Malawi projects update

First of all I would like to apologise for taking me so long to update the blog, but I am coming back with very good news! :)

As you may know if you have read the previous post Totemic Ltd., the company I work for, is fully funding the construction of a new orphanage in Domasi and the construction of a maize mill and I am extremely blessed to be working in the project!. The building process began in May 2012 and six months on we are seeing an astonishing progress!. Completion of the buildings is scheduled for next month and in January we will start with the fixture and fittings.
 

The orphanage

It will consist in 5 blocks:

• 3 hostel blocks (for 100 orphans each)
• 1 dining and kitchen block
• 1 school block

I am very proud to announce that the construction of all blocks has started already and some of them are just near to completion. This is the progress for each of the blocks illustrated with photos:


Orphanage view

Hostel 1:

It is just remaining the carpentry work, installation of a septic tank and painting of the buildings.

Outside

Inside corridor

Hostel 2:

Toilets are yet to be built, plastering of the rooms has started, electric and plumbing installation has been done already.

Hostel 3:

It's on plastering phase and it is ready to start roofing, electric installation has started. Also on this hostel there will be a septic tank.

Outside

Inside

Kitchen and dining area:

Building work is almost finished with the drainage system and floor remaining, painting work has also started and the electrical installation is done.

School block:

Construction is also underway. This block will also have its own septic tank.

The micro-credit project

This is one of the best performing projects and women are doing very well being able to repaid their loans really quick. So far more than 40 women have benefited from this program allowing them to start small business to support their families and empower the role of women in the community. Some of the business are: selling fish, vegetables, bread making, chicken breeding, etc. Women are charged 2% interest.



My Women Préstamo Business, WPB. So proud of them!!!

The Maize Mill

The maize mill also donated by Totemic is complete and just awaiting for the electricity connection to start operating. It will employ two members of staff and will mean an income for the project. We estimate that it will be used for at least 1,000 families in the local area.

At the moment women and children have to walk over 4 miles (6.4km) with a 50kg bag of maize on their heads just to reach the nearest maize mill. As you know from previous posts maize is the staple food in Malawi and they eat maize porridge twice a day 7 days a week.

Tikondwe maize mill

Example of an existing maize mill

Sending parcels

As part of the endless Totemic support we are sending regular parcels with employees' donations with clothes and toys for the orphans that we are keeping in Malawi to use them once we open the orphanage.

Parcels stored in Malawi. Huge thank you!!

Volunteer

Totemic has sent one employee to volunteer to the project and we hope we can open new volunteer opportunities for Totemic employees next year.

Coming back to Malawi

As last update from Malawi there is the possibility that I will move to Malawi next February to work 'in situ' during the last phase of the project until the orphanage opening at least... which is estimated at by May-June 2013. I can't wait to come back to the Warm Heart of Africa to see with my own eyes the orphanage progress and to see again my Malawian family and all my beloved kids who make you forget about any problem you may have just with their smile!!

With my sweet Shakira :)

Josh White, a previous volunteer at the project, is setting a website for Tikondwe Youth Organisation. It is still under construction but you can see some pictures, the ongoing projects and the contact information in case you want to know more about the organisation, projects, how to volunteer, how to donate...

http://www.tikondwe.org/

Balloon and nutella sandwich for every one on my last day at the school in my last visit in May

You can donate now to any project you like and any amount you like starting just from £1!
(You don't need to have a paypal account and it takes just a minute)

                                   

 

Thank you- Gracias- Zikomo

Love & Solidarity with Malawi

Lulu

Orphanage under construction

It is official!!
More than 300 orphans will have a place to call home by the end of this year!!

Orphanage view after one month construction

This is possible  thanks to the immense generosity of Totemic Ltd., the company I work for and which is funding the whole orphanage project and thanks to the hard job of Joshua Mbozole, the Malawian coordinator, who is watching how his dream is coming true!!

From my position I am speechless. This is beyond my dream that was to volunteer in an backward country and live myself in the conditions that millions and millions live and die every day as we all now. Since the moment I landed at Malawi I knew this was going to be a bond forever, but all this is much more than I could ever imagine. This is the most fulfilling thing I have done in my life and I feel so lucky.

As I commented in my previous post I was coming back to Malawi regarding the orphanage construction. I travelled there with two of the directors from my company last May to discuss the about project.

 The first meeting we have with Joshua was fine but I think the directors were a bit cautious about him. This changed completely next day though J  when they fell in love with him and everyone else in the village as it couldn't be any other way when you meet the people from the "Warm Heart of Africa".

The itinerary for that day was to spend the day in the village. They prepared all kind of activities to welcome us and explain everything about the project:

 We first stopped at the school where I used to teach. I didn’t know we were going there and I was so excited when they told me that once we arrived at the school I completely forgot about the trip and the “business” and went crazy with my children from Mapanje!

Mapanje school

The second stop was at one of the orphans’ families. This story is about Rafiki:

He is 6 years old and one of the orphans living with the HIV. He lives with his older sister Violet (17 years old) who takes care of him and their younger sister of 2 years old. Both of their parents passed away few years ago because of the HIV/AIDS. Violet is pregnant and doesn’t have a husband.

Visiting Rafiki's family. Paul and Emma (foreign coordinator)

Then we met chief John. He is the chief from the village and the one donating the land for the orphanage. We walked around the land perimeter and attended to a typical Malawian show with singing and dancing.

Chief John

Malawian dance

The orphanage team.From left to right: Joshua, me, Paul, Lesley and chief John. And Emma who is not in the picture

The final stop was the village where they met Joshua’s family and we had the local food (“nsima”).

After this we came back to the hotel with Joshua and Emma (foreign project coordinator and previous volunteer) to talk about the project.

 Once in the hotel…. we have a brief meeting that was mainly TO APPROVE THE ORPHANAGE!!! And if that was not enough they donated for a maize mill as well!!

The approval meeting

Apart from this two projects Totemic also donated to the micro- credits program for women that I started last February. At the moment more than 40 women have been able to star their own small business and support their families improving in an amazing way the women role in the community.

Right after that meeting Totemic started the funding and in less than one week the orphanage construction started!!!

I brought with me 25kg of donations from friends and people from the company. I had from clothes, shoes, backpacks, toys and a 5kg Nutella bottle, to money to sponsor children to go to school. It was curious how all the children were asking me: “Lulu school shoes, Lulu school bag” after they saw me giving away the donations. Unfortunately the 25 kg were not enough for everyone, but we will keep the donations up. Shoes and school rucksacks are two of the most valued items there. Wearing shoes and a rucksack to school is a sign of being "wealthy" since only a few can afford to pay for them.

Some pictures of the donations:

Outfit donated by Iryna Muha

Innocesia with a dress donated by Emma Charles

Happy Matrida with a school backpack and a barbie donated by Emma Charles

Donations from Valeria Almeda and Anna Forys to one orphan's family

Nutella time

Picture on the left:
Doughnut and chocolate time. 5kg of Nutella donated by Kathryn Thomson.

For most of them it was the first time tasting chocolate in their lives.More than 200 children and adults had a Nutella "sandwich" that day!!

Thank you for all the donations!

My lovely children from Mapanje school! I miss them so much!

Love & solidarity with Malawi,

Lulu

So many projects and NEWS from Malawi. I'm coming back!!!

There is not going to be a last post. There are many wonderful things happening at the project, and I am sure you want to know about them. And I am coming back to the Warm Heart of Africa in May !!!! So the Malawian Experience continues...

The first update is from the money fundraised at Christmas. I raised 350 pounds between UK and Spain. Wondering how to best use the money, doing some research and talking to Joshua, the coordinator, we decided to start a MICRO-LOAN BUSINESS FOR WOMEN and has been a complete success. The name for this project is " Women Préstamo (loan in Spanish) Business". Joshua's mother in law, who has experience in business, is training the women for free. After the training they give a loan of 70 pounds approx. to each of them to start their own business. They have started a few business already:

• 1 bread making
• 2 selling vegetables
• 1 selling fish 
• 1 chicken breeding

I a few weeks time 4 of the women have been able to pay back the money, isn't amazing? So they can lend the money to more women!

More about the fundraising, Vicky, a friend of mine, is donating  very good money to start a SEXUAL EDUCATION PROGRAM, birth control, HIV/AIDS prevention, etc. They really need this program running; AIDs is unfortunately raising everyday what means young people dying and higher number of orphans, living in extreme conditions.

Talking about the orphans, I have the best news ever! Their living conditions are going to improve as they would never imagine. The company I work for is going to BUILD AN ORPHANAGE FOR MORE THAN 300 CHILDREN. I am working in the project and I am coming back with one of the directors to discuss about the project with Joshua. I am so happy for them!! I remember orphan´s stories were the saddest ones as you may know if have read previous posts.

Apart from the orphanage, my company want to build a VOCACIONAL EDUCATION SCHOOL to help the children to get a job once they finish their secondary education. Subjects will be carpintery, farming, etc.

The company want to CONTRIBUTE toward the WOMEN PRESTAMO BUSINESS as well. Unbelievable!

There are more marvelous things going on in Domasi. Iryna Muha, another friend of mine is helping with the graphic desing and EDITING OF THE NEWSLETTER. Tikondwe has just started to publicize it with the information of the projects going on and other useful information as voluntereering opportunities. (If you would like to receive the newsletter, leave a comment with your email and I will forward it to you).

I have also sent 3 PARCELS with shoes, clothes and toys with the stuff I collected at Christmas.

All I can say is A HUGE THANK YOU to everyone making this possible. This is much more than anyone could ever dream and make me so happy for them. Definitely we are making the diffrence all together. The life of the children from Domasi is being transformed already. We are giving them a better future; a future of hope and opportunities. Keep it up!

All this updates are the ones coming from my side but there are many other projects going on in Domasi thanks to Tikondwe Youth Organisation and the hard job of Joshua, Emma and all the volunteers staying at the project. (If you want to now about the other projects ask for the newsletter).

Thanks-Gracias-Zikomo

Love & Solidarity with Malawi.

Lourdes

So difficult to write the last post...

Have been a month and a half already in UK-Spain but still so many stories to tell about Malawi and feeling so close!

Today I received the New Information Pack to volunteer in Malawi from Joshua Mbozole, the coordinator in Malawi.  (Will try to uploaded or share the link here in the next post)
Joshua is the creator of Tikondwe Youth Organisation and a member of the family that host all the volunteers during our stay and look after all us so well. Our beloved Papa and Mama!. Joshua is one of Papa and Mama's sons. He is working really hard to help his community and thanks to that the projects is achieving important improvments and even small new projects are growing too.

Dear Papa and Mama. Last morning at Napwanga village :(

 

Joshua Mbozole, project founder and Eveline,
his wife

One very good new is that one of the volunteers I met there, Emma, is staying longer at Domasi and has took over the Foreign Project  Coordinator role, that previously did Jessica, thanks Emma!

Below you can see a photo of the family I was living with. From left to right: Eluby (my Malawian sister), Matrida, Efort, with the school uniform, and Moses, Eluby's husband. Eluby is Mama and Papa's daughter and Joshua's sister.
This was my last morning in the village.Quite difficult to smile for the picture...

I used to tell you on my post some stories about the orphans families we used to visit every Monday. It have just came to my mind my last visit to the orphans. There were a little sister and brother living with their grandmother. Both the kids and the grandma had HIV/AIDS. I remember it was strange that the woman was lying on the floor when we arrived and didn't stand up. She only standed up when we gave her some stuff for the family to say thank you. I was leaving the project next Monday and on Saturday someone came to the village to say that the grandmother had died due to the AIDS (SIDA in Spanish), so the children were completely orphans now, not sure if they still have a grandfather. That was the reason why the women didn't stand up at our arrival. In the two months I have been in Malawi I have seen two people die around our village. Life expectancy at birth in Malawi is less than 50 years, there is high infant mortality and excess or mortality due to AIDS too.
One of the aims of Tikondwe Youth Organisation is to build an orphanage to gather all the orphans that at the moment live with any relative left or families from the village. So they could be controlled regarding feeding, health and education. But of course they need a quite a lot of money for that and need any help from all us.

Time for one loving story now. It happened my last day in the village and is about a cute baby and her mum. First day I arrived at the village I had a picture with a new born. They love you to have pictures with their babies. Well, my last day at Napwanga village the mum was waiting for me with the baby, a gorgeous girl, and asked me to have a picture myself with her baby. When I was going to take her in my arms her mum removed the piece of garment that wrapped the baby and underneath the baby was wearing a very nice dress. Her mum dressep her up for the special occasion.  So tender... Here you have the photos:




The new born my first day int he village








   

The baby two months later

 














I want to show you how Malawian toys look like with a picture: Have a look at the car?

It is made from the local beer carton and the wheels are the caps from coke and fanta bottles.
The kid with the car was so lovely, he hold my hand all the way to the market and back. They all came with us. We were just walking on the street and this is how it happens, so you end up walking with a bunch of children, even adults. No words... Love them all!


Taken at Cape Maclear (lake Malawi)

On Christmas I started fundraising money and stuff (clothes, shoes and toys) to send some parcels to Malawi and help them a bit. I did it in UK and Spain too but I am still doing it. I have found generous people and I am so grateful for their donations to Malawian children. If you want to donate whatever or whichever amount please contact me. We can help them all together.

Fundraising in Spain for my Malawian children

Will write the "last post" soon and will put the link if you want to see more pictures of Malawi.

Love and solidarity with Malawi for this New Year 2012.

Thanks- Gracias- Zikomo

In Uk but still living in Malawian time

Jenifer from Mapanje school

Almost one week since I came back from having the time of my life but still have plenty of stories to share with you.



Miky in the volunteer house

 On the other hand, posting from UK is not as exciting and mainly challenging as doing it from my dear Malawi.



Miky and Olleny (brothers). In the sun hut



I miss the warm and sunny weather, but the most I miss is the warm and sunny people there. They really deserve the name of the Warm Heart of Africa. Dimakukonda ku Malawi.

Children from Cape Maclear practising drums

I was so excited on my first visit to the supermarket here. Lot of colours, nice smell, plenty of choices, all good quality products (compare to Malawian standards) most of them cheaper than in Malawi. Sound silly, but my Malawian diet is not my best memory from there. Being able to choose what I want to eat every day, and for every meal!,chose the flavour, the brand, have a fridge to keep it, cook with gas, ... Felt like a child in a theme park.


Going to the market for the grocery shopping



It is so good to come back to have some comfort: electricity, internet, phone network all the time, no fuel problems, drink the water from the tap, have a warm shower, sleep in a comfy mattress, not having to spray myself the whole day in mosquito spray, sleeping without my mosquito net, not sweating at night, having a quiet night without the orchestra of rats, mosquitos, bats, goats, the cock crowing at 4am with the Malawian sunrise... In general happy of having eveything you want/need with a simple fingers "click". Do you realise that?

Having the sunrise at 4am (Kwacha time)mean that everybody!! (Malawians not the volunteers) and all the animals got up, and start working, playing or just hanging around. Meanwhile I tried to sleep every day till 7.30am when I got up to go to school but wasn't very successful.
The sunset was at 6pm and at 7.30pm (Chicken time), or so, everybody went to bed. I tried to keep my European hours and didn't go to bed before 9.30pm, so I have spent a lot of money in candles :)

Kwacha time means, get up and go to earn some Kwachas, the local currency.
Chicken time means, they put inside the house all the chickens over night and the release them in the morning at Kwacha time again. And means time to go to bed.

My flatmates at night. Seven cokcs and hens sleeping next to my bedroom, with no door in the rooms and crowing at 4am everyday...

It seems like I am complaining but is not that. It is just realising the contrast and appreciating what we have in the Western World. And despite of everything I really miss Malawi and I of course I want to come back. So, you can imagine all the good things they have down there :D

I want to talk now about my last week there. I went to Lake Malawi, to relax, to prepare myself to come back to this side again, and to say goodbye, or see you soon, to Malawi. I stayed on my own for 4 days and 6 of the volunteers came over for the weekend. After the weekend they  came back to the village and I left to Blantyre for one night to make sure I was on time to take my flight back to the UK next day; you know all the fuel and transport issues there.
I have such an amazing time and the best ending to my stay in Malawi. Acutally, the saying of The Warm Heart of Africa comes from this part of Lake Malawi, CAPE MACLEAR, and once again I can confirm it.

Monkey Bay, another part of the lake close to Cape Maclear. I stayed there for two days

Last dinner with the volunteers in Cape Maclear

Enjoying the sunset in Cape Maclear

Something that I think I didn't mention before is that Malawi is a very safe country. Just arrived at the UK and heard about 4 Spanish that have been kidnapped in Africa during this year. Malawi is one of the 10 poorest countries in the World but it is ranked as the 39th in the Global Peace Index out of 153 countries and as the second most peaceful country in Africa after Botswana.

Last day on the village me and two other volunteers went to have lunch with our favourite njinga driver (bike) and to meet his family. We provided them with some food and they cooked it for all of us. One of the volunteers gave him pasta and went we were having lunch he said to us that it was the first time in his life he ate pasta. He is 35 years old and had never tried pasta before... He liked it by the way. Pasta is 3 times more expensive than rice and anyway they cannot afford to buy rice very often.

Below njinga driver Laurence and his family. We had lunch with Miriam and Steve as well.
Laurence was always in the best mood and he says he loves his job. With a perfect English, he taught us Chichewa all the way up the hill during the 30 min  ride in the bike. All for MK150= 60p



Pasta meal, first time for all Laurence's family



Still few more posts to come...

Tionana

Zikomo kwambiri

Countdown begins.... 15 days left in Malawi.

It has been a while since the last post.

Here things are getting more difficult to come to town. Fuel prices are increasing everyday. There is no fuel in Malawi and sometimes the only choice for the minibus drivers is buy the fuel in the black market. That means the price of transport increases and the service is not as good as before and have to wait for one hour to take a minibus sometimes, of course after being half an hour in the njinga taxi (bike). When you make it to get to Zomba, lately you find out that there is no power...so sit down and wait for the electricity to come back to use the ATM or the internet. Once you are in the internet you have to be very patient, since it is very slow and comes and goes freely. Besides the internet price is very expensive, something like two pounds per hour, which in Kwacha is a lot!

Sun hut decorated for the Bday.

No more complaints :) Want to start talking about the Birthday Party. We had such and amazing time! Everybody had rice with beans and vegetables and then the cake. I had in my list 40 children who are usually around the village, but that day they showed up more than 70. I was worried if every child could have food. Finally all did and then we started with the adults. In total over 100 people ate that day and that made me feel very happy. Obviously we didn't have plate for all, so asked the kids to bring their own plate, you had to see then running home for the plate :)

Waiting to be served...

Mama (Matrida's grandmother), Matrida (with her plate) and me ready for the party.

After eating and exchanging some gifts the party started and we danced listening to Malawian music and danced in the Malawian style. It was curious when I gave the presents to Matrida (3 years old) and she didn't know what to do with them. We helped her to open them and she was wrapping them again, a bit overwhelming for her everything. Certainly an unforgettable Birthday for me, Miriam and Matrida.

Mama provided us for the party with the Malawian national wear; the kind of skirt that you can see in the picture.

Miriam, Matrida and I ready to cut the cake.

Cutting the cake with Matrida and Mama.

Time to talk about the project now. The three volunteers who are donating the money the fund-raised in the UK to builds schools (supportafrica) have finished to build some schools and mine was not in the list finally... But the good news are that Miriam, the volunteer who is teaching with me at Mapanje School is donating the money herself to build our school. The total cost to finish it is 30.000 Kwacha (140 pounds). The builders (people from the village working for free) started working last Saturday and it will be finished in one week approximately.

Some volunteers are donating money for the feeding program and have bought maize, ground nuts and sugar to cook a porridge and feed the children every day after the school. With a budget of 20 pounds approx, they bought food to feed all the children of one school one meal everyday for a period of two months.

Peeling peanuts for the feeding program.

Snack ready for the break at the school.

At the school when it is the break time between the lessons the food that the children have is: Boiled cassava, roasted maize, mangos, some of them potatoes, bananas and ground nuts. Basically what they grow in their farms. It is usual see them eating sugar cane as such. The luckiest ones has African cake, which is made from maize flour, sugar, banana and water. Mangos grow here everywhere and you just go to a tree and take them.So here, there are not issues about the children asking for the last biscuits they have seen on TV to bring to school. They all share their breakfast and give some to the ones that don't have any.

Break time.

The government provide every family with a piece of land for farming. It subsidizes around 80% of the actual price of the fertilizer they need to plant the crops at this time of the year (beginning of the raining season). They have to pay for a bag 500 Kwacha (2 pounds approx.), but due to corruption the prices are more expensive (2500 Kwacha) and some families can't afford to buy it.


One story from the previous week we visit the orphans was again quite shocking. Two orphan kids, a girl and a boy, leaving in their own. Because of the extreme living conditions, the girl decided to get married when she was 11 years old and as result we visited the boy, 14 years old leaving completely on his own and of course not going to school. One volunteer pay money for him to have the school uniform and to pay the school fees for one year. All together less than 4 pounds for primary school.


Teaching in the afternoon school with the older ones. Always plenty of volunteers to come to the blackboard:

Students bring their sisters and brothers to the school.

Balls are made of a bunch of plastic bags wrapped together and tied with a piece of string.






Some facts:

• When I told to the local teacher at my school how much I paid for my flight to Malawi, she told me: "With that money I will be a wealthy person here"

• Some of them ask you if in England (Europe) we have houses like theirs.

• Babies don't wear nappies and the ones who are lucky to have them are reusable of course.

• They don't have money to buy dish washer liquid and use a kind of scourer and the mud to rub the pot and a bit of solid soap sometimes.

• Some of the children who manage to have the school uniform cannot go to school all the time because they don't have money to buy washing powder always.

• They sell hand packed oil mini-bags, of less than 50ml volume. Not everyone can afford to buy a 500mls bottle. 

• This is how the majority of the logistic works in Malawi, and how they supply the villages:  having a soft drink is the best treat you can get, if you find a place with electricity. Diet Coke doesn't exist in Malawi and they have pineapple, passion fruit and tropical Fanta. Buy water is more expensive than the fizzy drinks.

• Cinema time. Every Thursday afternoon we go to the cinema with the children from the school. For 300 Kwacha, 1 pound approx. you can bring as many people as you can fit in the room. You are lucky if you arrive and they have electricity, what didn't happen the last two weeks.

Cinema time.

If you want to donate money to supportafrica this is the link: http://supportafrica.co.uk/.  

You can see pictures of the project and the three volunteers working in the building of the schools and with the children. I have been living with them for more than a month and can tell you that your money is going to be invested to improve African Children Life Conditions.
 
Zikomo kwanbiri ( thanks a lot) for reading me. Hope I can bring to you a little bit of the amazing Xperience I am living in the Warm Heart of Africa! 

Tionana (See you)