Change is possible...

We are seated under a tree, our guides from the Evangelical Alliance of Malawi, Birgit and I, and representatives of the small and quite remote village of Gulugulu.  NCA, through EAM is supporting a project for community-based care for children and youth.

   

                                  Playground equipment provided by NCA to Gulugulu village

We are informed about the importance of new ways of stimulating and educating children through their “children’s corner”.  Sounds and sight are those produced by nature and their creatures… until suddenly a different sound penetrates the meeting… the sound of a mobile phone!  The chairman of the “children’s corner” committee stands up, walks away from the group and starts talking loud on his phone.

                                         Meeting with the community under a tree

What a contrast!  In many ways this village is living as their ancestors have been living for generations. Their main tools are hoes to cultivate their fields, and suddenly this leap of generations into the electronic world of mobile phones and potentially social media!  Change is certainly possible.

Although this leap in time and technology, human cultures and inherited notions do not necessarily change that rapidly.  Children need to be taught that there is a relationship between the way they behave when they relieve themselves and their own health.  Why should girl-child not be given away for marriage, but be encouraged and helped to get education?  They need to learn how to straddle between learning traditional skills, and knowledge that can bring them into the wider world around them.  Their radius of operation is basically the village, and if lucky they may be offered to attend the nearest primary school.  This is a walk through the bush for 4-5 kilometers for your children of age 6-7!

                                        

                             The local community built this bridge to help access to their village

How will communities like Gulugulu manage the transformation that can close the gap between the age of hoes and that of mobile phones?  We make efforts to assist local communities to have access to skills and knowledge that can encourage their innovation and increase their options for future choices for improving their livelihood. This will have to happen with deep respect for their heritage, while exploring how short-cutting some of the many steps our own culture had to take from moving from the hoe to the mobile phone!  The wise female village chief Gulugulu expressed the wish to connect the past with the future through dynamic development of their children. Huge potentials lie ahead, and with wisdom we may contribute to constructive change!

The emergence of a maternity ward

This week Birgit and I spend time visiting NCA supported projects.  The main reason for traveling all the way north to the Tanzanian border was to participate in a site meeting for a health center building project.  From Karonga, after having followed the tarmac road towards the border for a while we branched off to a dusty and bumpy road. In patches it is not passable in the rainy season.  As we passed by rice fields on the plains, and negotiated some tricky stretches as we climbed the hills, we certainly understood why. Eventually we reached this sign:

Msumbe Clinic is owned by the Livingstonia Synod of the Presbyterian Church, and is serving the population from far distances in this hilly area.  The current outpatient department is too small, the building partly dilapidated, and operating without running water.  There is no proper delivery facilities for expectant mothers, and the one existing staff house is sub-standard.  On this background there was need for serious upgrading and expansion. Before end of 2015 Msumbe will have a maternity ward, which in principle will look like this:

Currently the site for the ward is being leveled out through manual work carried out by people hired from the local community:

There will be a guardian shelter, which will be a facility for expecting mothers with their guardians as they wait for delivery, there will be two staff houses, and the current clinic will be upgraded.  A borehole will be sunk to secure sufficient clean water.

During the site visit drawings were consulted against terrain and current status:

The site meeting revealed encouraging progress, and the users were quite happy about the prospects of the improved facilities.

The challenge, which is the general challenge in the health system in Malawi, is to see that necessary resources are made available to secure professional health service inside the infrastructure.  This is an ongoing struggle for the owners of the clinics.  We believe that Livingstonia Synod’s commitment will be kept.  

Experiences from other maternity wards are that the number of women who deliver their babies at the ward increases dramatically when facilities are available.  The number of children who enter this world in a healthy way is increasing and the children who die at birth drop encouragingly.  We believe the infrastructure will not be another “white elephant”, but can be of valuable service!

Joys of secondary school

What does it take for a secondary school in Norway, or somewhere else in the affluent world, to call for a major celebration with cutting of ribbon and all...?  This came to mind when I went through the local newspaper The Nation this week.  I had earlier read about the man, Robson Zgambo,  who had won the significant money prize in a lottery.  Instead of spending the money on himself or the family, he was concerned about girls in his home area of Nkhata Bay along the northern shores of Lake Malawi.  Their rate of graduation from secondary school was low, and the man wanted to contribute to their success in pursuing an educational career.  He therefore decided to use his prize money on a secondary school. What was needed to promote the girls' education?  ...Toilets...!  His wife supported him fully and shared with the newspaper that:"...the girls at the school failed to excel in their education because of lack of sanitation facilities...".  

The inauguration of the toilets was worth a celebration with cutting of ribbon and speeches by local dignitaries in addition to words of thanks from the principal and representatives of the girls. We know the physiological changes in girls when they reach puberty, and lack of sanitary facilities obviously cause regular gaps in their school attendance. I wonder if Norwegian secondary school girls would have any possibility to understand the joy of cutting the ribbon in order to access a toilet...

The story must certainly be understood in the context of Malawi.  In today's paper there was a story about a primary school that had waited for 28 years- and was still waiting - on four classrooms for their students to be built.  For all these years they had to gather under a thatched open space.  This is one of many stories that tell about the state of education in this country.

Coming back to secondary school; I met a secondary school teacher from Scotland who was an exchange teacher in Dedza, about 90 km south of Lilongwe.  She shared her experiences, and expressed a certain surprise - without good reason, according to her - that secondary school students were more or less like secondary school students in Scotland.  Some of them could not care less about education and had high levels of absenteeism, while others put all the energy and passion into their school work.  Conditions are different, but human nature seems to have a lot of similarities around the world.

Talking about Dedza, there is an interesting pottery in that place.  They are producing a wide variety of pottery with African design, partly special design made on request by customers. We have some of them in our kitchen.  What does this have to do with education?  Probably not much,... except that some people have fortunately learned important skills.

Mua Mission - history and peace of mind

There has been a long summer vacation silence from my end, but now I am back in Malawi and receiving new impressions and making new experiences.  During this last weekend Birgit and I (Birgit is here during the remainder of her summer vacation) visited Mua Mission, close to Lake Malawi.  Mua means "sugarcane" in the local language, and is a reminder of its slave trade history.  Mua was a slave market, and slaves were fed locally produced sugar canes.  Based on this history the Catholic congregation White Fathers arrived in 1902 and started building a mission station.  They saw their mission as liberation from oppressive traditions and poverty.  Mua Mission did, however not leave the local traditions behind.  In the 1970s Father Claude Bouchet started what should be Kungoni Centre of Culture & Art.  In appreciation of the value of local culture as part of living out Christianity he has over the years made impressive studies of the local history and traditions.  This has resulted in a unique museum and a centre for enculturation and training of traditional tree carving.

       
                                         Robert takes us through the local history of Mua Mission

On the premises of the Mission a small lodge with five chalets, a dining hall and conference room was built 10 years ago.  At the entrance of the dining hall a signboard and a photo document Norwegian support for the project, and Crown Princess Mette Marit opening the lodge in June 2005.

Everything at Mua Mission, including the lodge is "stamped" by the philosophical and artistic ideas of Fr. Bouchet,  Even the toilet paper-holders in the chalets express local culture - and may come across as scary in the twilight of evening or early morning.

Masks are important historically and even in today's celebration of phases of life.  Outside each chalet there is a distinct mask, and the one outside our room did not invite for slumbering in.  Somehow it reminded us more of "Scream" than slumber.

 
Mua Mission is, in spite of the distinct cultural expression a place to recover peace of mind.  The small river below the chalets gives a backdrop to the songs of birds and buzzing of insects that penetrate the otherwise dark, warm silence.  Only occasional voices from the neighbouring village remind us that we are part of a living society, not only engulfed in history and nature.