Typical day (2016)

Tanzania and Malawi are a little different. In our days it doesn't seem to be much different but still. In Tanzania (and some of the stories I've heard from other volunteers even in Malawi) they don't stop for lunch. I wasn't sure how I was going to deal with that. For one thing, I'd forgotten to bring any snacks to have when meals schedules and my hunger didn't quite get along. For another, I like to eat and take a small break from the bouncing and jostling of dirt roads. But, I figured I would be open...

My days have always started with breakfast. (Again, some volunteers say they skip that because they start so early--craziness, I say.) Usually an egg and white bread slices this year and sometimes a boiled sweet potato piece. (Last year add potato fries each morning.) Then load up the truck with more than enough pipes and pumps for the days plan (one day we planned on 10 and completed 11 because one just happened to be on the way back). And then start driving...

The roads are hazardous. People, bicycles, motorcycles, animals, other vehicles and a bad paving job....keeps you alert. Then you turn off the main road to a dirt road and all the same challenges apply (not the paving but then there are the washouts and ruts). Bouncing along to the first well after picking up a team of installers and builders. Here the villagers don't meet you at the truck. They trickle down to the well as it is being installed. Again they are shocked when I can do a basic greeting and I love seeing the smiles light up their faces. At many villages it is a second (or more) well so we don't have to do the demo or the full dedication service. We have a prayer, say a few words, and take a picture. Them it is off to the next well. These multiple wells are great. The need for clean water is so great that the lines at the wells are very long. And it was great to see previous wells that are still in good repair and use!

At some point we have a package if biscuits (cookies for Americans) and that suffices for lunch...and you eat them on the way to the next well. Once the wells for that day are done we head back to the hotel, and in some order depending on the time, shower, have dinner, prepare water and self for the next day and collapse into bed.

Tanzania

Three days in (it is Sunday now) and Woody Davis (from Jackson, Mississippi) and I have helped install 23 wells! We did 11 the first day. The villages in Tanzania are larger and many of them have had wells in past years and they want more because the need for clean water keeps lines long at the wells.

Tanzanians are a more reserved people compared to Malawians. We aren't greeted with the exuberance that I am used to but with a quiet earnestness as they greet us, listen to the dedication and watch the demonstration. They are very thankful to God for the opportunity to have the well, to those in America who donated to make it possible, and to us for helping with the installation.

If possible I find the children even more shy than in Malawi! I have scared one off just by smiling at her...not getting closer or anything. She didn't take off screaming, but she definitely left!

At one well there was a grandmother so excited she was bouncing through most of the dedication. She made sure to come and take my hand and we ululated together. Everyone still gets a kick out of that and I'm getting lots of practice. I still make a better sound when I move my head but to take a picture I try to keep my head still :)

I'm learning some Swahili as my Chichewa doesn't come in handy here.  Utukufu kwa Mungu (Glory to God) is on top of all the wells. And I try to say God bless you before I leave though I have yet to get it out smoothly-- Mungu awa bariki.

Assignment

Training went well. It is a lot of information at once. Most of it useful at some point but it can be overwhelming especially coming after such long flights and the jet lag! Introductions of the team...about 25 of us... A devotion from Matthew 3:11 about being baptized with water and spirit and the connection between the two. Words of welcome from the MMM Malawian coordinators and then the nitty-gritty...android training (to record the location and quality of the wells), talk of some cultural differences and re!indeed that the Africans we work with are the experts with the training, phones, money, pictures, tool boxes and installation/dedication services. We get our placements and partners and head out to practice driving the trucks (on the left and stick shift).

I have been partnered with Alisa Simpson from southern Illinois and we are headed to Tanzania! I've never been, so yippee, to new adventures! This does mean 2 days of driving before we even get to our first well...

**We have arrived in Mbeya now. It was 1 really long day of driving and a second somewhat shorter day. Wells start tomorrow (Thursday). I'm ready to get started (though grateful for this afternoon to rest up)!

We're here!!

We're here!

Team 2 has made it to Malawi! It took a while (those flights cover quite a bit of distance) but we all made it and all our luggage did too!

Arriving at the Lilongwe airport is such a welcome relief and as much as I would have likes to pur off getting my visa until I arrived it is definitely nice to have it already done because the line is shorter to get through passport control. I met some fellow volunteers in Addis Ababa (my last layover) and we worked at pulling off action packers (luggage of choice for most MMM volunteers) from the luggage belts. I stepped out early to meet with Linn, whom I hadn't seen in the 4 years since I left Nkhoma! She is a Norwegian nurse and is down visiting right now and this would be our only chance to see each other as I'm headed north with MMM. It was a great but short catch up time.

Soon the rest of the team came out and we started loading up the trucks. I heard another familiar voice from Nkhoma and looked up to see Jane, an English nurse who I thought I was going to miss completely! How much fun to come all this way and meet up with friends from everywhere!

An hour's drive took us to Mponela where we come for training and to *catch up* on the jet lag (as if that can be done overnight). Dinner and a little chatter with new and known faces before crashing hard under our mosquito nets...

MMM

I'm off to Malawi once again! Leaving the country soon for a few days in Liverpool to visit with Rhona and Isabella whom I lived with in Nkhoma. Then to Lilongwe with Marion Medical Mission for the rest of October! Here is a letter from MMM founder Tom Logan and I'll be updating as much as possible !  

  We are in over our heads beyond what we can do. We need to pray hard and ask others (friends, Churches, Sunday School Classes, the organizations we belong to) to commit to pray daily until the end of November. And when we pray…let’s move our feet (An African proverb I like). 

            Pray for the volunteers safety and efforts, pray for our African partners (the Field Officers, Installation Supervisors, well builders, and the 2,550 village communities hoping to have a source of safe drinking water they can maintain themselves, pray the funds necessary will be available)

            In Malawi there are six million people at risk of starvation due to the drought/famine caused by El Nino. Pray MMM will get maize to those at risk, and do so safely.

            A $20 donation to Marion Medical Mission buys and distributes a 110 pound bag of maize to a family providing them with the necessary food assistance needed for a month (no overhead in the US and less than 3% in Malawi). MMM has promised the Synod of Nkhoma Church of Central Africa Presbyterian it will provide 15,760  110 pound bags of maize ($20 x 15,760 = $315,200) to those most at risk.

            Within the last month, Marion Medical Mission has purchased and distributed 4,000  bags of maize. MMM has raised less than 50% of what is needed...yet, we must buy maize when we can find it.       

            $400 provides a rural village in Africa with a sustainable source of safe drinking water. Marion Medical Mission’s 2016 goal is to build 2,550 wells before the rains come in November; in an area covering roughly 57,000 square miles.  All 2,550 villages have been selected and they are in the process of making the brick, gathering stone and sand; 25,550  110 pound bags of cement have been purchased; subsistence farmers have made around 2,800 pumps; 1050 African builders are ready to start construction September 1.

            MMM has received funding for 1,053 of the wells leaving 1497 that need to be funded.

            Where will the funds for maize and wells come from?  It can’t be done. It is impossible. Marion Medical Mission has been here before...last year, and the year before, and the year before, and the year before...

            You are needed. Only together can we be who God created us to be. Together the impossible is possible. Apart the possible is impossible. 

            Tax deductible donations can be sent to Marion Medical Mission, 1412 Shawnee Drive, Marion, IL 62959. 

            To donate online, go to www.mmmwater.org  

            Tom Logan, Marion Medical Mission