Old Letter

This is a letter that I sent to a few people...

By time you receive this letter I will have been in Malawi for about 3 months. The time has gone quickly but I’m sure it will slow down at some point soon once I get into my routine. I spent the first 8 weeks in Dedza for training. I lived w/ a host family, the Rabson Laurenti family, and went to language and technical training in health 6 days/week. In Malawi I speak Chichewa, a Bantu language spoken in Malawi, Zambia, and parts of Mozambique.  I’m not very good at learning new languages and I was very thankful that I already spoke Chichewa from my 2 years spent in Zambia.

After 5 weeks with my host family, I went to see my new home, Msuzi Village, in Mchinji District. I spent one week in Msuzi, where I met my work counterparts, my neighbors, and the patients at the clinic I now work at. I stayed in my new home and slept in my sleeping bag on a reed mat on the floor. My home has 2 bedrooms, a sitting room, and a separate building that contains the kitchen, storage, bathing room, and chimbudzi (toilet). I have a privacy fence all the way around my house and a small backyard where I’d like to start a garden. The home is made of mud bricks and has cement floors. It’s very nice by Malawian standards. I do not have electricity or running water but there is a well very close to my house so getting water isn’t too much work.

And now a bit about my work….my title is Community Health Advisor. Most Peace Corps Volunteers in this position live and work at community health centres and some even have electricity but my situation is a bit unique. I live in a village about 2 kilometers from the health centre and while I work at the health centre, I also work at a Community Based Organization, Chimteka Children Support, about 1 kilometer from my house. At the health centre, I help with growth monitoring of children under 5 years of age, and I also help with the supplementary feeding program for malnourished children under 5. I also go out into villages and help with community outreach for the villages that are far from the health centre. I ride my bike to these villages and people come from miles to get their children weighed and vaccinated.

Chimteka Children Support offers many programs but I will primarily be helping with the HIV/AIDS support group and the developmentally/physically disabled children group. The disabled children come for therapy every week and I will help with that and teach about nutrition.

My main focus during my service is going to be nutrition and malaria (spread by mosquitoes) prevention. Both are major problems here. The main cash crops are maize and tobacco so many people are lacking protein and vitamins in their daily diets. I plan to do some work in fish farming to diversify the diet and increase income for small scale farmers. This part of the world is rife with malaria and while it is highly preventable, it is difficult to encourage people to take the necessary steps. The main way to prevent malaria is to sleep under a mosquito net at night. The government gives nets to pregnant women and children under 5 but unfortunately many of the nets are used as fishing nets and therefore provide no malaria prevention. I have a lot of work ahead of me but I have to remain realistic that I will not save everyone and will not impact everyone. In Africa, you have to measure small victories.