A.
Thousands Upon Thousands of Acts of Kindness
1.
General Comments
Thus far, the primary focus has been upon our efforts to do
“good” in Malawi—what we have tried to do, how the Malawians have responded,
and whether we are making any progress.
The focus has been upon us, and not upon the Malawians, as the ones
giving aid, and as a consequence, our remarks may have created the misleading impression
that Malawi should be viewed as this enormous sponge, constantly soaking up from
others outside of Malawi[1]
whatever aid, charity, assistance, and help it can get to address Malawi’s
difficult social problems. No doubt
Malawi does look for external aid, recognizing it cannot solve its problems
alone. But this misses the fundamental
truth that far and away the greatest source of the daily help and aid comes
from the Malawians themselves. In our
experience Malawians, both great and small, have enormous hearts and are
constantly helping one another, often in ways almost incomprehensible to
us. They give service and, if they have
it, share of their material goods to help others. They
do this through thousands upon thousands of acts of kindness, shown every day,
benefitting not only close family members but also others, sometimes people
they barely know. These acts of
generosity, kindness, and patience are a constant inspiration to us, and rekindle
our desire to do good and to follow their examples. The paradigm at stake is not that of the
well-intended Westerner coming to Malawi to help poor, misguided, woebegone
Malawians, who are incapable of helping themselves. Indeed, the opposite is the case—Malawians show
great examples of generosity, and we hope the lessons learned from them we can
take back with us when returning home. Before
talking about some of the specific ways in which Malawians are especially
generous, let me point out a few random acts of kindness witnessed just this
past week or so, and you can judge for yourself the quality of their
spirit.
Yesterday Davey, our security guard/gardener approached us
about getting an advance against the modest amount we pay him for helping
out--washing the truck, occasionally polishing shoes, disposing of trash,
watering Carole’s herbs, and tending to the ornamental plants on the enclosed
patio off the kitchen.[2] Davey is unbelievably good natured and
couldn’t be a better handyman. He is
well-known for his huge grin—he has as big a smile as I have ever seen—it is as
though his face is transformed into all teeth;
one has to be very “grumpy” indeed not to be gladden by Davey’s
greetings. Davey has been taking care of
senior missionaries for over eight years, the longevity itself evidence of the
esteem with which he is held. Davey’s
mother lives in a small village in the Thyolo District, roughly an hour and a
half mini-bus drive out of Blantyre.
She, like others in the village, is close to running out of food, and
somehow has to make ends meet until late March and early April of 2016 (about
five months from now), when the next maize harvest will occur. The oldest son in the family, Davey wanted
to buy some bags of maize for his mother, to tide her over until the upcoming
harvest, and to purchase for her some dried fish, which she could then peddle to
her neighbors to earn a little spare money.
On top of this, two weeks ago, Davey took in his 12 year old nephew, so
that he could attend the Catholic secondary school located at the CI (“Catholic
Institute”) corner. Davey lives in
tight “boy quarters,” behind one of the flats where the Sunnyside elders live,
so there is not much space for squeezing in another border.
Enita, a single mother with two children, joined the Church
about nine months ago. Angellah, her
12-year ago daughter, is a tuberculosis victim, who was treated, and ostensibly
cured, a year ago, but who has been in and out of the hospital several times
over the last four months—first with shortness of breath but later with diarrhea,
vomiting, dehydration, and now an extreme case of malnutrition.
Angellah’s hospital stays have ranged from several days to several weeks,
long enough to get several nasty bed sores, serious enough to require separate
surgical treatment. Each time Enita
remains in the hospital with Angellah, acting as her designated guardian
(meaning “caregiver”) providing food when Angellah is not on a special prescribed
diet, wishing her clothes, taking her to the bathroom, and generally doubling
as a nurse. She sleeps over in the
ward, either on the concrete floor next to Angellah’s bed or sometimes next to Angellah
in the narrow hospital bed. Rarely does
she get much of a break, though Angellah’s paternal grandmother is also often
at the hospital. Of course, Enita is Angellah’s
mother and mothers have an enormous capacity for nurturing and protecting their
children. Patients rarely get the
medication they need. Ibuprofen and Tylenol
are the most commonly prescribed medicines, just something to helped patients
cope with pain and inflammation. Many
nursing functions are relegated to the patients’ untrained guardians, so the
needed care is erratic at best.
Two weeks ago, Brother Tchongwe was called to be the new
branch president in the Blantyre 2nd Branch. He is a wonderful
Church member—committed, hardworking, studious, well-intended. He is a student of the scriptures, blessed with
keen insights into bible passages. But
complicating his calling is the fact that he recently started working for a Japanese-owned
company, selling some kind of equipment, which has stationed him in Zomba, the
former capital, almost an hour and a half out of Blantyre by mini-bus. To do
the job, Brother Tchongwe needs to leave Blantyre late Sunday afternoon,
returning home either Thursday or Friday night. Hard to get the branch up and running with
that schedule, especially given that he has yet to get two counselors. Yet immediately after being called, Brother
Tchongwe was thrown into the proverbial fire.
The second Sunday, after the three hour block, and a couple of
additional hours in the office, he accompanied Davey to his wife’s home
village, Chunga, off the Blantyre-Chikwawa Road, about an hour by car out of
Blantyre. For almost two hours, he
mediated between husband and wife, looking for common ground. At the end, both Davey and Chrissy appeared
very relieved, with Davey saying the next day that he was extremely happy and
Brother Tchongwe was a “very good man.”
Too late to catch a late Sunday evening mini-bus to Zomba, Brother
Tchongwe stayed over until Monday. But,
even before he could get out of town the next day, he was swept up, this time working
with President Matale, a counselor in the District Presidency, to help coordinate with some families from the District, participating in Nu Skin’s special 9-month agricultural training program, called
the “SAFI” or the School of Agriculture for Family Independence, administered
in a small village an hour north of Lilongwe.
On Wednesday, Brother Tchongwe caught an early bus from
Blantyre for the 5-hour trip to Lilongwe, where he was scheduled to meet up
with one of the program's participants. He did not return to Blantyre, until close
to midnight on Wednesday night, after over 17 hours in transit. Too late to call someone for a ride, and too
late to be comfortable walking home alone in the dark, he slept (or tried to
sleep) on the bus until 6:00 when he finally hiked home. So
the week ended up being shot, Brother Tchongwe never getting to Zomba for his
day job.
Lucy Tembo was confirmed a member of the Church the first
Sunday we attended the Blantyre 2nd Branch, which was sometime in
middle March 2015. She and her good
friend, Ruth Juma, were baptized the week before and confirmed on the same
Sunday. Lucy lives in a nice small home
in Kampala, just off the main market street running through the township’s
center. Her husband, whom we have only
met once, is a plumber, and has his own business, by all appearances he stays
very busy and provides a good living for the family. On our first visit with Lucy we discovered
that her parents lived in Chilobwe, not far from the center of that
township. Lucy is one of 11 children
and has a twin sister, many of the siblings also living in Chilobwe close to
the family home. A week or so after
visiting with Lucy we picked her up so that we could meet the family—Chilobwe
is one of the main townships in the Zingwangwa Branch, so we already knew it
well. It is home to the Makawas, the
Ambalis, Louis Likusa, Brother Chimaliro, the Nkhomas, the Magombos, and the
Chikapas (before they moved into them new home in Chimwankhunda). We had a nice visit with the family, meeting
lots of siblings, spouses, and grandchildren, taking pictures.
Several of the last Sundays Lucy was not at Church. We
were concerned about her, knowing how faithful she had been in coming every
week, since becoming a member. Each
Sunday she would arrive about the same time, a few minutes after the service
had begun, quietly sliding into one of the pews at the back of the chapel. The reason for her absence, we found, was because she was
serving as the guardian[3]
for her older brother, Jacob, the father of three children, who had been
hospitalized for a tumor at Queen’s Hospital in Blantyre. Three weeks ago after visiting with Enita
and Angellah in Queens, we found the ward where Jacob was being treated and
went by in the hopes of seeing Lucy, Jacob and some of the family. Lucy was not present, but we did visit
briefly with Jacob, his father, and a few family members. Jacob, sitting upright on his bed, was in
obvious discomfort, his father next to him rubbing his back. A week or so later, Carole and I, together
with Sister Kandiano and her daughter, Alfonsina, attend Jacob’s funeral in the
family home in Chilobwe to show our support for Lucy and the family.
Most of the week after the funeral Lucy stays in Chilobwe,
as the family tries to sort out Jacob’s affairs, including the custody of his
three children. Different tribes have
different customs, but it appears quite common for children to be parceled out
to other family members, frequently grandparents, aunts, and uncles, to raise
after the death of a parent, even if the other parent is alive.[4] So we were not shocked to find, when
visiting with Lucy two weeks after the funeral, that she had taken in Kevin, Jacob’s
11 year old son. Kevin will be attending
Standard 3 at the CI Catholic School, only a 15 to 20 minute walk from Lucy’s
home. Lucy and his husband do not have
children of their own in the home.
[1]
Such outsiders include churches, foreign governments, NGOs of every stripe and
kind, expats, and foreign missionaries, such as ourselves.
[3]
Queens is not staffed with full-time nurses to handle the daily care of its
patients. Instead, patients are
required to have “guardians,” who minister to their care while
hospitalized. The guardians provide
meals (purchased at family expense), wash clothes, helping them with bathing
and getting to the toilet. Since the
guardian-role is full-time, guardians sleep at the hospital. Usually, this means they sleep on the
concrete floor next to the patient’s bed.
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