Fifth (and final) Malawi blog

[boss 1,941]

Malawi Blog (Part 5)

Thursday was a day I was really looking forward to as I had organised a party in the nursery. I had left money with the teacher and the supervisor to get rice, chicken and vegetables etc and I would bring the rest.

Well the kids thought they had all their Christmases in one day and they were as high as they possibly could be with excitement. Each of the 35 children (some had left to start school and will be replaced soon) got each of the following items:-

Sturdy flip flops that will last longer

2 t-shirts from Primark at £1 each but look great (different ones for boys and girls)

A pair of kids’ sunglasses

A toy and some balloons

A large bowl of rice with chicken

A yogurt

A Malawian version of Capri sun

A cake

3 lollipops, 2 packets of crisps and 3 small packets of biscuits

Well I am sure you can imagine their faces as they just kept getting more and more. Now what happened next really does highlight the poverty in Malawi and something I was totally amazed with but proud to be part of in such a small way. The kids ate their yogurt and then had a bash at their huge bowl of rice and chicken. Most of them could not finish the big portion they had so we had to use the plastic bags that the toys were in to scoop their lunch into so that they could take it home. It was the same with the crisps, biscuits and sweets; they all went into the bag with maybe the exception of one lollipop. This was unusual for me as I am so used to kids back home just trying to eat as many sweets as possible so I asked the teacher why the kids were taking so much home. She said that even though the children are so young they realise their family is hungry and that they will share everything they have been given today with their sisters and brothers. It stopped me in my tracks a bit and I just thought, ‘wow, how nice is it for kids to have that attitude’.

I still had lots of biscuits & crisps in the truck as I knew I was going back to Kambudzi primary school but as I looked around there were lots of kids mulling around from the village watching the nursery children getting such a special day. In this situation I think we would all do the same - I emptied the truck and gave what I had to the kids from the village and that way they could have a day that was a bit more special than a normal day.

Meantime the nursery kids were all having a ball playing with their toys, singing songs and generally just doing what kids do. The only difference on this occasion was that they never let go of their bag of goodies.

During this visit the teacher wanted me to meet three children who had just left the nursery. She explained to me that 15 of the kids had just left and should be starting primary one. Unfortunately they had no uniform and the primary school would not allow them to start without the yearly payment of 100 kwacha (which is about 50p) That really is how poor some of these families are when they cannot afford 50p per year to send their kids to school.

Of course I paid for the fee for the 15 kids to attend primary school. I also paid for the material and the tailoring of their uniforms so that they blend in with the other kids at school. A really horrible yellow & green uniform but hey, what could I do!

The nursery school teacher does a great job with the kids and she earns £20 per month so I left both her and Anceata, the supervisor who does this voluntarily, a wee bonus from us for the tremendous work that they do. All that can be done now to improve the nursery is to give them some more teaching supplies and supply them with some more food to feed the children a bit more substantially. Yeah, they cannot get chicken and rice everyday but it would be nice to give them this a bit more often, make sure they get some eggs for protein occasionally, and some fresh vegetables for their vitamins and minerals.

On average, a family in Malawi will only have meat with their dinner once a month. I was speaking to a family who were explaining to me that the best meal they have is Christmas dinner and this year they had chicken and chips. I really cannot imagine chips being fried in the villages but good on them. Cooking oil is so expensive over here and I have never seen potatoes for sale. When they say chicken they mean a portion the size of a chicken drumstick. There are fatter pigeons in the UK than the scrawny chickens you see in Malawi.

As I spent more time with the kids (I did not want to leave) taking photos, listening to them singing, playing games and watching them hold on to their goody bags as tightly as possible, I had a really good feeling come over me. I took a few minutes to myself and watched from a distance two groups of kids. One was the children of the nursery and one was the kids of the village who don’t go to nursery or school. One set of kids had new clothes, new shoes, looked healthy, had food in their tummy and were having a party. The other children had dirty, worn clothes with bare feet, slightly swollen stomachs due to malnutrition and looked on in envy as the other children played with toys and ate sweets. On my first couple of trips to Malawi I would have wanted to help everyone (I still would love to) and I would have concentrated more on the kids who are missing out, but experience teaches you that you cannot help everyone and you cannot change the world. What you can do is influence small pockets of people and give them a better start in life. So this time as I looked at the two groups of kids I could see one group of nursery kids who are going to have a better start in life and with our help might just have a chance to make a little bit more for themselves. This chance that these 40 kids are getting is down to you guys supporting Moni Malawi who in turn support the nursery as one of our projects. As for the other kids I still felt bad but I did all I could by giving them all the food I had left in my truck, so they still got more than they would have on any other normal day.

Thursday night I spent in the company of Stuart Millar who owns the Chameleon bar and after spending 16 years here Stuart is a guy with a huge amount of experience in Malawi. As his bar is used by the middle class Malawians he has substantial amount of contacts. It has been great to meet so many of the Malawians who do the office jobs etc as it is good to hear all the different opinions and their thoughts on improving their own country.

This brings me on to something that has totally intrigued me on this trip - the number if middle class Malawians who are fat. Well over 50% are fat! Now I know I am not the man to be making comments about being fat but with so many poor people around then there is no need. As usual with me I started to ask the question, why? As it turns out the answer is actually really simple - the Malawian people believe being fat is a sign of both wealth and health. I was told they quite commonly tell each other you are looking very fat and healthy today. Well, after cancelling my flight home and deciding to stay for a few months……….. only joking!

With only a few days remaining and with me having already extended my trip I made my last visit to Kambudzi primary school. This was to go over the final details and bringing all the plans together for the school, from the government planning to the permission of the chief right through to discussing everything with the builder. It all went well and everything is now in place and ready for the school to start being built in April. It will take three to four months and if all goes to plan the children can move from under the trees into a proper, well designed school building.

Before I left I spent some time with the children, but this trip was all about business and getting things ready for what is the real reason I am in Malawi. The children were sad to see me go as they know that is the end of school meals for a while. Hopefully once the school is built we can introduce a feeding program that would only cost £20 per day to feed 420 kids a bowl of porridge. Is it not amazing that you can feed that amount of kids for less than a ticket to the football?

With my flight on Monday morning (this time from Malawi to Zimbabwe to Nairobi to Amsterdam to Glasgow) I used the weekend to say all my farewells and arrange all the last minute things. It was important to organise someone who can be the charity’s eyes and ears whilst we are not here, and to make sure everything is going to plan. I met so many nice people it took me some time to do the rounds and say my goodbyes. I have met a great deal of people who will be able to help me and Moni Malawi get the results we need. There are so many wonderful stories in Malawi of people doing so much tremendous work, it really can be a quite humbling experience. Many people, both young and old, give up everything they have back home to come to Malawi and probably to many other African countries to help out people less fortunate than themselves.

I made my last visit to the Mother Superior orphanage and said my goodbyes to the kids. They have got to know me there now and when I drive in they all know the car and make a run for me. For me it feels like the movie ‘Daddy Day Care’ as all these kids want to see you. Although there are a few babies there most of the kids are from two to five years old and with 75 kids in total it is pure chaos. I have to say I love it. What most of the kids want is a cuddle and a bit of affection. With so many children there it is difficult for the sisters to give the kids all the love that they need as most of their time is spent washing and feeding them. For this reason this is why the kids are looking for a bit of attention.

I had one final meeting with Sister Linda and agreed some plans for the next 6 months and then I had to finally say bye. They all lined up to wave me off shouting bye with these amazing smiles on their faces. Moments like these are undoubtedly the most difficult and it took me about ten minutes to drive 20 yards. The children in the orphanage can only stay here until they are five or six and then they must be returned to their closest guardian back in the villages. Most Malawian families look after other children in addition to their own due to the number of orphans (15% of children in Malawi are orphans). On many other occasions, although there is a parent still alive, he or she has to work all day so you often have a situation where a six year old girl will look after and carry around a one year old child.

On my final evening I popped round to visit the Irish Ambassador and his wife. I got to know them well during my last trip but on this occasion Katherine was back home and did not arrive in Malawi until that morning. It was good to see the staff again and I happily accepted an invite to dinner with them both and their son. We spoke about all things Malawi and about football etc. I brought the staff’s kids some Rangers shirts just so that we can influence the household (hee hee). They both do a superb amount of work for Malawi and one of the things Liam told me really hit home about the struggle Malawi really does face. As a government they have a budget of 1.5 billion to do everything - health, education, police, army etc. Ireland, which is obviously also a small country, has a budget of 16 billion just for their health service. And Malawi has to do all this with a population that has doubled in the last 20 years.

After a good blether and a lovely meal I went back to my hotel to pack. I had been in Malawi for two weeks and had not been bitten by a mossi or stopped by the police and bribed. I had the occasional loose bowel movement but nothing really bad so imagine my horror when I was feeling happy with myself that I farted and ended up shitting myself. Yup, yours truly followed through. Right through the shorts as well. Just as well I was in my hotel room and it did not happen 10 minutes earlier when I was at the Irish Ambassador’s house.

As I write this blog I am on the second leg of my journey flying to Niarobi, Kenya with a surprising amount of turbulence. I hope you have enjoyed reading my experiences of Malawi and better still enjoyed looking at the photos.

I would like to thank all of you who have made a donation as the money you have donated really is making a difference to our projects in Malawi. The money is going directly to give children a better chance in life. If anyone would like further information or have any questions then do not hesitate to get in touch with me.

Finally if any of you would like to help further by sponsoring a child at the nursery for £10 per month or taking tickets for the upcoming fund raising dinner for Malawi then please contact me. Maybe your family or your boss or someone else close to you has a few quid and you think they would like to support the work we are doing here – so please pass my details onto them. Maybe you would like to do a sponsored event to support the kids?

This year Moni Malawi have to raise over £50,000 to build the school, take care of the nursery and pay for the feeding station that we support so any assistance that anyone can give would be much appreciated.

My next trip to Malawi is on the 24th June with 30 Glasgow school kids, so that will be an experience! Thanks again for all your support and lets hope legs three & four of my return journey go ok…….

[kplfishtank 4,666]

superb work scott have a safe journey home

[WilliamFyfe 1,438]

Fantastic read again from contacts

What a read its been and the have been just great, quite something what your doing over there

Well done man

[Boab 73]

Ya pure shat yourself!

Great read though!

I done the same recently after a drink of that fruit juice from Zumo

[Friedmarsbar 1]

Brilliant work.

Keep it up

[WilliamFyfe 1,438]

Ya pure shat yourself!

Great read though!

I done the same recently after a drink of that fruit juice from Zumo

Imagine shitting yourself Boab

[BlueIsTheColour 35]

Saved the best until last. A really thought-provoking blog, cannot believe that Ireland spends nearly 16 times of what Malawi's yearly budget is on the health service alone. Unbelievable.

Safe journey home big man, see you when you get back.

[boss 1,941]

for the dayshift...

[Orangeclement 578]

fantastic read , good to see some good work being done out there

[ab4113 124]

I don't think your looking after their health scott, sweets buscuits, lollys fuck they will have no teeth left, I hope you left them some colgate :@)

[contacts 0]

I don't think your looking after their health scott, sweets buscuits, lollys fuck they will have no teeth left, I hope you left them some colgate :@)

hahahahaha they all eat that sugar cane every day and that is why their teeth are so healthy. They even peel off the bark of it with their teeth. Bloody amazing to watch and would probably leave us with a mouthful of broken teeth.

[Gazzas_Flute 11]

Absolutely brilliant to read once again mate;

have a safe journey home.

[MisterC 12,404]

Brilliant read Scott, well done to all concerned. safe journey home mate

[contacts 0]

I got home yesterday after a tough day of travelling and no sleep. Apologies to anyone that contacted me as I was operating on automatic pilot. If anyone has any questions or requires any more info please just let me know.

[Strayk9 3]

Fantastic read! Brilliant, well done.

[Dado 334]

A fantastic read once again.

[Bluepeter9 5,167]

Humbling!

Puts a lot into perspective. Great work and thanks for the blogs.

[royalbluebell 38]

No wonder a good feeling came over you, the work you're doing is fantastic and it really is a great feeling when you can reach out and help others less fortunate. The children are so easily pleased as well, it leaves a lump in my throat just reading that.

I've really enjoyed the Blog and the pics!

Good luck with your future projects.

[Frankie 505]

Incredible stuff again... Reading that should make us all appreciate what we have and it certainly puts the fitba into perspective....

[rangers4eva 12]

great read and great work

[contacts 0]

Thanks for all the kind words folks! Moni Malawi are just a small group of people trying to make a wee difference out there. I certainly cannot achieve anything without the help of the entire Moni Malawi team so a massive thanks to them all.

[StayWestFree 107]

Cracking read. Well done mate.

Must have been hard to leave.

[WaltersGotStyle 160]

Great read

[bjorkland 13]

Fantastic stuff. Really does put a lot of our day to day arguments to shame! Cracking read!