1. Early to bed, early to rise
This whole country wakes up at the crack of dawn. Stevie and I, who do NOT usually wake up at the crack of dawn, have been getting into the swing of waking up and going to bed early. We've been going running every day around 6:15am, and usually heading to bed by 9 or 10. We hadn't really thought much about why the market opens at 6am and closes at dusk until a few days ago, when the power was out in our guesthouse.... this country is built to function without electricity. While Stevie and I could barely figure out how to wash our faces with our headlamps on, Malawian life seemed to go on as usual. We're so dependent on electricity, and they didn't even seem to notice a difference. Sidenote: we LOVE our headlamps. In fact, I don't know how I've come this many years without one... I could have been a lot more "stealth" reading The Boxcar Children" under the covers after bedtime if I'd have had one of these little gems... thanks Dad, and thank you Home Depot.
2. Death in Children
Stevie has been writing about some of the very sick children we've seen at the hospital. While it's very sad at times, it's also important to reflect on how the Malawian culture views death in childhood. Coffin "joineries" are in every town on the side of the road, and from the bus you can see coffins of all sizes. Children here die of things like malaria and HIV, and it's amazing to watch how calm some of the mothers of children in the ICU are. One of the church elders, Helen, told us that families often have more children than they "need" because they do not expect them all to survive to adulthood. Furthermore, they rely on their children to care for them when they are too old to do so themselves, so it's very important to have large families.
3. Netball
This is a game that pregnant women like to play at the hospital to help "induce labor." It's something like basketball... except that there's no net and no backboard... so it's basically just a pole with a rim attached to it. We haven't yet gotten to watch a game of "netball," but just try and imagine ten women 9 months pregnant leaving the maternity ward to throw a ball around in a hospital courtyard in the United States.... not gonna happen in a million years.
4. Language barrier
No matter how many English words Malawians know, we're realizing that there is always a fair amount that is lost in translation. Strangers are extremely friendly and approach us walking down the street, and everyone seems to like to practice their English words. The diversity of languages of visitors in Ekwendeni is also impressive. The Bible study we attended was held in English, but included people who speak Dutch, Chitumbuka, and The Queen's English, if you know what I mean. Stevie and I have been practicing our Chitumbuka when speaking to Malawians, but have also noticed that we have a bad habit of slipping into weird quasi-British/Dutch accents when talking to Dr. Anneke or Dr. Carol. "We're quite keen to head to Lake Malawi this weekend, and will be leaving at half-two"...things like that. On another language note, a 2 year old child that we met seemed to only 1 word in his vocabulary - "mzungu," which is Chitumbuka for "white person." This little guy saw us, pointed, and started shouting "mzungu, mzungu, mzungu" over and over... quite impressive set of lungs for a litte tyke, actually.
5. "Connection"
At Bible Study, we were each asked to choose a word to describe what we were getting out of the session - "connection" was my word, "enlightenment" was Stevie's. Both of us admitted that these words didn't just apply to our experience at Bible Study, but to our trip as a whole. We've already told you about our eye-opening experience at church, and the more time we spend in Ekwendeni, the more we've realized just how connected this town is. People look after each other, and even just within our Bible Study group, there were people who taught school, were ministers in the church, and worked at the hospital. These people have waved to us while we're jogging, stopped by the guesthouse, and worked as our colleagues in the wards. Stevie and I did a lot of reflecting on the passage we read from Romans 12, and agreed that our time in Ekwendeni is a time for us to explore our own personal gifts and talents, and also to renew our minds. We have talked about our many roles in life - students, daughters, friends, granddaughters, girlfriends, sisters - and feel that this trip is helping us to find harmony in all of those roles. By the end of the trip, we hope to have made an impact, however small, so that we can in some way repay a town that has opened its arms to us wholeheartedly.
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