslims, Presbytarians, Baptists, etc. But diversity ends there—the smiling faces clearly dictate that life, to them, is by their standards manageable. Albeit living in tattered rags, unemployed and sitting on dirt streets picking through trash, there is chitter-chatter and laughter to be heard everywhere. No where else in the world have I ever encountered such bright smiles from people biking, the “Muli bwanje”s and “Zikomo”s are abundant, their praises for the little they have humble me to my knees. So there is hope, faith that God provides well for the poor in Heaven. And there is, at least, the reassurance that Malawi is, for now, still the “Warm Heart of Africa.” But what can we do to prevent it from a future heart attack, a failure in existing systems, the complete deterioration of a country?
Kyson, Joanna and I have been working hard to process all of our information regarding Malawian culture to best see where we should lead Bamboo Lota in the near future. There are extreme needs that need to be attacked, and we want to face this head on. Westernization is spinning into Malawi slowly, with an increase of cars and pop culture, yet no aid to jump the price gap. The circle of life is such—deforestation leads to drying rivers, soil erosion, increased pollution, climate change, and the consumption of wood charcoal leads also to respiratory illnesses, decreased participation in schooling for children, thus spiraling Malawians further into the poverty trap, increasing the gap between the rich and the poor.
Bamboo Lota is continuing on this project. If you are in any way moved by what we are doing, please help us spread the word on what you have learned about Malawi from our project. You can add us on Facebook, donate to us, connect us to grant donors or any other compassionate friends.
Thank you for coming along with us for our adventure :) We thoroughly enjoyed talking to all of you about our experience in Malawi, and we welcome any more questions!
Yes. Those babies are lying on concrete.
Yes. That bottle is empty.
Yes. Those are mosquitos swarming their little bodies.
Yes. This is the condition of Pakistan, at the moment.
A couple of weeks have gone by since the floods in Pakistan have flowed and the number of people effected by this are staggering & record breaking.
Over 20 MILLION PEOPLE.
That is MORE THAN THE COMBINED TOTAL of the 2004 Tsunami, the 2005 Kashmir earthquake, the 2010 Haiti earthquake, and the American Katrina disaster.
How many of you knew about this? It’s a shame at the extreme lack of coverage on this horrific disaster. Pakistan is getting MINIMAL help.
Ignorance never ends, a recent poll was taken in America on whether if they would donate or have donated to Pakistan or not. 67% DO NOT wish or want to help Pakistan. 67%.
And as for the donations that are being sent… 60% of aid needed now, has not been delivered. Who has them & why haven’t they reached the public?
I was born in Karachi, Pakistan. My city is located in the south region of Pakistan (Sindh province). I can not fathom the words….The amount of hurt I am feeling.
No one is helping.
I try to blog about it daily…only getting a few notes or so..I post a picture of myself and income the notes and comments. What I’m trying to say is, Please…take note of this. These people are innocent and now they are homeless and sick. Children are dying quickly due to the lack of care. People have drowned, crops are ruined..animals are dead, & homes are gone. It is being speculated that my city will eventually drown since it’s already low. The floods haven’t hurt my region yet but they have affected my friends & families home and so many other innocent people.
This picture breaks my heart..I want you all to look at this picture. What do you see?
Do you see terrorists? Do you see future killers? Do you see another plot against America? Do you see that in those mosquitoes that can possibly and most likely have left diseases such as malaria? Do you see harm in that empty bottle?
Extremists are the ones to blame, not Muslims. Why should we be left hopeless? We didn’t do anything.
And as for the Qu’ran burning this weekend in Florida, I believe….
The thought of that night makes me cry. Do you all understand the severity and ignorance of that act? Why isn’t anyone stopping them? My religion, my faith didn’t hurt you. EXTREMISTS DID. They are NOT religious. My faith is NOT a cult.
I don’t know what to do. I honestly don’t know. I’ve never felt this helpless. No one is helping, no one cares. Fuck neither do my own best friends know much about this.
Just look at this picture and think about what you’ve just read.
Help. Please.
If you can…I’m not asking for a shitload of cash. But please, try to donate. Donating to UNICEF will send aid to children. Donate to the Red Cross & the UN Foundation. I trust the most in these three foundations, they’ve actually managed to send and successfully help the victims.
One-fifth of the country is under water; 20 million+ people are homeless. All I ask if for you to help a little and spread awareness.
reblog and spread the word.
reblog..
Reblog. Please.
Begging you all, please reblog </3 :’(
Please Reblog.
Reblog. seriously.
Here is FYFT good post for the year..
god bless all the effected….
i just don’t even know what to say.this is just heartbreaking
Reblog every time.
This deserves a lot more notes than it has.
Help them.
Please.
(Source: ehmzee, via antarctica)
“Wa-ko-sa, wa-ko-sa, SHOO-ah! STARRRR!”
With waving hands and outstretched fingers, we congratulated the small, 3-year-old girl wearing a raggedy pink Disney princesses dress on pointing out the letter “M” correctly.
The little boy wearing blue giggled hysterically, shouted with laughter as the rest of the class bellyflopped onto the bamboo mat to trace their hands in neon highlighter on the poster paper. I chased him around, lightly poking him in the tummy when I could catch him, when suddenly he ran outside. I laughed, opened my palm towards him, and beckoned him inside. He threw a shiny smile over his shoulder at me, and let out a long stream of pee right on the school porch!
“Repeat after me. One. Two. Three. Four…”
Trevor, per usual, craved attention from absolutely everyone, especially his busy mother and orphan care teacher, Christina, started yelling nonsensical syllables at the top of his lungs, warranting a loud “shh” from Helaine.
Mark, in his little red shorts, ran around galloping around on a little faded plastic horse, followed closely by a whining Trevor, begging to have a turn, was finally given a ride around the classroom.
I ran a little airplane over the heads of the little girls crowded around me, up and above their arms, over their little bellies, while they giggled with delight. A little boy, who’s tied a piece of cloth around his head like a ninja, pushed a car back and forth with me, “vroommm”-ing along. Kyson amused them with guessing games with a little horse, and building tall towers with the tin cans and scraps of cloth.
“Old McDonald had a farm, E-I-E-I-O…”
My mind flashed back to the abundance of toys I received as a kid—Barbies and mermaids and Tomagachis and dollhouses and Beanie Babies and stuffed elephants and video games and Power Rangers. In front of me was a heaping box filled to the brim of donated toys—that is, broken little plastic airplanes with faded letterings, a French book, a sooty and threadbare stuffed cloud, and many tin cans with little pieces of cut up cloth.
I bent to pick up two halved pieces of a truck, affixing a hinge to the other, but to no avail. The truck fell apart again as soon as I handed it back to the wide-eyed little boy.
But they were happy to pieces with just the truck door. Children are children everywhere in the world, ecstatic with toys, but these children were more special than any others in the world. They didn’t whine about what they didn’t have, didn’t fight over toys, didn’t bully or shove each other. At the ages of one, two, three and four, they were more mature than most first-world teenagers.
“A is for Apple, B is for Boy, C is for Cat…”
I asked Pezo to explain what an “apple” was to the kids in Chichewa; he gave me a puzzled glance, then said that none of the children have ever seen an apple in their lives.
We continued our lesson, “D is for Dog,” barking like “ganus”, “E is for Elephant”, making trumpeting noises with our arms as snouts, “F is for Frog”, ribbit-ing and jumping in place.
And that day, we didn’t see the seven-year-old who incessantly pestered us to take pictures of him, who was too old to hang out with these preschool-aged children. At seven, he was in school for the first time in his life.
“I’m a little teapot, short and stout, here is my handle, here is my spout…”
Helaine, Roda, and the village chief, an elder woman about 80-years-old, had prepared a pot of rice, cabbage and fish, all donated by the community for the children.
Later, we were informed that, without the meals provided nearly twice a week, the children didn’t eat. Malnutrition was visible with the swollen bellies, the glee with each spoonful of rice shoved into their hungry mouths.
A little girl, 1.5-years-old, wearing a heavy red fleece sweater, sewed up in the front, was left to sit on the bamboo mat while her two sisters ran to line to wash their hands. She sniffled, gazed around with her bulging wise eyes, and two big tear drops slipped out of her eyes.
Five minutes later, Kyson and I could only stare amazed as the little girl, now with dried eyes and two companions, carefully balled up rice in her hand, dropped it onto her bright orange spoon, and put it into her tiny, one-year-old mouth. Other mzungu children encountered later on this trip were four, incessantly crying, and very incapable of anything beyond spilling bowls of porridge off the table. I am continuously astounded by the feeding dexterity and overall maturity of a one-year-old.
“… you do the hokey pokey and you turn yourself around, that’s what it’s all about!”
After our third visit to Govala Orphan Care, Pezo, the village chief, her daughter, Christina, Helaine and John sat us down to pray for our safe travels home.
Malawians are perfect at making long speeches of gratitude and lessons learned. Pezo smiled and handed us a printed Certificate of Appreciation for our time, and it was all I could do to hold back tears.
Children are precious. Education, the consistent conversation topic with Helaine since the beginning, is necessary, pertinent and unavailable. The little that Helaine and Pezo and the Govala community do to provide for the orphaned children is beautiful and so worthwhile. The cycle of poverty is a trap, and it is the responsibility of the growing Malawian population to use their resources, their children’s curiosity and tenderness and capacity, wisely. The future of Malawi rests on the tiny shoulders of these children.
Blog Action Day 2010: Water
Yesterday was Blog Action Day, so bloggers all over the world are conversing, spilling information and perspectives about water. I will talk about water availability and sanitation in Malawi; I’m here with Bamboo Lota, Inc, to research bamboo, charcoal production and deforestation practices.
As the third largest lake in Africa, Lake Malawi is inhabited by more species of fish than any other body of water in the world—several hundred kinds of cichlid fish reside here, shining and glistening with their silver and neon blue scales. Clear waves gently lap onto coarse sandy beaches, flooding the feet of the hundreds of locals flocked to do their Saturday washing of clothes, dishes and children. So many lives are connected to the water here—fishermen line the horizon like floating stars at night, kids bellyflop in soapy and splash out clean.
Unfortunately, we didn’t do much than dip our feet in the waters, as we’ve both been forewarned about the high occurrence of Bilharzia—a parasitic worm which gets to your kidneys—due to overfishing. This made us extremely curious, however, for the safety of the children splish-splashing and running naked through the waters. According to CharityWater, “Unsafe water and lack of basic sanitation cause 80% of diseases…90% of the 42,000 deaths that occur every week from unsafe water and unhygienic living conditions are to children under five years old.”
In addition, according to FANRPAN (Food, Agriculture, Natural Resources Policy Anaylsis Network), Malawi has less than 1,700 m3 of freshwater per capita—only 65% of Malawians have access to improved sanitation. Due to an impressive population growth estimate, Malawi will triple in population from just over 14 million people to 40 million by 2030. This means that water is further unavailable to a country with one of the lowest GDPs in the world, a country who already has low agricultural productivity and clean water.
Malawi’s 2015 Millenium Development Goals include achieving improved water sanitation to over six million additional residents. Challenges identified by FANRPAN facing the MDG include: “aging water systems, growing urban and peri-urban populations, high levels of non-revenue water and low cost recovery within the utilities (exacerbated by the non-payment of Government bills). Communal water points and sanitation facilities increasingly underserve market centers and small towns. Interactions between rudimentary latrines and shallow wells make sanitation particularly problematic in peri-urban areas. Financial, managerial and technical capacity are severely lacking at all levels.”
Through our visits to USAID-WALA-Emmanuel International projects, we have seen a few communities gain knowledge about water sanitation. Tippy-Taps have been installed next to rudimentary latrines (think: hole in a ground); these are literally plastic bottles attached to string and a stick pedal—a little soap is attached as well, and one can tip the bottles over to wash his or her hands right after using the bathroom. It’s a very simple design, but what else can one do without access to water piping and otherwise unclean hands?
Play pumps (a “merry-go-round” that drills up water into a tank) are also seen, although rarely, in rural areas in Zomba. These, however, are a rather controversial installment—in primary schools, kids are seen just perched atop of the pumps. When we approached one of the Play Pumps, kids posed and let us do all the pushing.
Currently, little improvement can be seen throughout Malawi. However, CharityWater concludes that more available water pumps can lead to shorter time spent trying to get water for a family, more time for gardening and sending children to school, less illnesses and deaths.
Hopefully, one day we’ll be able to come back to Lake Malawi, with less fear of parasitic worms and more hope for a countrywide facilitation for water sanitation.
If you’re interested in learning more, visit http://www.charitywater.org/whywater/ & http://blogactionday.change.org/ for more bloggers’ perspectives on water! Spend some conscious time with how you use water, think about how much water is consumed through your food (http://waterfootprint.org), and maybe even donate $1 to install a pump in developing areas!
