Day 1 - Monday, June 9

I slept for over 10 hours last night, and I still feel like a zombie. It’ll get better, I know, but today will be a struggle physically. Several of the staff here have encouraged us to not take a nap today so as to get on the new schedule a bit faster. I’m about to go have some breakfast, but I’ll try to jot down some notes from our journey here over the past few days.

The flights were fine, really. British Airways serves nice food, and the flight from London to Johannesburg had on demand entertainment. That was really nice. I got to watch Futurama, Family Guy and Leon—and in between I slept for about 6 hours (thank you, Tylenol PM). It wasn’t until we were landing in Lilongwe that I began to feel as though I were in a truly foreign land. I could see houses with thatched roofs below, and hardly any cars were on the roads. We were met by two of the Rafiki Overseas Staff (ROS), David and Susan. David is the plant manager here, which means he keeps everything running. He had dropped his wife off at the airport that morning, as she was traveling back to the States for a few weeks for some meetings about Rafiki childcare (her job here). Susan, from what I can remember, is kind of a permanent mini-missionary (Rafiki’s term for a short-term missionary). She stays in the guesthouse along with up to four other mini-missionaries. Right now that includes the DelVillanos (Nick and Rebecca) and the Newports (Fred and Sandy Lu). I get to stay with David—he of the two-foot beard—in one of the staff houses.

The drive from the airport to our Rafiki village was long and eye opening. The poverty of the typical Malawian stands in stark contrast to everything I’ve ever experienced. In my work this summer for Neil, I’ll make twice as much money in one week than the average Malawian will see in one year. During the ~4 hour ride from the airport to the Rafiki village, we saw 40-50 vehicles on the road (one of the main roads in the whole country), but there were hundreds of pedestrians, most of whom didn’t have shoes. The houses we saw along the way were mostly mud brick (Malawi bricks are actually pretty high quality) with either thatch or corrugated metal for a roof. Some of these buildings were for drying tobacco (one of the largest industries here), but most were dirt-floor residences. During the drive, David put the contrast in material resources this way: his house here in the Rafiki village would be considered quite modest by American standards, but by Rafiki standards it’s a mansion.

I don’t want to dwell too much on the disparity of wealth, mainly because I’m not sure how to process it. How do I come to terms with an average per capita income of less than $500? I can’t. But I can serve and ultimately love these people as fellow human beings, image bearers of God. Lord, help me to serve. Help me to love with the love you’ve poured out on me.

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I’ve returned from lunch and a brief walk to the gate/clinic of the village. For lunch today, I sat at the table of Mama Grace and her nine (!) children, the oldest of whom was 7. I really don’t know how she does it. The children were all very sweet, and most of them stared at me throughout the meal. I really wasn’t sure what to do or say, so I just made some funny faces at them and smiled a lot. I kept thinking how much fun Will would have with these kids if he were here. Maybe someday…

One little girl at lunch, Pemphero, has been here for only three days. She sat right next to Mama Grace and mostly played with her food and looked at me with big, curious eyes. One of the ROS told us yesterday that when a new child comes to the village, it isn’t really a happy occasion. Of course, the village is happy to welcome a new child into their community, but it’s also an indication of how things can break down in the ability of the country to care for their orphans. Malawians, like all Africans, want to take care of their own, especially those in great need like young orphans. Most of the time, a child who has lost their parents will be taken in by a grandparent or aunt/uncle. Sometimes, however, those caregivers in the extended family are sick with AIDS or have already died. This is why it’s a somber event to bring in a new child. Every boy and girl has a story of why the system failed him or her.

Ralph, one of the boys in the first grade classroom handed me a drawing this morning. It shows four matolas, one of the most common forms of public transportation here. (A matola is essentially a seven-passenger van that is usually crammed with a dozen or more people, each of whom has some baggage along for the ride.) The vehicles in the drawing all have somewhere between three and six tires, so it’s a start. It was a very sweet gesture, and one that I won’t soon forget.

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At the end of day 1, I’ve had a frustrating and interesting experience. I seem to have lost my headphones, probably by leaving them on the plane from Johannesburg to Lilongwe. I’ve just spent the last half hour going through all my belongings, twice, without finding them. What’s interesting is that the cost of those headphones is more than what the typical Malawian will make in two weeks. This, however, does not appall me, but that’s probably a defense mechanism on my part. I know that in two weeks I’ll be back in the United States, and I’ll have to go back to a life of eating $20 meals, driving a $5,000 car, and working with a million dollar instrument. I can’t reconcile these disparate experiences, so I’ll just pretend that they exist in two separate worlds. Unfortunately, that’s not true in a literal sense. I didn’t travel through some wormhole in space to reach this parallel universe where people are suddenly poor. It’s the same world: I shrug off losing a $15 pair of headphones while a family down the road has to choose between school fees for their children or going hungry. I can’t emotionally engage with that statement, and so I’ll just go to bed.