Although I will have only been in Malawi for less than a quarter of
my time abroad, I know that the memories I have from this part of my
adventure will stand out to me when I look back on my time in Africa.
I don't have nearly enough time to share everything now, but here
are some highlights from the past five weeks.
– Considering this episode has seemed to influence most of my
experiences in the past three weeks or so, I guess I'll begin with
The Great Shingles Saga... It all started after I was doing a bit of
gardening one day and noticed that my face was pretty itchy. I
figured that while digging in the dirt I had managed to uncover some
sort of angry bug which managed to make its way onto my face, bite
me, end of story. (Unfortunately that wasn't the story at all.)
Then the excruciating ear pain set in. This time I figured I was
just suffering from a raging ear infection. Wrong again. Now all of
this was taking place in Gowa, a rural village with no running water
or electricity, about a two hour walk from the nearest pharmacy plus
a two hour drive from any fully equipped healthcare center. But,
Malawi has been far too good to me, and it was certainly looking out
for me this time. On the morning we were scheduled to leave Gowa and
head south for a few days in Liwonde National Park, I woke up with a
rash that was spreading across my face and under my eye. A few days
prior we had happened upon some American missionaries who explained
that they were organizing mobile clinics in the area. As my luck
would have it, one of these clinics was scheduled for the day we were
leaving Gowa, and it happened to be taking place right along our
route out of the valley. So, we decided to stop in and after cutting
about 200 local Malawians in line (serious guilt...) I sat down with
Doc Martin, a retired armed forces doc from Arkansas who now comes to
Malawi multiple times per year to hold mobile clinics. He examined my
face for all of about ten seconds before sharing the wonderful news
that I had shingles. (Now it's possible that the only thing you know
about shingles is that you recall your grandmother having it at some
point or another. Last time I checked, I was not a grandmother or
over the age of 65. I guess shingles doesn't discriminate.) I don't
think my story quite impresses the pure wonder in the fact that I
happened to run into Doc Martin that day. Of course he and his
fellow missionaries told me “it's a God thing”, and whether it
was that, fate, pure dumb luck, or something else, I have no doubt
that things would have ended differently had I not gotten that
original confident diagnosis. Because the next day when I woke up,
things had taken a turn for the worse, as my eye was now red,
swollen, and disgusting. But, now that we knew what we were dealing
with, it was straight to the pharmacy for steroids and anti-virals.
Then I was off to Blantyre to see another doc, back to Lilongwe for
yet another opinion, and off to the eye clinic to see an
ophthalmologist. It was an emotionally draining few days as I had to
decide whether or not to head home early to seek better treatment and
to prevent myself from losing serious vision in my left eye if it had
indeed been damaged. Of course, no one wants to be Fred Hayes from
Apollo 13, bumped from the mission because he was at risk of
contracting the measles. Fred Hayes never got the measles, and I
obviously hoped I wouldn't go blind. But while Hayes saves the day,
there was no mission needing rescuing for me. Instead, there was
only the Warm Heart of Africa, which I wasn't ready to leave yet.
But thankfully, I had some great doctors looking out for me in both
Malawi and in the States, while my advisers knew when I was in
trouble and made sure I got all the right care. So that's the Great
Shingles Saga of 2012. Now for the good stuff.
-- One of my favorite parts of this year's trip to Malawi for me was the
gardening. Prior to this, my only gardening experience has involved
the occasional weeding for my grandmother in addition to the time I
tried to grow carrots in a joint compound bucket when I was twelve.
(I got way too eager and harvested them long before they were ready.
They were about two inches long and as thick as a pencil.) But I
learned from some Malawian pros, and my green thumb is thriving!
In Malawi, the majority of people living in rural areas rely on
smallholder farming for food and income. Virtually everyone grows
maize, the staple crop, in addition to a combination of ground nuts
(peanuts), beans, rape, cabbage, or mustard, tomatoes, among others.
Most farming is fertilizer intensive, and with rains lasting only two
to three months of the entire year, an annual high stakes game ensues
in which families must balance investment and yields while
considering the risks of limited rains or pest infestation in hopes
that they can harvest enough maize to last the entire year.
Enter permaculture. In short, permaculture means think like a
forest. In nature, you don't ever find large plots of monocultured
land which relies on fertilizer, so why is so much of our environment
now monocultured land which relies on fertilizer? I'll leave that
answer up to you, but you get the idea. You're probably already
familiar with one of the main principles of permaculture. Grow in
guilds – maize, beans, pumpkin. You're ready to start gardening!
So, the reason I'm boring you with all this farming theory is because
my host family has started their own permaculture garden at their
home. It's incredibly exciting because they're the first in their
area to do such a thing, and with all of their new bed space, they
have the potential to grow a lot more food, for themselves and for
sale, and by gardening right at the home, they can reuse all of their
waste water, allowing them to grow throughout the year. This was
also very exciting because it meant I got to take part! We built
compost piles, transplanted young fruit trees, made bird baths, built
new brick lined beds, planted, mulched, watered, harvested, and ate.
My brothers even let me design and plant my own bed. It has a small
papaya tree in the middle, which I transplanted, in addition to
maize, beans, sunflowers, mustard, pumpkin, and lemongrass. On my
last day in Gowa you may have thought it was Christmas after I
spotted a few bean sprouts in the bed. I can't wait to receive
picture updates from the garden, and I know my Malawian family is
already excited to eat my vegetables!
-- Ostensibly, my main purpose of returning to Malawi was for research
(or so the University of Rochester thinks, because they'll be
fronting the bill) so I guess I should share a little bit about that.
Along with two other friends and my host brother as translator, we
carried out a survey on the use of car batteries and solar panels as
a means of charging electronic devices in order to gauge the
potential interest in a local battery charging station which would be
located at the new community center set to be built in Gowa. There
are many people using car batteries in the area to operate cell
phones, radios, and TVs, and those without a solar panel are forced
to hike about an hour and a half out of the valley to a charging
station, which takes both time and money. While our time was cut
short by almost a week while I was recovering from shingles, we were
still able to interview over thirty people on their current
electricity usage and demands. One of my favorite interviews was
with a teacher from the Gowa secondary school. He has a degree in
theology, but we found him at his home on Saturday studying chemistry
because there is currently no physical science teacher at the school.
I told him I would have been thrilled to tutor him had I not been
leaving in a few days. We talked about his energy use and he
explained that he had a small solar panel and a car battery, but the
panel didn't work yet because he had yet to purchase an inverter. I
asked why and he said it was due to cost, but he then said that he
learned how you can replace the part with a resistor from a TV,
bought at a fraction of the cost, which was his plan. I asked where
he learned that, and he told me in a book from the school library.
The boy who harvests the wind isn't the only Malawian genius...
So there are a few highlights for you. You're probably thinking that
gardening, surveying, and shingles really doesn't sound especially
thrilling, which is true. I think the real enjoyment for me was in
cooking every day with my brothers and sister, hiking, popcorn and
movie nights, and poop jokes, among other things. (The chichewa word
for hyena is fece, and the word for danger is poopsya, so I'm sure
you can imagine the fun we had with that one.) When I left Gowa for
the first time two years ago, I looked back down the road and knew
I'd come back. So when I decided to return, I thought this would end
the Malawi chapter of my travels. But I was wrong...walking out of
the village I had the same feeling of knowing I'll be back, and I
think it's only a matter of time...
But until then, it's on to South Africa and then back to the States.
I'm already experiencing reverse culture shock here in Jo'burg. Our
hotel complex has a Hooters. Need I say more? The Hamlin parentals
are set to arrive this evening, so I'd say the fun's over, or maybe
just beginning...
