Family Caregivers at Malawi Hospital Cook for Patients

An Emergency in Africa

It was 11:30 PM when the telephone rang, Suzi picked up the receiver and after a lengthy conversation hung up and explained the call.

“It was a call from the Vice President of Malawi. She expressed her regrets that she had to call so late, but with us leaving for the states in the morning it was important that she communicate with us before our departure.” Suzi went on to explain the “emergency”, as I thought back over our time with the Honorable Joyce Banda, the Vice President.

We had known the week before, after showing the VP the new V-Tractor, that she had gone north for a four or five day fact-finding tour of the hospitals. She especially wanted to see the conditions women were facing when they went to the hospitals to deliver their children. Months before Malawi had put into effect a campaign to encourage the village women to travel to the hospitals in order to deliver. It was hoped this would impact the high mortality rate among deliveries in the rural, village areas. What the Vice-President found was not what she wanted to see, and it was the reason for the emergency call.

In Malawi there are reported to be less than 100 Malawi doctors and no more than 3,000 nurses for a population of 13,000,000 people. Hospitals run critically short of supplies, and are often unprepared for women coming to deliver.   It is not unusual to see birthing areas filled with women who must bring their own plastic trash bags in order to have something to deliver on.  There are no cooking facilities in most hospitals, and not enough shelter for the caregivers to get inside from inclement weather. Thus, all around the grounds of most hospitals are large numbers of people, “camping out” in order to care for the patients.

With the recent campaign to persuade more women to come to the hospital to deliver the problem has been compounded. What the Vice-President found on her trip north was facility after facility overrun with pregnant mothers soon to deliver and caregivers everywhere. The hospitals cannot get everyone inside the overcrowded buildings, and they are sleeping all over the grounds outside. The rains have started and all over Malawi pregnant women and family members are laying on the ground in the wet, muddy conditions.

She needs help from us and she needs it quickly. These women are facing hardships they have done nothing to deserve.  ( See Additional Photos)

In the time since we arrived in the states, we find our nation trying to cope with the crisis in Haiti, and our own economy. Meanwhile it is raining nearly every day with heavy monsoon rains, and there are women laying on the wet ground, praying for someone to help them. And the Vice President is also looking for someone, somewhere who will help the women of Malawi.

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“’I noticed his body was swelling, including his face and legs, so I rushed to the hospital for health attention,’ his mother explained when I visited the clinic. Patricia did not know the exact disease that brought discomfort to her second born son. I found him lying on a neat disposable sheet that was displayed on the hospital bed donated by the Malawi project through Namikango Mission. Patrick’s body still showed signs that he had not fully recovered.”

“Young Patrick Dandaula hails from Nyangwara village in Traditional Authority Mwambo east of Zomba Town in southeastern Malawi.  It was obvious to the attending physician that Patrick was not getting some of the nutritional food elements his body needs. ‘The problem is very common among children under five years of age because they are sometimes not given all the required food nutrients,’ explained the nurse in charge, Mrs. Kajanga. I noticed that Patrick was comfortably laid on a very neat new disposable sheet and was given a new blue basin to be used in washing and bathing. All of this came from the Malawi Project.  These supplies are changing patients’ lives for good. For children like him it is becoming easy to take care of them because of these disposable sheets. ‘When children urinate on a sheet the blankets around them don’t have to be destroyed because the sheet protects them. Infection prevention is now a reality because each patient is given his/her own basin to use,’ Mrs. Kajanga further pointed out.”

Patrick will receive vitamin enriched foods at the clinic under the doctor’s supervision until his health picks up. Patrick is just one example of many children that are currently facing food shortage as witnessed by their body’s food deficiency signs. Some research from other sources indicates that less than 10% of Malawians receive adequate protein. This lack of adequate nutrition can lead to diseases like Kwashiorkor in Patrick and other children.  Patrick’s life, and the lives of other children, are being saved with treatments of protein and vitamin rich supplements.

“The mission staff is there to extend all the donations to the required needy groups of people like Patrick. They may seem simple, but to Patrick, the basin is a lifetime gift that will help make his life better. Just think, if Patrick were sharing one basin with other fellow patients for bathing and washing, more diseases could be transferred from one patient to the other thereby increasing chances of death threat,” Tembo points out.

By: Wilson Tembo, Namikango Mission & Maternity Hospital, Thondwe, Malawi

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Wheelchair Arrives for Bicycle Repairman

    Mukuti Village, Malawi… Ndiche Kosa is from the village of Mukuti 1 in Senga Bay, Malawi. He is a bicycle repairman, and he has been paralyzed from the waist down for as long as he can remember. One can hardly imagine the feeling each time he repairs a bicycle for someone, then watches them ride away free to ride and explore the world while he remains confined by his disability.

    When Samantha Ludick and her staff at the Clinic at the Gate and Cool Runnings Resort on Lake Malawi presented Ndiche with a brand new wheelchair he was all smiles. It was a gift from the Malawi Project and the Free Wheelchair Mission.

    One of the staff members questioned the big smile that seemed to spread across his entire face.

    “Why do you smile so big, it is only a wheelchair,” he asked? It was easy for them to say; they have legs and can get around.

    Ndiche responded, " Today is my happiest day. I have been fixing bicycles for people in my village for many, many years, yet I have never been able to ride a bicycle. If I were to want to go some place I would have to have to wait for my son, brother or neighbor to assist me. Now today THANK YOU to Free Wheelchair Mission, Malawi project and ‘miss Cool’ I will be able to get myself to where ever I wish to go. This makes me very happy, this is why I smile so big. ZIKOMO.”

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Ishmael Tchale Can Dream Great Dreams

Mwale Village, Malawi… The new school year is beginning, and children in western nations often start it with moans and complaints. For them summer is over, and it is time to get up at the break of dawn, gather up their homework, and head out the front door toward the school classroom.

In tiny Mwale Village, Malawi 10-year-old Ishmael Tchale is not complaining about going to school. In fact he is excited with the opportunity. He was disabled by malaria when he was a young baby. Like most Malawi children he loves to go to school. There they learn and grow and have the opportunity to move into good jobs as teachers, business people, medical people and other areas where they can raise a family in a better environment than their parents have been able to accomplish. Education is their only hope for a better future, and like his friends, young Tchale is aware of this fact. Too, he likes to go fishing with his friends at the river near his home, but with his condition he has been unable to do either of these. There can be no dreams for a crippled boy in this impoverished nation of 13,000,000 people. Over 90% of the people live in tiny, remote, mud-hut villages, and the average income means the village family of a child like Tchale will not earn enough money in their entire lifetime to be able to purchase one single wheelchair.

But now all of this has changed, thanks to the arrival of 550 wheelchairs to Malawi, from the Free Wheelchair Mission, and Malawi Project. Ishmael is the proud recipient of a nice, new, shiny all terrain wheelchair. Now he can go to school every day, not just on the days when someone would carry him the 2.5 kilometers to the school. Now he can dream great dreams about his future. Now he can go down to the river and fish with his friends. His friends are happy too, since to have him with them while they fish they do not have to carry him on their backs.

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So Many Cases of HIV among Malawian Prostitutes

So Many Cases Like 21-Year-Old Dyna

Senga Bay, Malawi… “The gardener came running, explaining that a young woman was at the gate looking for help. He had advised her today was not the day for Clinic at the Gate, unless this was an emergency. He told me she just fell to the ground. ‘Madam, I’m sure it is an emergency.’ I ran to the gate where the young woman lay silent on the ground.”

Reporting is Samantha Ludick, the owner of Cool Running resort on Lake Malawi, and the operator of the Clinic at the Gate, one of the programs being supported by medical supplies from the Malawi Project and its contributors.

“I bent down as the young woman turned her face toward me, eyes filled with pain. Her face held a blank expression. I asked how I could help her. She tried to sit but could not get up because of the pain. ‘What is causing such pain,’ I wondered? She indicated a tennis ball size swelling of the groin area. I knew she needed serious medical attention quickly. I was able to give her pain medicine, thanks to supplies given to us by the Malawi Project. Then with the help of my staff we were able to get her in the back of the pick up truck, then we raced to the Salima District Hospital 29 kilometers to the west.”

Ludick continues the report, “A quick look and the doctor on duty agreed she needed to be admitted and the swelling needed to be opened and drained. We had failed to seek a guardian to come with her so I agreed to find the guardian and bring them back to the hospital. After the surgery I left her in the hospital for what was expected to be a week long stay with a regimentation of antibiotics.”

“When I returned to the house my staff informed me this girl, Dyna (last name withheld), is a single girl with no family. I would have to serve as her guardian. They were sure she had run away from Mangochi.”

“The next day I went to the hospital and found a smiling face as she greeted me with both hands and a really big smile. It was wonderful to see her smile. I sat beside her bed and listened to her tragic story. She told me she was in fact from Mangochi. Both of her parents were dead and a friend of her sister had told her she could get her work in Salima. But when she arrived she learned the friend was a lad of the night. She met a nice man who promised to take care of her. He was a pimp. When she got sick he threw her out. She had a sexually transmitted disease that remained untreated for months. She showed me the sores under her arms and told me how they would not go away. I saw the swollen glands that were as large as marbles. As she talked I saw her face slowly change, her smile fade, and sadness seem to overwhelm her. How would I be able to help this 21-year-old rural girl,” Ludick questioned?

“First things first,” Ludick describes the next steps. “I arranged for a counselor with whom she could confide. Then a HIV test, even though I knew what the result would be. It came back positive, a CD4 count at 118. Now I knew what I was up against. I had to get her on vitamins and that was possible because of a supply sent by the Malawi Project. Next we found her a little room nearby. We gave her food, bedding and other supplies thanks to Malawi Project. We’ll just have to take it a day at a time and see what happens next. There are so many situations like this one. So much sadness. So much need. Dyna is only one case of so many.”

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In these economically troubling times in the western nations it seems no job is certain.  As we watch the unemployment rate sneak up to 5%, 6%, and higher and we rightfully fret over our friends and family whose jobs may be threatened.

Imagine 80% Unemployment
Imagine a country where the unemployment rate reaches above 80%, where almost no jobs were available and where there was no welfare system or any other safety net.  How would people survive?  The African nation of Malawi where I live is one such place.  How do people survive there, you might ask.  My first answer would be, “I’m not quite sure, but somehow they do.”  My second thought would add, “Not too well.”  The little country is terribly overpopulated with around 13 million people trying to live on a small piece of land that could comfortably accommodate about only about one-third that number.  With so few jobs, most people have to live off the shrinking amount of available land, which is being divided into smaller and smaller parcels as Malawians continue to have more kids, who are forced to divide their parents’ plots in order to survive.  On those little plots Malawians continue to use the age-old backbreaking method of cultivation with simple hoes.  Stooping over for months of the year, they first clear their gardens, then cultivate, then plant, and continue weeding until the harvest finally comes.  Using this method, if the rains have been good–not too little and not too much–and if they somehow found the funds to buy fertilizer for the overused soil, they might harvest enough to eat for another year; and if they’re fortunate enough, they possibly will have a little left over to sell so that they can have money for soap, salt, clothing, and even send their kids to school.

No wonder Malawi is listed as one of the poorest nations of the world with one of the highest mortality rates, lowest literacy levels, and so on year after year, decade after decade.

Tractor Offers Hope in Agriculture Development
Enter the V-Tractor.  Tom Rich, owner of the L. T. Rich Manufacturing Company of Lebanon, Indiana has provided us, through the Malawi Project, a tool that offers hope for people to escape the grim realities described above.  The V-Tractor (“V” is for Village, hence “Village Tractor’) is the most versatile instrument I have ever seen.  Equipped to work with a plow, water tank, and a growing list of other applications, the tractor makes it easy to switch from one job to another in a matter of five minutes or so.  The operator simply loosens some simple fasteners like bolts and cotter pins, pushes the current application aside, and just as quickly attaches the new one.  Operation is even easier, a critical feature in a country where most people have never operated any kind of driven machinery.  The hydraulic pedal covers every movement, including forward and backward motion, and braking.  There is no need to change gears.  At the demonstration that I attended, a group of Malawians who had never driven a tractor or a car or anything else for that matter, got behind the wheel and flawlessly maneuvered the tractor on the flat and with a little practice were cultivating acres of land.

An Eyewitness Marveled
The tractor moved at a good speed, it’s plow cutting through the rock-hard soil that had had several months of dry weather to harden.  It made its way back and forth, softening the soil for the next planting.  As it crisscrossed the field, it became obvious that this tractor could outdo the work of dozens of men working together using the old hoeing technique.  A Malawian eyewitness marveled that just one man could cultivate a larger area in a single day then a company of men could do in a whole week.  The possibilities for improving the quality of people’s lives here using a tool like the V-Tractor are myriad.  Because of its adaptability the machine offers tremendous improvements in the whole farming process including in the current available applications like cultivation and irrigation, but possibly for future applications like planting, applying fertilizer, and weeding.  It also offers opportunities to assist in other parts of rural Malawian life such as transporting water with its tank and other commodities by attaching it to a trailer.

We are thankful to the Malawi Project for directing this marvelous tool our way.

Mark Thiesen
Director
Naminkango Maternity Hospital and Mission
Thondwe, Malawi

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    As we approached our nostrils were warmly welcomed by the smoky smell of roasted green maize near the school building. It was the lunch hour. It is one of the biggest challenges facing the government as it tries to enroll all children in a program of formal education by the year 2015. The problem is being able to feed them.

A Book Starved Library
    But there is another challenge and this is why we have come. It is the challenge that comes with the shortage of schoolbooks and supplies. It is easy to see. In just a few minutes one can add up the entire total of all of the books on the two-shelf library. Our mission today is to deliver the supplies sent in the recent shipments from America to this book hungry library.

    During the ceremony that followed these supplies were distributed and Basani Mphongola, from the Namikango Mission, addressed the students. "Where there is a will, there is a way," he stated. "Challenges are good, they make you stronger."

    He is in the wrong profession, I thought to myself. He should be a minister. But as though he had read my thoughts Bisani continued.

Every Person Can Serve God
    "It does not require you to be a minister or pastor to serve God," he said. In my mind I concluded the thought, "Every person can serve God, no matter what profession or business he is involved in."

    When all was said and done the other side of evangelism was accomplished that Thursday afternoon in that distant valley, in giving writing and educational material such as math books, Christian literature, writing pens and even first aid kits.

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Edson is Going to School

    Most readers will not remember Edson. He was simply one small boy in over 1,000 people who received a wheelchair from the Malawi Project during the past four years. In fact, he was the first person who received a wheelchair through Samantha Ludick and the Clinic at the Gate in Senga Bay, Malawi.

    In a recent report from Ludick she observes, "The fact about Edson is that he wasn’t going to school when I first met him. He was too heavy for his siblings to carry from school. Then Edson received his wheelchair, and now we have fabulous news. Edson started back to school, and has continued his studies and attendance. Now he is going to Para Secondary School after passing standard 8. It’s great news for his father because he was told his son would not amount to anything, and would not survive to his senior years."

Ludick concludes, "His proud father came to tell me his son had passed his school marks, but had a problem with his wheelchair as it was not doing so good. Now he needed to go a bit further to get to secondary school. Could I help? Naturally I helped. I put new tires and a new seat on the wheelchair and he is now going to Secondary school. It is a great achievement and a real success story."

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    As the dismal news floods out across television screens around the world the downturn is affecting nearly everyone in one way or another. Aid programs to third world countries are not exempt from the slump. Contributions are dropping at an alarming rate, staff cuts are affecting most aid groups, and even the aid shipments are dropping while the organizations that support them are trying to keep ahead of the loss of revenue.

Started Near the End of the Year
   Scott Gordon, treasurer for the Malawi Project reports the same picture can be seen in the Project’s programs to Africa. "The problems in the market did not seem to affect us until we reached the final weeks of last year, and then it started dropping like a boulder landing in a shallow pond. We have seen an alarming reduction in our revenue that is now causing us to quickly begin to systematically reduce shipments of aid to Africa. It is very sad because the Project worked on a budget of less than $100,000 last year, yet we were able to ship well over $30 million in medical aid to Malawi," concludes Gordon. "This does not count the personnel time in Malawi, or a number of aid programs being carried out in this former British protectorate by Project personnel and agricultural development equipment. This shortfall is even affecting the travel of two of our board members who spend much of their time traveling from place to place telling the story of Malawi to churches, civic groups, corporations and government groups who want to participate in this effort. It seems to us that this problem will influence our work for the next 6 months to a year, or even longer."

Hurting Them Worse Than Us
    "The recession is hurting all of us," says Richard Stephens, Chairman of the Board of Directors, "and it is causing us to cut back in a number of areas, but these are not life threatening. The real tragedy will come for a child in a Malawi village who has malaria, a patient in the hospital who has AIDS, a farmer who cannot raise enough grain for his family. For these people the downturn in our country is life threatening. They will die alone and unseen, while our media focuses our pain on the downturn, and we watch the stock market bump along toward an eventual recovery."

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    The nation of Malawi is one of the poorest nations on earth and even a pencil or a piece of paper to make notes on are hard to acquire by many of the poor village people who struggle to send their children to school.

    The pencils will be included in a shipment in Malawi leaving Indianapolis later this month to arrive in Malawi in mid-July.

    The need for pencils continues, and additional pencils coming into the Project will be included on other shipments later in the year.

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