On our first Wednesday, we stopped working and took a trip down to a tiny, very poor little village called Mindanti. The school for the village is a slab of concrete with a thatched roof and no walls, vaguely resembling a carport. The blackboard is so old and overused, that you can barely read the new writing on it.
The children, as usual, were very excited to see a group of muzungus (white people) coming into the village. They were even more excited that we had our cameras and wanted to take their pictures. Sadly for us, this was the first time that we could actually see the extreme poverty. The clothing on the children was very tattered, most didn’t have shoes, and a majority of the children had distended bellies (a sign of malnutrition and starvation). Yet, these kids were laughing, proudly showing us their school supplies, and eager to just be near the muzungus.
While in the village we saw the clinic that we are helping to build with our financial donations (and we are now tasked with providing all the medical equipment and medical supplies). The clinic will specialize in maternity needs, disease prevention education(primarily malaria and HIV/AIDs) and something else that I can’t remember. The scary part was when the man that will be in charge of the clinic told us about how needed the maternity ward was, so that more at risk births could take place in the clinic. Many of the at risk pregnancies being those of girls as young as 11 or 12. Gasp.
The other project that we are financing in the village is a water well. There is no clean water well for miles/kilometers, so women have to get up extremely early to start getting water for the day. On days where the mothers can’t go, the daughters may be forced to miss school to get the water. Also, the way that water gets carried in buckets, even clean water gets contaminated as the women fill the buckets to the rim and then stick their fingers in the water while hoisting the buckets up on their head. With money we have raised, we are drilling a very deep water well, that will be powered by a windmill (the windmill should be up by now). This will allow the water to be fed to the clinic as well as having a tap for the villagers.
On our way back to Blantyre, we stopped in another village for lunch. There we found one of the greatest menus EVER. Andie, Russ, Eliza and I spent our entire lunch laughing over the menu. Ask them about the chicken rap.