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14 - Safari

Friday night was pretty fun. The girls were pretty accustomed to the bugs by then, and we stayed at the candlelit bar late since it was our last night there. The next day was an HIV/AIDS awareness event that CU was putting on for their employees which included a parade, speeches, drama performances and a football / soccer tournament. Most everything was spoken in Chichewa, but we were just there to spectate and say bye to all the guys we had worked with. Dyson was explaining to us how important awareness is for the less educated due to some near unbelievable myths. For instance, some people traditionally believe that if a woman's husband dies from AIDS that the only way she can cleanse herself is by sleeping with another man. I was thinking ....Geeze!

Whiskey drove us to Liwonde national park to spend a couple nights on safari before leaving for home. The girls were a bit uneasy as the truck bumped and swayed over the muddy dirt trail further and further from any civilization to get to a place they would be spending the night. Heavy thunder was cracking in the distance as the sun set and the bug swarms were coming out to make matters worse. I was thinking to myself, they honestly might not get out of the truck as we approached the naturalist type camp of grass roof huts and tents. For icing on the cake, the rain started to fall as we walked to the bar to check in and a spider that was just bigger than a baseball if you included it's legs scurried at lightening speed right in front of their feet. The storm came down hard and their safari tent started flooding. Literally there was 2 inches of water on the ground everywhere. We moved their stuff into a drier area and then had dinner which was actually quite nice served by the local staff under a big grass roof pavilion with candle light. So the next morning Jen again gave me a look that said it all when she said they stuck out one night and we would not be staying there again. She had spider bites up her leg too - which by the way she asked me to look at twice a day for the next 3 days in fear that it was something life threatening. So I didn't even think about responding with anything but "ok I'll arrange for us to head somewhere better right after breakfast." No worries though we worked out a great rate with what was actually a somewhat high end tourist safari camp / rustic resort and headed there by boat up the Shire river before lunch. The ride up the river was incredible, we must have seen over a hundred massive hippos, and a bunch of crocs and impalas on the riverbank. Mvuu safari camp was targeted for the crowd much more accustomed to being catered to by the looks of the other guests, but I didn't mind a hot shower and nice meals and the girls definitely deserved it. The interaction with wildlife in this Northern section of the park was unbelievable. One of the guides made clear to us upon arrival that there were no fences at the camp unlike most, and most game animals wander in and out of the premises on a regular basis. The 2 bedroom cabin we stayed in was right on the riverbank and you could hear hippos grunt all day and night that were less than 100 meters away. I set up my hammock in the front and was startled numerous times by either 2 foot long monitor lizards or warthogs hanging out literally 20 feet from me. Although there was only one option for each meal, the food was great and staff were really nice and professional. It was funny though I'm not sure who taught them English greetings and formal conversation but they would say "you're most welcome" to absolutely everything. Alecia would ask our waiter how his day was and he'd say "fine, and you're most welcome to enjoy the lunch". I'd say to our guide "may I take your picture?" and he'd reply "you're welcome". Pretty humerous. We met a few people from the US there and specifically Jill, a lady from Chagrin Falls, Ohio that had started a charity in Malawi that grew quite large over the past few years. My dad does a fair bit of work in Chagrin Falls, small world eh? We talked with her about what we were doing and she told us all about the schools she was getting built up. She understood a lot of the problems there pretty well.

The safaris the place took us on were awesome. They used refurbished old school diesel engine land rovers and got way off the beaten track. We saw elephants, impalas, water bucks, warthogs, mongooses, porcupines, baboons, crocs, hippos and antelope on both of the game drives we went on. On the one tour, we even came across a black rhinoceros which is unheard of because they are trying to repopulate the park with them and they are all kept in a fenced in area for breeding purposes. So this guy must have broke through the fence, and our guide was so cool (or unwise) that he had us all get out, turned off the engine and we quietly snuck up to within 40 meters of it to get a better look. I couldn't believe how approachable these animals were, almost everything just kept on with their business eating or whatever even as we roared up close to them in the truck. Unlike deer or anything else we commonly see in Ohio and PA, these animals just looked at you and kept on as if you were just another thing living in the park. The other weird thing was how much of the game hung out close to each other with no problems at all. Literally there would be crocs laying in the sun by the river, impalas eating grass less than 10 meters away and baboons hanging out in the trees right above. And the craziest thing is baboons eat baby impalas, and I think crocs eat baboons! Our guide explained that Malawi and specifically Liwonde park is uniquely over populated with a lot of species due to the lack of major predators, which is usually cheetah and lions. Apparently The Lion King was pretty spot on portraying that species at the top of the food chain. Another impressive thing that we focussed more on during an early morning walking safari was the termite mounds, of which some were 10 feet high and completely made by these tiny bugs. We also saw birds perched on the backs of the water bucks a couple times hopping around eating the ticks out of their fur. I had no idea that any species besides those in the ocean depended on a smaller and completely different type of animal to clean them. Our guides were hilarious and not on purpose. They would explain these outrageous mating habits in a way that had us all dying in laughter. The male impalas for instance duel each other knocking antlers together and only the strongest after defeating the others then breeds with all the females in the pack and the rest go off to live together as lonely bachelors. The guides would comment on how great it would be for the champion, and how much the other guys were just losers.

The girls did a good job packing light like I told them, even though that included bringing big purses with them everywhere we went. Then we get to this new lodge with a pool and they break out flip-flops, sun dresses, big sun glasses and bikinis. I'm like "where the heck did all that come from?" apparently these are essential items that you don't ever travel without. By the end of the trip these two were done holding ANY thoughts back that they otherwise would be embarrassed to say in front of me. Some of the highlights were a couple hours spent on our last day at the safari lodge lounging by the pool making a list of songs that they want played at the PwC Christmas party and saying how ridiculous it was that they spent a week in Africa and weren't that tan. Then they were discussing in list form who they are most excited to see when they get back, as well as different styles of glasses that they think are pretty in extreme detail, followed by one of those middle school games of "what would you rather do..." and then give two of the most outrageous situations, neither of which would ever happen. After refusing to answer they would honestly get upset with me and be like "you have to pick one you can't say neither." So at the peak of my 'entertainment' at all this Jen then asked me over dinner, "so Mike what were you most annoyed with about us on this whole trip?". I thought to myself, you're seriously joking right? Then they wanted to know what impressed me most with them and if they had exceeded my expectations. Brainwashed by PwC for life I thought. But overall they held up really well, especially considering Jen almost cracked at the wilderness camp but held back a breakdown into tears.

So this morning was our last day in Malawi. We got up early to meet Whiskey again who graciously drove through trails the whole way into the park to get us. I literally thought our encounters with the wild game couldn't have gotten any more thrilling, and then we got in his truck and started driving down the trail... The girls were telling him how great all the animals were and I asked him if he had ever seen an elephant before. He had not even though he grew up here. Literally a few seconds later he slams on the brakes after turning around a bend as two massive elephants on the dirt road less than 40 meters away were looking straight at us. The one raised it's trunk and the other shook it's head back and forth, lifted a front leg high and pounded it down and then took a few strides towards us at a much faster speed then what we had seen with the others over the past few days. Whiskey asked me what to do and I said "back up, back up, back up" thinking dude what else would you do we're about to get our truck flipped over by one of the biggest animals on the planet. Once we put a hundred meters or so between us and them we're all like "holy crap!!!" out loud and cracking up at what had just happened. Baboons were running back and forth in front of the truck as we hightailed it out of there. I never thought I would ever live out the movie Jumanji. It definitely was a nice little thrill to end our already insane trip.

During the first week I had an awesome time with Josh and Mike too and was really glad that 5 of us got to do this, because it is important to keep building steam for the cause and encourage others at the firm to get involved next year. We had made a lot of progress distributing the 2 lots of 20,000 nets and ensured that the process was being documented accordingly so that future results can be documented. We made a lot of observations of how the aid organizations operated and handled the nets that were funded by our donors, and were able to give Rob the founder of Against Malaria Foundation some great feedback on all this for future decisions around where nets will be distributed to. And lastly we got some great photos and video capturing the needs of these poor people so that we can seek out further funding with media to complement our stories and show the firm the impact this had on Malawi.

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13 - Finishing the distributions

We found that there were cultural and economic challenges to achieving increased bed net usage that we were not initially aware of, which made the educational work that CU had been doing over the past 2 years in these villages all the more important. The last day of distributions was near a large lake, heightening the risk of villagers using the nets for fishing or selling them to those who would, so we emphasized the risk of the disease and importance of net usage all the more. Unlike the previous week we removed the nets from the packaging and wrote the beneficiaries initials on them. This decreased the value of the nets on what is somewhat of a black market, since the village chiefs are supposed to declare it against the community's rules to use them for any purpose but protecting your family's beds at night. That wasn't the only locally inherent challenge. We heard from numerous locals that some men believe the insecticide treatment on the nets adversely affects their 'performance' and for that reason will not allow their wives to put them over their beds. Other men will sell the nets for boos money. Fathers take much less responsibility here, one reason being that women are considered the head of households. Even our safari guides later joked about this, explaining that male warthogs are much like Malawian men since they impregnate the female warthogs and then leave them to give birth and to raise the piglets on their own. Another issue is all the traditional spiritual beliefs in some of the villages with more tribal roots. It is crucial to get a young child to a health facility after the first signs of malaria to prevent them from dying, but some mothers will instead take their children to a witchdoctor who may try to cast out the disease as if it is an evil spirit.

In addition to the whole net thing, we brought the soccer ball tradition here just like in Guinea which had a great response. The guys we were working with encouraged me to take the balls to schools to help motivate the children to attend. So we divided up the balls and visited about 10 schools in addition to the 20 we had visited last week to give the headmaster a brand new silver soccer ball or two. Most of the kids had never seen a new ball and literally at one school playground close to 1,000 kids gasped in ah as I got the new balls out of the truck like they were a magic trick or something. I was almost the victim of being trampled to death at a couple schools, the kids were so excited that they no longer had to play with a bunch of grocery bags shaped into a ball and wound with twine. On Friday Jen and Alecia were able to take a couple balls as well as some clothes and school supplies to a local orphanage and they had a wonderful experience from it. Apparently the orphanage had never received gifts for their children before and felt completely overwhelmed at our extremely small contribution. Another thing that really got these kids excited no matter where we went was taking a group picture and then showing it to them. I suppose they barely see themselves in a mirror let alone on an electronic device. They literally would just freak out, yelling and pointing at the screen.

We had some great conversations with some of the guys we worked with, all of which were amazingly intelligent. Senard, CU's regional director, was really interested in problems in the US, and then the legislative process after asking why certain things couldn't be fixed. I couldn't answer some of his questions about specifically how many votes were needed to overturn the president's veto etc. He filled us in on Malawian affairs too, specifically President Bingu's latest actions that have made clear he has become a corrupt power grabber like most African leaders. Too bad considering he's replaced Gaddafi as head of the African Union. We drive 45 minutes to Mulanje one night with Mada, one of the CU drivers, to go to the bank and get over priced pizza for dinner - Whig was well worth the trim and price and pretty much made Alecia's week. Mada has a cosmetics store he runs on the side, and also occasionally imports cars to Malawi to sell at a modest profit, capitalizing on the slightly complicated process to getting a vehicle into the country. He gave us his soap box speech on motivation and how you have to work hard for yourself and your family. Coming from a native African, no offense to them personally, this was impressive and great to hear. Whiskey was our daily driver, the girls favorite, and a really humble Christian man. He was asking us all about snow... "is it like rain? How to you drive on it? Does it just stay on top of your house?". When we told him how much of the US gets hit with snow and what you have to wear to stay warm, he made an interesting commen. "If we had snow in Malawi we would die because we're so poor we couldn't afford all those warm clothes. But God is so wonderful, he allows snow to fall in the rich countries and keeps our continent warm". I don't think that is entirely accurate, however I can't deny that from an African perspective it makes a lot of sense, and it may be one of the most gracious statements I have ever heard.

Generally the people we distributed to were really thankful. However it was really clear at a couple villages, specifically the last one, that the people were very much dependent on others for their well being. It was predetermined how many nets they received based on sleeping spaces that lacked a bednet, and this was the first location where those that only got one net were unhappy. They saw our help just like the bare minimum services the government provides, an interesting view into the early stages of what type of personalities develop in socialist-like environments.

12 - Distributions

The mornings started early since the sun rises at 4:30 and sets at 5:30, which makes it feel like this place could be in a different time zone. The mornings were by far the most pleasant time of the day since they were cool and bugs weren't bad unlike the plagues of insects that came every evening. One night was particularly bad when the cleaning lady had left the windows open and light switches on in my room with the power out, Whig then lit up when the power returned later. Since our lodge was pretty deep into the mountains and there was no light to be seen anywhere else, it seemed like every flying bug from Malawi made it to my room. Literally thousands of bugs on the floor that one dustpan could not hold if all were swept up, and hundreds in my bed and flying around aimlessly bouncing off the light bulbs. The girls room wasn't exactly bug free either and after helping them tuck their net in I heard a couple shrieks that made clear we didn't get them all out before the laid their heads down. I actually considered sleeping in my hammock in their bathroom that night to escape the jungle, but there wasn't anything string enough to anchor it to. Besides the bugs, the muggy hot conditions didn't help with making sleeping easy either and after 2 nights of torture Jen made clear that she would be needing a fan. The tone and look said this wasn't negotiable. Luckily everything else here is negotiable. So I talked to the lodge manager about it who was a young local girl who clearly obtained her job for being prettier and better educated than most. I didn't have much luck at first since you were supposed to pay another $14 USD per night for the luxury suite with a fan. Luckily after buying her a drink, promising to become facebook friends and giving her a tip for the help she had previously provided us with she finally gave in. I at first questioned if it was worth the massive effort, but then soon remembered keeping the girls happy kept me happy since they would actually get more than a couple hours of sleep at night and not be reminding me of it throughout the day. Win win.

Every distribution day was a bit different since Jen, Alecia and I would split up among the 4 teams and head to two villages each per day. It was a but challenging to get used to the schedule since working in a social aid capacity here is much different than the comfortable office environment we are so used to, a good reality check really though. We ate a big breakfast since we would not be taking a break for lunch during the day and really didn't have access to much to pack either. Basically we would leave in the morning and for the majority of the day not have access to a bathroom or food, and not sit down for a meal again til it was dark. This was normal for the local guys. When we did stop for a refreshment it was typically orange Fanta which is the most popular beverage here. The one time we stopped for an actual snack we walked up to a street vender that had a half butchered goat on the table with flies all over it. Senard bought a half a goat liver chopped in cubes seasoned with pepper and stuffed onto a thin plastic bag. The guys passed the greasy stinky bag around in the car until it was all gone, and one bite to remain culturally polite was enough for me. The guys were fun to hang out with and they asked just as many questions about the U.S. As I did about Malawi. Some of the most entertaining was when Senard asked why the US was in so much debt and why none of the 3 of us were married yet. I told him how people generally take more time during the dating phase in the US, explaining that at least 2 years of dating is normal before proposing, which they thought was an extremely long time and just ridiculous. We then discussed what the man's role in the household is, since over here men are not expected to take as much responsibility in a traditional sense as compared to a mother. They were curious about why over 50% of marriages in the US end in divorce, and absolutely dying when I told them about how when that happens that all money and assets are divided equally, given no prenup exists. Their response was a simple one that I couldn't answer, "if the woman gets half your money and stuff why wouldn't you do everything possible to not get divorced?".

The next 3 days went fast since we had a lot of work to do and a set schedule distributing nets, documenting amounts distributed, photographing the distributions and sorting the photos by location. We did have a mishap where a package of 40 nets had bounced out of the back of one of the pickup trucks when driving off road to one of the villages. One of the CU guys, Dyson, was responsible for that car and also kind of known to not follow protocol to a T like the rest of the guys. When having our end of day meeting that afternoon his explanation was absolutely histarical. He was trying to explain so professionally and detailed when he realized the package was lost and what thy had done to try to find it with no success - i.e. It was stolen. Then, the most shocking news of the week came the next day when somehow the police hunted down who had taken the package, and collected all of the nets from the numerous people they had given them to. I mean to recover all 40 nets in less than 24 hours after it was reported, with no technology and no bribes, may have been the most incredible thing I heard of while here. So that was good. Dyson was the girls' favorite by far, which said a lot about their taste in men for any reading this who are interested. He was the only guy that broke the rules and had more fun at work then was probably acceptable to the rest, blasting Chris Rock's comedy tour on the way to villages, and paying random locals to drive them to the next location instead of waiting for CU drivers as was the plan. On another occasion we were reviewing a bunch of the photos from the villages he had been responsible for and William, another local CU guy, noticed that the Fight Against Malaria banner with the sponsor names was not in any of the photos. He asked Dyson why that was since hanging the banner was past of the program, and again Dyson went into a 5 minute explanation of how he loaned it to someone that was supposed to return it and didn't etc. It's even funnier since English is these guys' second language, so everything they say in the office is so proper sounding. Dyson: "So when I loaned the banner to my colleagues, I did not foresee the returning of the banner to become a problem at that given time. When we were not successful in collecting the banner we determined it was best to proceed with the distributions without it...". I was almost in tears.

11 - The Launch

So our exposure to Malawian politics did not end after our meeting on Monday. The Ministry of Health, Vice Presidentn of Malawi and Concern Universal had organized a formal launch day for the distributions of the mosquito nets full with dance performances, speeches, drama and media coverage. It was quite the production, given what we had seen here thus far. So without going through all the details, we had learned the previous day that President Bingu had suddenly stripped the VP from much of her authority, and had scheduled his own malaria project launch on Monday with the first lady being the guest of honor and government officials getting the glory on TV. They had announced the distribution of 40,000 nets, purposely since it was double the amount we were doing, to build political goodwill of the ruling family over efforts of the VP. So our back up guest of honor was supposed to be the DC we had met the day before, but he sent the Director of Planning and Infrastructure to represent him, most likely out of fear for being responsible if our event created lots of positive attention for what was originally the VP's plans. We all treaded lightly making sure to keep everything we said focussed on malaria aid and nothing else. I was interviewed for Malawian national news, and although I never saw it a bunch of workers at our lodge and the CU office did and were excited to tell me they had seen me on TV. There was a rep from USAID at the event too who I rode with and had a chat about development work in Africa. I will spare details, but to say the least she was a complete nutcase and probably the last person I would ever want representing my country. The scripted things she said both to me and the people in the crowd at the event made it so clear that she has done nothing but work in and add to government beauracracy for her whole life and has done little more than shake hands and pass out her business cards to politicians in Africa. We talked about working in developing nations and some of the challenges. The ones she shared had to do with trying to provide Western level human rights to countries that have cultures that will never accept them, and blaming previous US administrations for making matters worse overseas. She told me something that was one of the most ridiculous things I had ever heard. Her driver and her had hit a poor old local man on his bicycle while barreling along the dirt roads in her brand new embassy issued SUV the day before. He had rolled out of the way of the tire barely, and they ran over his bike completely. Afterwards, she decided it would be best to only give him what it would cost to fix his bike (1,000 kwacha or $7 USD), after consulting with her embassy authorities of course, so that she would not admit fault implied by providing a larger sum of money to the poor man. I'm thinking to myself, bikes here are all from China and cost less than $70 brand new, you couldn't just replace the guy's bike??? I was asked to develop a relationship between her and CU, and after biting my tongue as she talked about all the wrong ways our government has tried to help this place, I realized working with this woman was hopeless. The girls and I gave a short talk at the event on behalf of PwC and Against Malaria Foundation which was translated into Chichewa and seemed to be taken very well. We explained that other African countries that had obtained mosquito net usage benchmarks had drastically reduced deaths from malaria and that we would like to see similar success in Malawi. After the launch we held our first distribution in Phalombe district starting with the Kalinde village. The people were genuinely thankful for their nets after waitin in line for hours to receive one.

10 - Planning Day

Breakfast at the lodge was great, but we realized what we had to look forward to dealing with for the rest of the week. Even if we preordered the night before, the kitchen wouldn't even think of starting cooking until we sat down, and would never serve us even close to what we ordered. So it was quite the exercise telling the sweet well mannered waitresses what we wanted, them coming back numerous times asking us to repeat it, and then still bringing something else. Considering the power went out often, and they often had to cook with traditional wood fired stove tops, I was still pretty impressed with them.

Concern Universal (CU) has an office in Phalombe which is quite the interesting place, located in a small building behind the only road with any businesses on it in town, enclosed in a bring wall with a massive iron security door. Outside is a fleet of Yamaha 125 dirt bikes, which the guys use to travel to the remote villages to distribute materials and collect health data. They actually had Internet access to our surprise, but the power was rarely on long enough to use it, which is why all of these blog entries were dumped on here at once. We met Senard, the regional program director, as well as the rest of the team and had a formal 'meeting' in the 'boardroom'. This group of 8 guys were some of the most motivated native Africans I have ever met. They walked Alecia, Jen and I through their entire 4 year malaria project that includes a lot of research and tracking of the problem as well as education. Our part with the net distributions is helping accomplish the part of their project that has yet to have much progress compared to the other goals planned for. As backward as it seems, they have already provided very involved education to many villages around prevention and treatment, which stresses the use of insecticidal bed nets, which they don't have and can't afford. So we learned that even though they had received hundreds of thousands in aid from the US and other Western nations for their malaria programs, that funds have been appropriated for certain functions such as education and research, leaving big gaps in support for their regional net coverage goals. So the CU team walked us through their report that was really impressive, compiling results of cluster samples they had collected from over a hundred villages including malaria contraction percentages, health facility access, death rates, regional net coverage, net usage, etc. They were able to answer all of my questions, although at the typical African snail pace. Literally the meeting made our audit planning meetings seem like the pace of meetings on the trading floor on wall street. They also showed us a wall map of the region that was color coded for the coverage and type of devices they had provided certain villages, and it was really clear that these guys cared a lot about what they did.

That afternoon, Senard scheduled us a meeting with the district commissioner of Phalombe, which is similar to a mayor. It ended up being a much bigger deal than expected. We sat down in his massive office with the regional director of health as well, and they briefed us on their priorities to make their district a place where people no longer had to worry about sickness and death from malaria or other diseases. The DC then made an invitation for Rob, AMF founder, to come visit Malawi and Phalombe district specifically to see the impact the nets are having and their need for more. We shook hands for a photo outside and the girls and I were saying how funny it is that somethings are so formal here, while everything else is completely unorganized and untimely. The DC and Health director had full heavy Italian suits on ties tightened and all in the blistering 90 + degrees, while we were in shorts and t-shirts. They made clear the meeting wasn't over until we re-capped, swapped business cards, signed their guest register and had our photo taken.

9 - To Phalombe District

I had a great breakfast at that hotel, and for the first time since I had arrived saw some news. Nothing good as usual, but wow it hit me how disconnected I had been. Robin, the country director for Concern Universal, took us to lunch at a rural spot on the edge of Blantyre's outer skirts on a hilltop that overlooked the valley and border with Mozambique. They prepared our meals with a kitchen ran on a generator, and Robin walked us through CU's Malawi operations at a high level as well as what our role would be for the week. They really do some great stuff. A couple of the items I thought had an amazing impact that have good regional coverage and funding include providing micro-loans to women small business groups, putting in wells and protecting drinking water sources, creating programs to increase land fertility and crop seasons, and selling fuel efficient clay stoves at subsidized prices. The USAID and similar organizations ran by the UN, Australia and Ireland fund their operations. It's amazing what an impact an organization and group of motivated people can have on the quality of life in a place like this, where crop shortages leave people starving, women aren't always provided freedom from their husbands, waterborne disease is common and there is a lack of enough firewood to supply energy and heat to some regions. Really simple problems, but the government here as well as many other African governments can't seem to even put a dent in the problems. We headed from there to Phalombe district which encompasses a large area just North of the Mulanje mountains, in Southern Malawi. We went through the normal routine of lengthy bargaining with the Thuchila lodge staff since this was the 3rd time since I've been here where they assume that since we're white we surely must want the most expensive suite they have. Thuchila lodge is the tourist camp on Thuchila tobacco farm. The rooms weren't the greatest, as expected, but the bathrooms were pretty clean and the views were awesome. Our lodge was practically on top of where fresh water is pumped to the town center, situated on the base of the mountains. There's also a nice little bar and restaurant that we can have a big meal at for breakfast and dinner. Unfortunately breaking for lunch, or eating anything besides a few snacks during the work day, is not too common. So it took a couple days to get used to but is not as difficult as I imagined actually. Sunday night was pretty nice checking out the river and small waterfalls up the trail from our lodge. Walking Alecia and Jen up there gave me a good sense of what I was in for. They had big purses over their shoulders, and stepped more carefully than if in a mine field. That night was pretty hot, and as soon as the sun went down it became clear how horrible the bugs were. Literally you could not use the lights in the room after dusk or thousands of bugs would fly and creep through the cracks seeking the light. So we primarily used headlamps and candles. Since we are in a high risk malaria area and distributing nets for that reason, we obviously are sleeping under nets ourselves. I went over to the girls room to chat a bit and as they said "tuck them in"- referring to the bed net around their mattress. I can sleep through anything and caught plenty of z's, but I don't think they got more than a couple hours due to the heat and extremely loud buzzing of bugs outside their net. I must say for not doing this stuff ever they are troopers. The evenings are just miserable outside. But the strange thing is the mornings are absolutely beautiful. The sun rises just before 4:30 and every day I got up just after that, hung my hammock outside and read. The temperature was cool and I don't think I was bit once in the morning.

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8 - Chaotic weekend

After the distributions were done and we distributed soccer balls to the last schools on Friday, Helen, Mike, Josh and myself were pretty keen on getting the heck out of Mulanje. If there was no more work to be done there, we would have nothing even remotely interesting to do. One of our drivers, Shareef, drove us all to a camp in Liwonde national park called Bushmans Baobob, named after the beautiful trees in the safari regions that you often see on TV and in movies with the massively wide trunks and bonsai tree-like branches on top. The trip there was a bummer however since we took a wrong turn and had to drive back through a police checkpoint, where some dirty corrupt cop made us pull over and demanded a bribe since we had a "tail light bulb out", which I doubt for one since we were in a close to new Toyota Hilux. The camp was a pretty awesome set-up, which I'll discuss more when I go back with Jen and Alecia next week. We stayed up late that night around the fire talking to Darren the owner, an old white guy that was raised in Malawi and had been running businesses related to tourism and animals for a couple decades. He was a but of a drunk, but amazingly smart, blunt, and into his business, really my kind of guy. We learned that the reason why it was so difficult to find his camp is because we were looking for his old one in the park boundaries, and where we were staying was a new one he opened under a new name outside the park, as he has a bitter relationship with the park director who represents the government and unexpectedly forced him to close his previous establishment. He had some great ideas about controlling the hippo population, getting affordable nutrition to local children, training uneducated workers and creating energy from bio-waste. All really interesting stuff. The next morning I did a jeep Safari with a guide appropriately named "Spy". He said to me "yes I'm spy, like James Bond, but I spy animals". We saw a group of elephants, warthogs, water buck, baboons, impalas and an eagle. It was an awesome tour. Had breakfast and hung out with the others before parting ways, which consisted of me getting dropped of.f at a mini bus stop where I asked a kid which van went to Blantyre and initiated a frenzy of yellin for a Blantyre bus and ripping my bags from me to insist on helping with my journey. I hopped in the hot smelly van, that clearly someone had recently been in with warm raw fish and thought to myself I hope to God I fall asleep on this 4 hour nightmare. Of course I didn't, and of course at one point we had 25 people loaded sitting 5 per seat which included a few children, but still... I mean these vans are the size of an old school mini van with an extra row of seats. At the end of the trip I had to play charades with the driver and fare boy to get them to drop me at the Save the Children office where the country Director of Concern Universal, Robin, picked me up. More chaos with trying to figure out where Jen and Alecia were, our 2 new volunteers from PwC that had arrived in Lilongwe that afternoon. I'll spare details, but chaos just continued to ensue and after we finally finished dinner around midnight, so the girls and I were glad to finally get some sleep.

8 - Chaotic weekend

After the distributions were done and we distributed soccer balls to the last schools on Friday, Helen, Mike, Josh and myself were

7 - Friday

On Friday, I had a re-realization of the extreme sympathy I have for these villagers being born into the lowest of social ranks of our world. Like most of the distributions, there were lots of women that came at the end that were not registered but had a baby and desperately wanted a net. One girl, probably about 20, was remarkably beautiful and patient in waiting to see if we had an extra net for her, both qualities in contrast to all the other women. It's tough to put this into words without sounding derogatory, but you really feel disconnected from these women because you are so disgusted with the way they act and smell, and I had become accustomed to numbing myself to all of what I saw when these women came across in ways that would be completely inappropriate in the West. When this in-particular girl that was so different came over, that's when it really hit me. This girl was more clean, pretty, and reasonable in behavior than all the others, and in the West a girl like that would get whatever she wants. Especially considering it was all men distributing these much sought after nets. But here, the men saw her just like the rest. Someone easy to ignore who got no special attention, because she was a villager and they were not. Unlike at all the other distributions we ended up giving all the unregistered women nets since it was the last day and we had plenty extra in the truck. I think we passed out and extra 150. It was a really good way to end the work for the week.

6 - Thursday

On Thursday we drove miles through Lujeri tea farm and them a good 5 miles over really rocky off road terrain to get to a really remote village site. The people there were some of the worst off we had seen, and I just pray they really use the nets. I am really glad we made it there, but it was a huge gamble. After finally reaching the destination our driver said "if it rains there's no way any of our trucks will be able to get out of here. We were a good 20km from any civilization, and it had not rained for 2 days, not good signs, but the rain held out. We finished our work and stopped at Aisha's house on the way home, one of the local nurses who worked with us. Her parents invited our entire group into their living room, and you could tell by the heightened respect the otherwise screw off local guys gave to her parents, that this was a big deal. After introducing ourselves and washing our hands in bowls of water the traditional way they served us a dish of nsima, beans, and cooked collard greens with tomato. They mentioned that now I have a story to tell at home, and I then told them this was all the more special because of a huge holiday called Thanksgiving in the US that was on that same day. I didn't want to be there, as I was sick that day, and the meal was horrible. But as I sat there picking up soggy green stuff and beans with my bare hands, looking up at the ceiling that didnt exist and exposed the rafters and roof of this home, I thought wow what a way to spend Thanksgiving, and what a reminder of what I have been blessed with. That evening we had our Thanksgiving dinner at the mountain lodge, which consisted of overpriced beef kabobs and baked macaroni and cheese. Still good though. I stayed after with Mike and we sat outside the bar drinking the Malawian brewed Carlsburg beers and taking in the evening mountain air, discussing what an interesting Thanksgiving it had been.

5 - To the mountain villages

The next few days were really busy. Even though drives to the villages, distributions, meals, organizing, etc. move at an extraordinarily slow pace, we just didn't have much time to ourselves besides to sleep. The days started with buying fried rice dough balls from a little vender outside Limbadi Lodge, the crap hole we were staying in. We would also pick up fresh picked bananas and fried potato foldover type things. Breakfast ended up being great once we found that we didn't have to drink flavored corn meal milk and Chinese made potato chips like the local guys on our team were gobbling down every morning. We also preferred water at all times to Orange Fanta, which is the refreshment of choice here. So it's funny because we basically would eat the more traditional and cheaper items that were by far more healthy as well, and the local guys thought we were so wierd for not crushing cheap chips and soda in the morning and throwing the trash on the ground. Thats another funny thing, numerous times Mike or I would be looking around for a trash can and one of our local boys would grab the trash out of our hand and throw it on the ground for us, as if saying "I'll take care of that for you". Those local guys are really something. Overall they got the job done which was challenging even for them despite knowing Chechiwa (the local language), which was much appreciated. However I don't think they really had as much of charitable hearts as a typical donor or volunteer. Both those with the Government and Save the children all have great salaries for Malawi, and seemed to care but not to the point of helping the villages beyond their "job". However Gilbert, the guy doing most of the ground work to get everything set up, was really good and had a passion for what we were doing. I had a good time with our driver Emmanuel and Sydney as well as when I rode with other guys. They listen to tons of American music, a lot of rap and pop. At one point Jessie McCartney came on the radio and these otherwise tough dudes in the car with me turn around and are like "I love this music!". I. Just shook my head. The highlight for me was some of the off-roading we had to do to get to the remote spots. At one point we got both trucks stuck in muddy ruts as we were fishtailing up a steep sticky grade in the Lujeri tea farm. A bunch of locals came and pushed both cars up the hill, amazing what power in numbers can do. After they got the trucks out however they wanted paid. The one driver translated to me, and I explained that we weren't there to make money or hire people but were spending all our money buying nets and soccer balls for the children, and getting them to the villages. That was easy for them to bargain with, they just said that's fine just give us some of those. We then had to explain the balls were for the schools and the nets for mothers with children under age 5. It was all dead honest. They didn't really care though, like most places in undeveloped Africa, even adults have a sense of entitlement to help from the white man, it's like they think "of course their here doing charity work, who else would do it?". After a couple minutes of arguing, they said "ok, you are free to go", as if they were going to hold us there before. Entertaining. The disrespect goes both ways though. There is something extremely inappropriate about traveling to remote locations to provide aid via SUVs barreling through the dirt roads at kids in the way, no slowing down at all, blasting Tupac or some other gangsta rap and littering out the windows. I'm just like, "really"? Although that's just like Guinea. Even the Malawians with real jobs see themselves as way above the villagers in the food chain of respect. Class warfare prevails everywhere. There's also the typical amount net lossage from the way of doing business in Africa. Both in my team and the others, all us Western volunteers witnessed the locals flipping out on villagers that were trying to get a net who hadn't registered, or trying to sneak getting 2, however they had no problem taking some for their own keeping or those working with them. Anos proved to be completely incompetent at hosting foreigners, but we got by with making good relationships with our drivers and getting them to take us where we needed to go. Besides that we were just busy, hitting about 30 villages in a week. They were all great experiences, some more than others. At two I was introduced by Sydney and he translated as I explained to everyone who I was and how I was going to take their pictures and show them to people in he US to raise more money for nets. At some we gave demonstrations of how to use the nets, bringing a lot of laughter and fun to the visit, and at one I passed out candy to everyone there, which as expected was utter chaos. At others the village leader led them in prayer giving thanks for our visit, and at others it was heartbreaking as we left without providing everyone with a net. I do understand they have to draw the line somewhere, but it just didn't always seem reasonable.

4 - Distributions

The Distributions on day 2 were better than day1. Both involved the villagers singing us a welcome song or two and we had a nurse at the first one help explain the problem and our solution. At both sites, Sidney, our boy from the ministry of health running our distributions, had me get in front of the crowd and introduce myself. I told them I was happy to be there, that my friends from work and I raised the money to buy the nets, and that I would be photographing them to document their need and use in finding more financial support. The villagers were thankful which was great to see. There was however the usual arguing and fighting for who got their nets first etc. But that's expected. We hit another school on the way back, no mountain view at this one but probably another 1,000+ kids, and gave them 2 balls to replace the flat, lumpy, black one with no outer shell left that they were playing a game with in the field on our way in. I then had lunch with Febbie, our local save the children helper, which happened to be fried chicken and that awful nsima again. They eat with their hands here often, which is pretty annoying to me but I'm not going to go out of my way to ask for a fork to eat my rice with and make heads turn. The only good thing that it kinda reinforces handwashing, so that's a plus. Drove into Blantyre with Febbie and had coffee for the first time in 2 days. Probably haven't pulled that since the last time I was traveling on a shoestring in 3rd world which was a year ago. It reminded me of how much I need that crap so we went to their equivalent of a big grocery store, which I must say was really impressive for here, and picked up some instant coffee.

3 - Net Distributions Begin

So day 1 of distributions went well as far as the work is concerned, my team hit 2 villages around Mt Mulanje distributing about 250 nets at each. The areas were all around the major tea plantation, Lujeri Tea, which was just miles of bright green tea leaf bushes on steep grades that we drove up and down in a Nissan Patrol. There were really some great views. The people were in what you would call extreme poverty. The only thing that really would set them apart from indigenous is that they wear clothes and don't all hunt for food, as many men leave the villages to work labor jobs in the day. The children must have amazing immune systems, as they all had the dirtiest hands and faces, and clearly put anything in their mouth without even thinking about it. I'd say less than half wore anything on their feet, and more than half the woman had their babies strapped to their back typical African style - their little heads bobbing all over the place as if their necks were rubber. Most of the women had really leathery feet. A lot still had beautiful colorful clothes but not so much for the children dressed mostly in a step up from dirty rags. We stopped at a school half way up the mountain on the way back that had over 1,000 kids and 7 teachers. Unbelievable. I gave them a soccer ball which the principal really appreciated. The first net distribution went very well. A nurse / village health director aiding us in speaking to the villagers and people were pretty orderly. We were targeting kids under 5 and pregnant mothers, specifically in remote locations that were too far to walk to the nearest hospital, as if getting to the hospital guarantees care that would save an infected child's life, which is questionable at many facilities. The second distribution had a lot that weren't on the 'list' we had of beneficiaries and were pretty upset when they didn't get a net. It was really hard to drive away from them, but I suppose like any social aid you have to draw the line somewhere. We got back early and I caught a nap and put up my hammock outside my room which is 10 times as comfortable as either of the beds in my 'VIP' room. If not for security of sleeping outside I would opt for that. Had fried chicken and rice for lunch and then lounged til dinner when trusty Anos sent a driver to take us to dinner that clearly wasn't planning on it and had no cash so we bought him dinner.

2 - First Day

After a 3.5 hour flight that felt way worse than the previous 10 hour one, we were greeted by Phoebee and Helen who drove us to a fried chicken place to grab take away lunch and then start on our 6 hour brutal ride to Mulanje, the mountain town we were would be working from. By brutal I mean 5 of us in a diesel pick up truck traveling at light speed over a bumpy road. I dozed off numerous times and was awaken to us either beeping at or swerving from headlights aimed straight at us. The truck wouldn't start at one point after we had pulled off the road for a leg stretch, and amazingly wiggling the cables on the battery did the trick. Upon arriving, we met Anos and the rest of the Save the Children crew, and realized they were all locals, and I instantly knew what we were in for. Anos had not picked a hotel for us yet and wanted us to look around and at the rooms of the one we were currently at before then moving on to the next place to do the same. We all knew damn well that any rooms at either of these places would make any of our top 5 most wretched rooms lists, not to mention that the owner of the first really wanted the business and we had to turn him down as if his rooms were sub-par, and in a place like this they were probably above norm. I felt bad for the poor guy. After we dropped our bags Anos and another driver took us to a restaurant nearby for some local food including chomba a fish native to lake Malawi fried whole, and nsima, a corn flour based doughy spongy cross between pancakes and mashed potatoes, served instead of rice or a potato as the starch with many meals. We then headed to a bar for a couple brews which was pretty cool looking. Dimly lit with logs for seats that were rubbed so smooth from people sitting on them that it seemed like that had been around for 100 years. We soon learned that Carlsberg beer is the staple here, as the Danish brewery has a big production facility in Malawi, and it is also the staple of the British who had colonized this place before it gained independence in the early 60s. Our team of locals clearly enjoyed drinking a lot, which at minimum was an honest first impression, and wanted us to go to another bar with them. After a 40+ hour transit however we declined and headed back to the roach motel. We were told it had hit water, which was surprising, but after looking out my back window I realized that wouldn't be something I would enjoy that night or any time soon. The system consisted of a big oil drum filled with water that had a wood fire oven carved out of the wall below it, and a pipe at the top that fed steam into the bottom of the clean water tank. No fire was lit.

In Transit

Things started off with the unexpected..flight from DC delayed by 2 hrs for the unveiling of Ethiopian airlines new Boeing 777, and we were its lucky first passengers. We waited in line, I mean, a crowd of demanding and impatient people for an hour to confirm our seats apparently the system was down. Ah even in our nations capital it was clear where we were going, as African culture just has unpredictabilities that are beyond abnormal. For this reason I actually didn't even print the itinerary provided by Save the Children that outlined our mosquito net distribution trip and instead just gave it a read through, knowing that at best we would stick to 75% of the schedule.

Landed for our 14 hr stopover in Ethiopia. As with most African countries, Ethiopia has a ton of tribal languages. Luckily there and Malawi have a lot of English speakers. Which is the official language for business. The women have a look to them I did not envision. Not super thin and tall bodies with deep black skin - but instad look like a bit of African / Mideast mix with facial features not typical of that you see of people in Kenya. It took us 5 hours to finally get to the hotel, with much bickering between locals over who was driving and where we were going. However, I can't complain, because we were put up for 6 hours in a nice little hotel a given a fish dinner with no extra charge to our flight costs. Josh Cohen and I stayed up all night at the bar drinking a combination of wine, beer, and whiskey- don't ask me why, other than it was dirt cheap and our body clocks were far from ready for bed. If our waiter and the lovely bartender were representative of Ethiopia, the people here are amazingly well mannered and kind. We gave them pretty generous tips knowing that there's a good chance they kept the bar open for us until 5:30, went to the room, had a 30 minute nap and a shower followed by a typical African luxury breakfast of mango, sausage, hard boiled eggs and espresso. We're heading back to the airport now, and taking in the scenery. Looks like the days start real early here for both workers and students, and the roads and traffic are a bit more industrualized/ organized than I expected. Beggars had already lined up along the side walk outside our hotel, literally 8 with their children camped out in a way that made clear they were going to spend the majority of the day or morning there. Another reminder of what is inherent in the wealth gap that is so obvious in African cities.

While waiting for our flight I swapped info with a really nice gentleman that I had a good convo with. Edward, a pastor from Lilongwe was a former Muslim, and disowned by his family for his belief in Christ. He was flying back after speaking at an evangelical church conference in Tenessee. He runs an orphanage in Malawi and I'm hoping to see it. I pumped up a couple soccer balls for his orphans since I had just told him about the 45 balls I brought over to take to local schools in Malawi, and promised to keep touch.

About the trip...

As a result of our Malaria fundraiser projects this past summer, we are now in Malawi on behalf of the Against Malaria Foundation, working with Save the Children and Concern Universal to deliver insecticide treated mosquito bed nets and provide malaria prevention educational information to remote villages in the Mulanje and Phalombe distrticts of Southern Malawi for 2 weeks.  Thanks to everyone who has donated and supported our efforts in the PwC Pittsburgh office, as well as many familey and friends, we are taking part in a distribution of 20,000 nets that cost $100,000.  Over the past 3 years we have raised close to $25,000 towards this cause, and much of that has went towards this trip.  I will post details of weeks 1 and 2 in the near future.

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