maeghanjuneray

life in zambia

2008-07-29T06:45:00.007-04:00

So i have crossed over to a different world...In certain parts of South Africa, you feel like you are in Europe. There are swank coffee shops and jazz music pours through the windows of open patio restaurants in cities like Cape Town. The restaurant about 10 kms up the road from where i lived these past few weeks serves sushi!

mmmmm pap...or nshima...this is the staple food that i ate a LOT of...and yes, folks, those are chicken feet. chicken heads and feet are considered a delicacy, and they call them "walkie talkies" pretty clever, eh?

Zambia is real Africa. I landed in Ndola International Airport with about 40 men on a small plane. The airport looks more like a machine shed from my family farm in South Dakota, and you get off the airplane with a slightly rusted green ladder. All of these men were European or South African businessmen, here to be a part of the copper mining industry which is located in this region..this is called the copperbelt of Zambia.

I live in the skeletons of a booming copper mine. In its prime, this region was where Zambia’s middle class was born.(this next bit is pieced together from talking to staff members and community members and background reading i have done). Copper companies built housing compounds, and families travelled from all over the country to settle down to a good life. People weren’t hungry, wages were fair, the work was safe. The house i am living in is a 3 bedroom flat with a kitchen and a living room. In the late 80’s, the International Monetary Fund came up with this idea called Structural Adjustment. It was a bad idea (please remember this is my perspective). All of the companies which were previously managed by national governments and national taxation policies were privatised (meaning external groups were able to regulate the industries), and regions like this became economic ghost towns over night. Wages were driven down, standards of living plummeted, and workers lost their jobs so quickly they were not even able to save up enough to travel home to their native villages. People still living here are a hodge podge of different tribes and people groups from all over Zambia.

This is where i am working...

Unemployment rates in my ‘hood are around 80%. How crazy is that? The houses are dilapidated beyond recognition – i can see the sunshine through the roof of my room. My shower is a sawed off rusted pipe that sends and electrical shock through my body every time that i try to turn on the tap....i have learned to master the art of the African bucket shower...

my shower that shocks me:

My days are pretty simple. We only have power 3 or 4 days a week, so i wake up wondering if it’s hot coffee or cold coffee each day. I have learned that coffee powder will, in fact, dissolve in cold water. I’m living across from the director’s home, and about a 10 minute walk from the office. I walk down a shaded dirt path, past dozens of half-dressed black Zambian babies who chant “azungu” (white person) over and over again, and greeting me with a broken “How are you?” (emphasis on the YOU. Just imagine having that yelled at you 29 times a day!!!). if anyone’s ever been to Africa, you know what i’m talking about.....When i get to the office, we either turn on the computers or head to the community for interviews with the young mums. I am also giving typing lessons to the staff members here, because right now they are all pecking away at around 3 words per minute. When i was working in south Africa, i played a terrible prank. I switched around 4 of the vowel keys so they were spelling everything wrong. They didn’t really like my joke, and made me retype their reports.

the first day of typing lessons with paul, the finance officer. he was cheating and peaking at the keyboard, so i covered his eyes.

this is the view as i walk to work

My mom always asks me what i eat here – have you guys r had cream of wheat? The staple food is called Nshima (people will eat it for 3 meals a day if they can, they love it!!), which is like super-thick cream of wheat. You have it with baby fish called kapentas, or goat or whatever meat may be available and a little bit of greens....that’s dinner. Then lunch is usually deep fried sweet potatoes. And breakfast is an egg. Every day. Same thing. Mmmmm....african food. That’s where the African booty comes from!!!

Alright, my candle light is fading and the battery is slowly slip sliding away. Much love from me, under the beautiful black and blue African skies.

the leprosy of teenage pregnancy

2008-07-13T23:46:00.003-04:00

thabi, sylvia, agreement, agnes, linkie and maeghan after an interview

this is me and thabi and nelisiwe after beading lessons for the income generation program

***disclaimer***

i am only describing what I have learned from the girls i am working with here in South Africa. the research is NOT representative of the entire continent of africa....

So two weeks have passed since arriving in south Africa...my days have been filled with walking dusty roads to the homes of young women, booty shaking at a few braiis with the young mums, and documenting what i have been finding. I always struggle to explain situations without telling a story, so here is the tale of a few of these girls woven together.

Teenage pregnancy in rural south Africa is roughly equivalent to leprosy in mid-evil times. It’s a curse - a situation where one becomes an untouchable. Let’s start from the sex and go from there - sex is not a choice for most African women ... it’s an obligation and a job and one which they are trained to perform from a really early age. In some communities, girls are still married at the age of 13, expected to be pure virgins for their husbands. So girls are taught to obey men, and that sex is expected in an intimate relationship....South African rural societies are caught between two worlds – the Western world of Beyonce’s and beauty queens and the traditional societies of the bride price, where daughters are given in exchange for 10 cattle. And this is the tension these girls live in. Teenagers in Africa are just like teenagers in Europe – they experiment with sex. Then, it gets tricky. Condoms are not cool here. Despite HIV/AIDS and STIs, only maybe 1 in 10 use condoms regularly (more than once a month). It’s a sign of trust in your relationship to have sex without a condom, and girls are beaten and seen as unfaithful if they request the guy to use one. Does this make sense at all? Not to me....but that’s the story.

So now we have a lot of pregnant teenage girls. Lots. Like i said, 1 in 3 are pregnant before 19. This is where the tension comes in. When the community members and family members find out they are pregnant, the girls are shunned for being “impure”. Now they are no longer suitable for marriage in the traditional village systems. Parents tell their kids not to talk to these girls. They are seated at the back of the classroom so no one has to look at them... A lot of the girls i am speaking to hide their pregnancies under baggie clothes, and then hide from the world, not leaving the house for 3 or 4 months straight at the end of the pregnancy. They dropped out of school because teachers harassed them, and some where kicked out of their homes by relatives who were caring for them. The boys they are dating can’t marry them even if they want to, because these villages still use the practice of bride price. And with the going rate of a cow sitting at around $1000 US, the average girl in my program is worth about $15,000 US. So even if the boy loves her, he can’t afford to marry her until he graduates high school, gets a good job, and saves for about 30 years, as the average yearly income in the community is around $700 US per year.

When this program started, about 90% of the girls had dropped out of school. They started working as house maids to feed themselves and their kids, and were still shunned by the communities. All of the girls in these groups have also lost their parents to HIV/AIDS, so they are caring for little brothers and sisters as well.... Now they meet together every week, on Fridays after school, and have tea (which means bread and Roibos tea with 9 sugars per cup) and talk about what it means to be a mom. They talk about dreams for their futures, about the latest fashions and new music, and about normal teenage life. The transformations have been amazing – we have 90% of them back in school now, with a few eyeing up medical school applications in the new year. They still have their ups and downs, but it’s pretty rad to see how much strength they have found by just meeting together and realizing they aren’t alone. They told me stories of literally sneaking into the homes where families had hidden a pregnant girl, and praying with her and telling her about their group and helping her to leave and go to the doctor. Such cool beans. And they organized an anti-AIDS march earlier on this year, and a pregnancy awareness event. I was never that bold when i was 16.

So now I leave for Zambia in the morning, to a rural community on the Western side of the Copper Belt called Luansha to find out about the situations of the young women there. We are hoping to start up the program in August, and i’ll be interviewing potential participants to see what their challenges are, and community leaders so I can better understand how teenage pregnancy is seen by the community members.....It’s gonna be a bit more rough because i am without the internet, and i’m living on a farm about a 5 hour bus ride from the nearest city, but it will be an adventure....for now i need sleep.....much love....maeghanjune

young mums are da bomb

2008-07-05T04:52:00.003-04:00

back again....

it's always weird to come back to a place that has been home. you expect things to have remained unchanged, but instead to understand that life goes on without you, and you were only really a visitor.

so i am living on an old game reserve about 10 km from the nearest paved road. there are 15 or so international volunteers living there, who come from england, canada and all over the world, who are working with Hands at Work (www.handsatwork.org). life is pretty normal there, outside of the fact that there are electrical security fences and security guards and the threat of robbery. we had a robbery last sunday morning, right before i arrived, where they cleaned out the electronics in the apartments here.

i never know what to write on these blogs, but i know that it feels good to be able to journey with people into the lives of those affected by HIV/AIDS. so welcome to masoyi....i am working in a rural black community about 50 kms from nelspruit. when i was here last, i worked as the project manager for a USAID-funded education initiative focused on keeping orphaned girls in school. now this project has been established, and the women i trained up when i was here last are sucessfully running the programme for over 2 years (which is one of the coolest feelings i have ever known). now i am here working on my dissertation research for my masters of international health, focusing on maternal health of orphaned girls.

pregnancy in south africa is a huge challenge.... 1 in 3 women are pregnant before they are 18 here. pregnancy is one of the leading factors which makes a woman vulnerable to HIV infection. and there are 9 women who are HIV positive for every 1 man in the 13 to 24 age groups. that's a lot of stats to say that it's really critical to understand these young women's lives, and to understand more fully what can be done to help them be protected from contracting HIV.

but what precisely am i doing? well, a lot of talking. and recording. and asking questions. hands at work is running support groups for young mums who are also orphaned children. my days here are filled with riding public transit taxis and walking on dusty dirt roads to sit with young women and talk to them about their lives. i ask them about their families, how they became orphaned, what it is like to be pregnant, what the community thinks of their pregnancy, and what challenges they face as young mothers.

their fearless leader is a gorgeous woman named thabisile (thabi). she is 19 years old, and has a laugh that starts deep in her before erupting into a loud sound of joy. if any of you guys know my laugh she sounds a lot like me. she speaks quickly and won;t meet your eyes until she trusts you. thabi is the head of a child-headed household, and lost her dad when she was 10 in a car accident. then her mom died when she was 15, so she went to live with her uncle, who then died early this spring. it is so humbling to sit beside someone so strong. people often feel sorry for the women i work with, but they have a strength of spirit that one only knows when they have suffered. she approaches life and friendship and love with a fierceness of one who know that all can be lost, and the next moment is the most important. thabi wants to be a social worker when she grows up so she can tell other women to continue to fight for hope in their lives. how cool is that? i used to want to be a lawyer when i grew up so i could make loads of money....i think she might be onto something!!!!

We are also doing some cool stuff with income generation programmes. i ran a workshop on friday afternoon, teaching the girls how to make hand-made paper beads so they can start to make earrings to sell in the local market.

and i have a load of pictures to upload, but the internet is too slow here. so i may modify it later on today. and i was super-sick earlier on this week, so if you guys could pray for my health here that would be great....much love to you all!!!!

Shake it like a polaroid picture

2007-09-12T15:20:00.000-04:00

Fatimata worshipping....

The women and our team sitting together on the floor of the center....

Dancing the morning away in the community center...

Dancing is the best way to start a day…aside from Starbucks coffee. As I mentioned before, we rise each morning as a team to prayer, scrambled eggs (very safe to eat, no matter what part of the world you're in, and a great source of protien!), and a 30-45 minute ride to the rural communities that Somebody Cares/Visionledd work in, via a rickety white minibus.

and then the dancing….women pour from the shanty shack shelters which serve as training facilities, bums shaking, hands in the air, and a war-cry-like sound erupts from the loudest lady, who happens to be the fearless leader, and a simple song begins. Praises to Jesus mostly…simple, repetitive songs…most all have actions that include more bum shaking. Basically I have been reminded why Africans needed to have such big booties…

The 6 sewing machines have arrived. When I came, I thought these would cost around $100 CND, but I didn’t figure in the African inflation rate. What are African inflation rates, you ask? To put it simply: Scarcity. Three days before I arrived in Malawi, World Vision started a similar income generation program and purchased 40 sewing machines. 40 may not sound like a lot of sewing machines in Canadian terms, but in terms of Malawi, this was all of the sewing machines in the country. In Canada, we just go to the next Canadian Tire, right? So I thought I would call sewing shops in Blantyre, the only other large city, to order them. And no. they are all gone. The whole country is out of sewing machines. For how long? I ask the shop keepers. Oh, maybe October. We MAY have more sewing machines in October...

The other side of the African inflation equation rate is price hikes. As I mentioned before, we were able to find 6 machines total, and I had budgeted for $100 per machine. The prices have nearly doubled since World Vision bought those machines. In the end, they cost nearly $200. I went to the shop keepers, trying to remind them kindly and gently that they only paid around $60 for the machines, and despite the fact that they held the last machines in all of Malawi, they would still make a significant profit off of me purchasing them for $100. And I mentioned that we were working with orphaned children and widows who are living with AIDS. Not a spark of compassion crossed their faces. Even the rich shopkeepers hold a poverty mentality...

The poverty mentality of Africa is difficult to encounter…in poverty, people are not able to plan for their futures. They have never known what it feels like to know you will have enough to eat tomorrow. Like in the depression era, when our grandparents took all of their money out of banks and kept it in a hole in the ground because they couldn’t trust the banks to be true to their word, people living under the poverty mentality don’t know what tomorrow will brings. Banks crash, sewing machines go out of stock for 6 months, and you never know that you will have enough to feed your family….so when people know they can double the price of a sewing machine and save more for their families, they do it without a second thought about the widows who are going to suffer when they double the price of a sewing machine from one day to the next.

Someone asked me once why i love africa. There are struggles...empty shop shelves, rotten food, bad water, dirty, uneven streets...but the beauty of the human spirit here will take your breath away. looking into the shining beauty-filled faces of the women on our first day of sewing class made me stop and think. each of these stunning creatures has nursed her husband on his death bed, she has faced the scorn of a community that passes moral judgement on her for her HIV-positive status, she looks to the faces of her children, unsure of who will care for them when she herself succumbs to an AIDS-related illness...and she has the courage to rise each day and continue to fight. people sometimes say to me that i am strong, but i am the weakest woman in this program. these women inspire me, their strength and joy humble me, and their dances make me want to get to heaven, where all of this pain will be gone, we'll sit at the feet of our Lord, and finally, we'll all have enough...

I had a good friend david ask me a few questions to work through…so the next blog will be more of the internal stuff that's on my mind here...

walking the streets

2007-08-28T16:18:00.000-04:00

first point of clarification - there are no streets here...

the team has arrived in lilongwe, comprised of 8 women from across Canada, with the goal of visiting the orphaned and the widowed in the slums of Lilongwe, understanding more how we as the body of Christ can help here, and helping to start up the income generation program for widows.

our mornings start at 7:15 with prayer, and then we move to the streets, carrying packages to deliver to widows who are caring for multiple orphaned children. our teams are made up of 2 canadians, and 2 malawian volunteers. Our week will wrap up with re-visiting 7 of these homes to collect the family stories to compile into photo albums to be passed on to the children when the caregiver (mom or grandparents) pass away.

so my days have shifted from coordinating the logistics for the start of the income generation program to dirtying my feet on the mud-paved streets of Lilongwe.

sorry that this post is so late in coming. internet has been unaccessible here, and now i am being kicked off because the internet closes at 10:00...more to come tomorrow....

How to start an income generation program

2007-08-16T07:06:00.000-04:00

Hey guys!

I have successfully landed in Malawi, after over 2 full days of flying. I love Africa, but there’s gotta be a shorter way to get there... I really don’t know people could handle the boat ride…

Many people have said to me, Maeghan, what the heck are you doing in Africa this time? I am helping to start up an income generation program in 3 communities, which is receiving funding from CIDA (the Canadian International Development Agency) and is administered by Visionledd, a Canadian NGO.

Maeghan, Fatimata, and Charmain

So how does one start up an income generation program, you may ask? Well, here we go….

The first part is to have incredible, dedicated local staff members. I work with these wicked-cool ladies, Fatimata and Charmain. Fatimata is a 55-year old HIV-positive widow with 3 kids. She is originally from Sierra Leone, the setting of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie Blood Diamond, and lost her husband and 2 of her children in the conflict there. IF you ever want to know if diamonds really fund conflicts, speak to a Sierra Leonian. They will tell you the truth…Fatimata says diamonds destroyed her people.

We sit in the back of the open-ended truck, talking about life and war and diamonds and AIDS. Her favorite colours are purple and green, and she loves to eat fish. Fried fish. She worked for the United Nations before coming to Malawi, helping to start income generation programs (IGAs) across Zambia and Sierra Leone. As her HIV/AIDs advanced, she had to quit her job because of being too sick to work many days. Now she is on ARV’s, the drugs which slow the spread of AIDS, and she has gained strength. Fatimata loves Jesus a LOT, and she is always telling me to pray. I get angry when the truck stalls on the road, or we can’t find a sewing machine, and she says to me, “maeghan, just pray, it will be okay.” She can talk for hours and hours and hours about God, and she has an opinion on everything from civil rights to healthcare reform in Malawi to the best kind of rice to buy. All of that to say, she is one of the smartest people I know. Her prayer for her life is to be healed of AIDS so she can take proper care of her kids and meet her grandbabies. So if you are praying folks, please please please be praying for her with me…and that she can be strong enough to continue to work as well. She travels around 4.5-5 hours a day, walking and on the African mini-buses, to get to the office to work. Kindly remind me of Fatimata if you guys hear me complaining about my commute to Mississauga when I get back!!!

This is Charmain with our 2 precious sewing machines:

Charmain is a pretty cool cat as well. She is turning 50 this year, and is a proper African mama, meaning she has got quite the bootie on her. And she can shake it…we were driving around in the mini-bus today, trying to get supplies for soap making, and the Akon song “nobody wants to see us together” came on the radio. She was getting super-excited to see all of these activities for the income generation program come together, and started dancing in her seat. Of course, we all had to try to bust a move (the try was me – the token white girl trying desparately to keep the rhythm of the song), and we got the taxi driver to crank the music. Our financial officer, Felix, refused to dance with us. Alas…Char is a quiet pillar of strength. She has 3 kids as well, and has lost 2 children to HIV/AIDS. We were speaking about it yesterday, and she said that she still is not free to speak to people about the HIV-status of her children. Instead, she first told me her daughter had died of a headache. I asked why they are not free to speak, and she said that people will judge her, and think her daughter had little character while she was alive. The screaming silence that surrounds AIDS here is still evident, and I honestly can’t say that it would be different in Canada. Often when I speak to people at home, one of the first reactions is people passing moral judgments on the people who are HIV-positive in Africa, even making comments like, “That must be God passing judgment on them for living lives of promiscuity.” Arghh…

The second thing you need is patience. If you think Wal-Mart has outlets in Africa, you are wrong. No matter how many times I come to Africa, I still forget that things are never simple. We tried to buy 8 sewing machines yesterday. Promptly at 9:00AM, Charmain, Fatimata, and I left the office on the back of the transport truck. It was quite a sight for Malawians to see a white girl on the back of a truck. One man actually fell off of his bike into the ditch as he watched our truck drive by. Normally, international workers move around in SUV’s or expensive foreign cars. But Africa is much more fun on the back of a truck….well, I think so….

After 13 shops and 4 hours, we discovered that there were only 2 Singer sewing machine in all of Lilongwe. What the HECK?!?!!? There were many, many cheap knock-offs, brands like SENGER or SPINGER. Kills me…I love what the Chinese come up with to try to trick you. If we sent a cheap knock-off sewing machine into the community for an income generation program, it would break in less than 3 weeks. Not a good idea…

The last thing you need is a market to sell your goods…I have worked in income generation in Uganda and South Africa, and worked with both local (as in within the community) and international (Fair Trade international, etc) markets, and I am beginning to think the local markets are the best way to go. At least when you start up. Africans know nothing of international business – fashion trends and stock and the logistics required to get items overseas. Our program has decided to focus on staple items needed by the local Malawian community members (soap for washing, tie dying fabric for skirts, and also sewing school uniforms for orphaned children). We are going to rent a stall in the local markets where the women will sell their wares. Fatimata has also given them each training in basic business management (stock management, accounting, etc.). Did I mention that Fatimata is great?

So that is what we are up to! I am here coordinating the purchase of the start up materials for about 150 women to gain basic skills in sewing, soap making and tie dying. The women have already selected community leaders who are in charge of training and managing the individual community projects (the women are spread across 3 communities that Somebody Cares works with). Next week, a team of women from Canada are coming to see the project, and to help with training in sewing and such. I’ll keep you posted on our hunt for sewing machines…we are trying to get them sent from the other major city in Malawi, Blantyre, which is more developed and has more resources.

back again

2007-08-06T11:12:00.000-04:00

Blogging is a wonderful thing...it allows life to pass by, and connections to be rekindled with little or no effort. oh the joys of the internet...so here i sit, returning to blogging my journey with God and africa...

It has been 9 months since my return to Canada (if you are new to this blog, feel very free to peek back through the year that I spent in Sub-Saharan Africa)...the trip back has been a rough one, but one so totally shrouded in the beauty and protection and provision of God, it takes my breath away when i reflect on it.

When I left Africa, I did not want to come back, quite simply. I was offered a full-time, permanent position working in South Africa; my dream job. And then came a quiet Voice -

"not yet, maeghan. My daughter, you are not yet ready. "

I knew it was God, because there was no logical reason why I would say that to myself. it was too unplanned, too uncertain... but I listened. moved back in with my parents, forcing my poor little brother Colin to give up his room (thanks colin!). Colin is 8 by the way. great guy. gonna be a heart-breaker some day; beautiful blue eyes and a soft heart.

9 months later finds me preparing for a 3 week trip to Malawi to work with Visionledd (www.visionledd.com) and hands at work in Africa (www.handsatwork.org) once again, assisting in training local staff, and working with a short-term team of women from Canada who are heading over to learn what is happening with HIV/AIDS related issues in Africa.

So this is my initial post just to say hey, I'm back! I might write more before I go, but I will write more for sure when i land in the great place of malawi...

much love,
maeghan

Maeghan the Marathoner (pictures coming soon!)

2006-09-27T08:01:00.000-04:00

Those are two words that I NEVER expected to see in the same sentence! But miracles do happen, and this last Friday I successfully completed 12 kms of my first-ever African relay marathon. It was also the first relay-marathon for this community to see…

Let me go back about a month ago. We gathered for our Wednesday prayer meeting at the Masoyi Home Based Care office. One of the prayer concerns was for a child-headed home that had burned down in a terrible fire the night before. There were 4 children, ages 17 to 6, staying in the home. The oldest child, a 17 year old boy named Vincent, passed away in the fire. The three young girls, Thandeka, 11, Zinhle, 8 and Catherine, 6, were able to escape. All of there belongings were destroyed, and the house was burnt beyond recognition. I knew Thandeka through our girls’ program. She is a bright, vivacious girl with these killer dimples that kinda melt your heart.

That afternoon, I traveled out to visit the girls with our orphan care coordinator and Nomsa. The girls were very quiet and withdrawn, and since I couldn’t understand the adult conversation, we played games together and took silly pictures. I held little Catherine in my arms and cried quietly in confusion before God. I wanted to fix everything by buying a new house for them, but my savings simply wasn’t going to cut it.

That’s where the marathon came in…a fellow Canadian volunteer, Michelle, met a family in a nearby refugee community that also stole her heart. We began to plot and scheme, and a week later, we had 13 volunteers from Australia, Zambia, South Africa, America and Canada committed to running in the first-ever Hands at Work Relay Marathon, cleverly titled the Home Run (get it? We were running to raise funds for homes…haha.).

E-mails were sent, and the word was spread through local businesses and churches. A mere 3 weeks later, last Friday, we all gathered at 6 AM to pray and start the run through the hilly community of Masoyi, stunningly clad in our stunning red Home Run t-shirts. Over $2000 was raised when I left last Friday, and that is enough to build the basic homes for both families.

If you would like to contribute (we want to furnish the homes with beds, stoves, and such), here are the links for the Paypal site that is collecting donations:

Select to make Home Run Donation

The family from the refugee community, Flora and Themba, had an incredibly story to share. Flora is a 32 year old AIDS widow who stays alone in a home made of sticks and plastic. When she heard her house would be built, she said she wants her children to come home. One thing you will find in Africa is there are always more family members you don’t know about! When Flora’s husband died, she was forced to send her children, ages 10 to 17, to a local farm to work (basically as slaves, only receiving food) because she couldn’t feed them. She hasn’t seen them in nearly 2 years. They are all coming to live with her in their new home, and they will all go to school for the first time EVER starting in the new year.

And here are some photos of the day:

Group Photo – All of our team

My team (the Studs)

The first leg of the race ( I am the one in the front on the left)

We even had community members come and run beside us!

At the finish, the girls were able to come from school. Thandeka started to cry when she heard the news, and we discovered, when we brought them home, that their older brother, Vusi, has come home since the death of their brother to care for them (like I said, family members just appear out of nowhere). He will be part of the team that rebuilds the home.

This is the home of the girls after it was destroyed:

It was an incredible way to end my time here. To see the ripple effect of something as simple as a relay marathon has inspired me to want to do more. I don’t have to work for the UN or some big organization. Person by person, little by little, people will be cared for. Families will be brought together. And the darkness that is the AIDS pandemic will see light and hope and love, all by the power of God. That is my prayer….

Grace and peace,

Maeghan

Leaving a new home

2006-09-27T03:26:00.000-04:00

Dearest friends and family,

Well, it is decided. I am the worst blogger that the world has ever seen. It has again been many moons since I last wrote you….

Since my last post, I have wrapped up my work in South Africa, and have returned to Malawi. Two new super-fab volunteers from the local community were trained up to run the girls’ education program. Vivian and Nomsa will run the program totally independently next year, and we have been fortunate enough to receive approval for next years’ funding the very day before I left. God is good…

I have spent many days wondering what to share with you about my year with Masoyi Home Based Care. It was an incredible year for me…

I learned that although I thought I came with a heart ready to learn, one of the biggest hurdles I had to get over was my own pride. I can remember specifically when we had to distribute the uniforms to the girls. This may sound like an easy task to you, but in reality, it was the most difficult part of my year here. It involved gathering the uniform sizes for 220 girls (many of them live with illiterate grandmothers, which poses huge challenges), ordering uniforms for 22 different schools, all in different colours, sorting the uniforms, labeling the uniforms, and then coming up with a good plan to give them to the girls. I worked for weeks planning without asking advice of the local people, and only coming to report the results of what was done. I was trying to prove myself… As the work progressed, I felt more and more hostility towards me, and more resistance to help me. I sat with my friend Simon who heads up the building team, with tears of frustration pouring down my face, and explained what was happening. Simon is quite diplomatic, and not too sensitive, and asked me frankly if I had ever received advice from the community volunteers. The simple answer was no…

Everything is done in Africa in community. From dating (you actually have an assistant who helps you date) to cooking to traveling. In Canada, if I were given the role of manager, it would be seen as weak for me to consult the entire project about the best way to work. Here, any challenges are seen as an issue for the community to tackle.

I learned also about the need to know the history of the community you are working in. One day, Nomsa and I started to talk about what life was like for her in apartheid South Africa, which ended just 12 years ago.

She told me about segregated toilets, about whites refusing to walk on the same part of the sidewalk as her, and how she was not even allowed to touch the vegetables that were sold to whites. Her grannie worked as a housemaid, and she was given a separate dish, spoon and fork to eat with. If the gogo touched the food as it was being served, the family members would refuse to eat it.

As I walked the streets of the community, because of my white skin, many of these gogos associated me with this type of behavior. When they heard a white girl was administering a program to help their grandchildren, some of them refused to allow the girls to attend the workshops. It shocked me to hear this, and it made me realize how deep the impact of apartheid has run. After this conversation with Nomsa, I started to do more reading on the history of South Africa, and I gained a new respect for the black communities and the incredible pain and injustice they had endured.

Finally, I learned that in the community, you can find a family. I have spent a year here without seeing any of my 6 siblings. It has been incredibly difficult for me not to have my sister, Andrea, closer to me, and to watch life continue at home. Gradually, my co-workers here have become my sisters, brothers, adopted aunties, and grannies. They chide me if I eat too many sweets, they encourage me in the face of difficulty, and surround me with prayers when I struggle. The warmth and acceptance that you find in community in Africa is like nothing else; it is what makes me want to come back each time. I think God is going to put the Africans in charge of the community committee in heaven….

I have left here changed. I can feel it…something within me has been softened, the struggles I have seen have not hardened me. Rather, they have made me want to live my life to its fullest. I don’t feel guilty about the blessings I have known in my life. I feel an indescribably gratitude for my education, my family, my friends, my church. The list goes on…I used to struggle to find things to thank God for, and my prayer is that my heart has been changed to see so many more blessings, and to thank Him.

God bless…

Grace and peace,

Maeghan

Settling down

2006-06-26T17:37:00.000-04:00

It has been too many African moons since I last wrote you. My time has already flown, quite literally, and there are just over 3 months left in my time here, which means just 3 more blogs until I can share my stories over warm beverages once again.

This is a photo of some of our girls at a recent workshop about HIV/AIDS and values. The t-shirts, which we made ourselves, say "Our Choices, Our Futures." and they have jeremiah 29:11 on them which says, For i know the plans i have for you, says the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

So to start, some recent pictures. I have returned from my travels for good now. To be honest, although the traveling was exciting, it was exhausting. Being so far away from friends and family tires me out many days. It was really difficult to have no place to unpack my cloths, or a friend that knew me well enough to reflect my soul back to me.

I am focusing more on the young girls program here, which means that I work full time with 2 local women, Vivan and Nomsa (see the picture just here), helping to design workshops to teach these girls about HIV/AIDS, the positive impact education can have on their futures, and everything else in between like basic human rights and what it means to be sexually abused.

I want to write about what I am doing, what I am seeing, and what it means for me…my future…my perspective of God.

To begin, I am working with a program that is funded by the Ameriican government. I spend at least 2 days a week training the African staff here to use the computer and compile reports so the program can continue to run without me here. My apologies, because I probably just removed all of the romantic notions of my work here in Africa! Unfortunately, my days are not filled with safaris or wild animals, save for the monkeys that steal the bananas from our office kitchen when we aren’t looking.

The women I work with are fabulous. Vivian is in her twenties, and she used to be under the care of Masoyi Home Based Care in our orphan care program (We have been working in this community for almost 10 years now). She is the head of a child-headed home, caring for her 2 younger siblings. She is a pretty incredible woman; she wants to be a business woman and study at university. Viv says that she learned everything she knows about business from watching American soap operas, especially the Bold and the Beautiful. Who knew that daytime television could create future world leaders! Her dad was a truck driver and her mom worked as a seamstress. Her father was killed in a car accident almost 6 years ago, and her mom died of AIDS-related illnesses almost 5 years ago when she was 36. What constantly surprises and confuses me here is the silence and shame that still surrounds AIDS-related deaths in Africa. Despite the fact that Viv works for an organization that works with HIV/AIDS, she does not speak openly about the status of her parents, or how that has impacted her life.

Nomsa is kind of like our mom. She is wise and gentle, patient and full of love for the girls and for both Vivian and myself. Nomsa is like an auntie for all of these girls in our program. In Africa, there is a huge culture of extended families (Liz will know what I am talking about here!). These are people who are either related to you, or they are your parent’s good friends. These are the women that tell the girls about life; about what it means to be a woman, about sex, and about how to grow up in this culture. With the AIDS pandemic, the entire middle-aged generation (ages 25-35ish) has nearly been lost due to premature death. The aunties are missing, and in their place is a generation of gogos and young women. I can see it when I visit the girls in their homes. They don’t have the care providers; so many arrive at our workshops unwashed, unable to meet our eye contact when we greet them. Nomsa serves as a surrogate auntie for them all. I can see her love for them as it reflects in her eyes. She goes to the most unkempt of our girls and speaks to them about life; the things that only aungites can say.

The home visits have really opened me up to the lives of these girls. I will tell you about a few of them. Florence is 9 years old, and she wants to be a lawyer when she grows up. She has this crazy-cool afro that stands right on end, and a half-open smile when she is telling a story. In school, she is literally the top of her class, and her favorite subject is mathematics. A few weeks ago we traveled into the village to visit her home, which is high up a mountain in a nearby logging community. She lives with her mom, Nonhalala, who is 34 years old, and her 5 brothers and sisters. Her mom is SO proud of how smart Florence is. You can see it in her eyes. But there is also a fear behind her mothers’ smile that I can never understand, at least not until I have become a mother. It is the fear of the unknown; she knows that she is dying, and she is not sure what will happen to her children when she is gone. I can see by the physical signs that Nonhalala is in the advanced stages of AIDS. She suffers from elephantitis (swollen limbs, and I may have spelled that wrong), tuberculosis (an infection of sorts in the lungs), and she recently had a stroke, which has left her paralyzed on one side. Florence comes home from school and cares for her mom most of the time, bathing and feeding her, and then does her homework until it gets too dark to see the pages. I can see in Vivian’s eyes the compassion she has for these girls, and it makes me realize how far someone like me from North America is from understanding.

I have also become increasingly aware of the need for advocacy for these children who have been orphaned. Although this may make some people uncomfortable, I am going to share about some very intense experiences I have had here.

We had a young 12-year-old girl from our program who was raped by her uncle last week. Her name is Minky, which is short for her African name that I can neither spell or pronounce. She is petite, with these captivating hazel eyes. Her favorite subject in school is maths, and she wants to be a math teacher when she grows up.

She has lost both of her parents to HIV, and then the grandmother she was living with passed away, leaving her as a double orphan. Since the death of her gogo, she has been moved from house to house as her family does not want to take responsibility for her. As these children get passed from home to home, they are treated as servants or burdens to the families they live with. We are finding that many of them are forced to live in small, broken shacks, or even outside. Just a few weeks, she was sent to another home to live with her uncle, who raped her. We spent the day traveling from the police station to the local AIDS clinic, and then back to the police station.

After all of this, hours of grueling examination and questioning, nothing is happening. Nothing. Despite overwhelming physical evidence of rape, the family members refuse to press charges against the uncle because it would bring shame to the family name.

I have great days here, filled with laughter and joy. Friendship and music and beauty. The days that I visit my girls are the highlights of my week. But the injustice, the devaluation of life and potential and children that is happening in the face of this pandemic smothers me somedays. I can honestly say that I wept openly after last Thursday, crying out to God in confusion, knowing that my frustration at this injustice was only a shadow of His heart. I am crying as I write this. I was helpless. I wanted to go and grab the animal that did that to her, and bring back the childhood to her eyes that I knew was forever lost.

We are trying to do all we can to care for and protect Minky. We took her and her auntie to a support group today, and I would welcome your prayers over this next week as we make further charges on behalf of Minky with the police.

So please remain in prayer with me. I may have been sent all of this way, to work here for a whole year, just for her. Just to fight until I am blue in the face to see her protected, to help her feel loved and treasured. I think God is teaching me what it means to love here; what it meant when He loved us.

“Love never gives up.
Love cares for others more than for self.
Love … takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.”
1 corinthians 13: 3-7, The Message

Stay well, my beloved friends.

Grace and peace,
Maeghan June

slums and floods and famine

2006-04-13T05:35:00.000-04:00

You know you are landing in Africa when you fly to Malawi. Looking out the window of the airplane, all you see for miles is endless expanses of red dirt roads and mud huts. The land looks lush and fertile despite the mass-media reports that Malawi is recovering from a famine. Stepping off the plane, you can spell the indescribable aroma of Africa in the air – a mix of manure, growing grass and salty sweat from the person ahead of you. Did I mention that deodorant is not a requirement in Africa? Be prepared if you ever come!

(these are some kids waiting outside of a patient's home we were visiting in the slums of Malawi)

If you have been following my blog closely, you may be wondering why in the world I am moving around so much. I have been to South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Zambia in the 5 months that I have been here. So I will explain myself…

There are hundreds of thousands of gorgeous, generous compassionate Africans who are working day and night to care for those who are dying of AIDS-related illnesses, and the orphaned young boys and girls who are left behind. Many of these people are not highly educated in the Western sense of the word, meaning that some of them have not even finished high school, and even fewer have comprehensive computer training. These people are instead wise in the ways of their communities – they often speak 3 to15 languages, they understand the traditional power structures, the stigmas that surround HIV/AIDS, and the traditional way to raise up these children. These individuals need financial support to do the work that they are doing. In turn, the international donor groups like the American government or the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) require extensive online reporting or long, written reports to document the validity and transparency of the programs. Which is entirely legitimate, because believe it or not, there are literally thousands of false organizations in Africa that receive money from these groups, and do nothing but put the money into their own pockets. Corruption is an ugly and ever-present reality in Africa.

Back to the reason I have been traveling – I am starting to work in what is called “capacity building”. Pretty basic – I have the privilege of training these super-fly people who are literally giving their lives to help people so that they can receive funding to do what they do. I assess the skills present amongst the staff members, speak to the director about which staff members he/she would like to receive training, and then we start. So far, I have been working in basic computer skills and database management, and a bit on proposal writing. It is actually pretty funny stuff – every time that I tell my African friends what a mouse is called, their eyes light up. They literally think that there is a mouse inside, so they pick it up mischievously, shake it around, and so it always makes me laugh.

Malawi was, in many ways, an assault of my senses. It is estimated that Malawi is amongst the 10 poorest countries in the world, and over 10% of its small (12 million person) population is made up of orphaned children. The AIDS pandemic has taken over 5 years off of the life expectancy for an average Malawian, from 45 years to just over 39 years. Luckily, the infection rates have stabilized, and we are praying that they will begin to decrease in the near future.

I was living and working in the slums outside of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Oftentimes, the capital of a country is the place with the most prosperity and the most economic security. Because of the huge influx of villagers moving to the city centers, the recent famine, and the now-present floods that the area is suffering under, the slums outside of Lilongwe are in rough, rough shape. The majority of the roads are not paved, and the dirt roads are entirely washed away in parts. The homes there are shanties, which means they are made of cardboard, car hoods, tin, plastic, concrete, and basically whatever was on the ground and would stick to the walls when the house was being built. Some of the buildings are quite ingenious – made out of tires and plastic bags, held together literally by shoelaces. These houses were decimated by the heavy rains of recent months, and because they don’t have foundations, they are sometimes washed away. Since orphaned children and AIDS-patients are often the most economically pressed, they are living in the most dilapidated homes. Basically, I wanted to sell my non-existent stocks and go and build homes for these kids and women and men. As I travel out more and more into deep poverty, I know that I will never be the same again. Not sure how I have changed, but I know I have.

I thought I would just do a little photo journal, and tell you about these really amazing people that I met, and what they are doing. Their stories, these photos, and the faces you see will say more than 10 pages of my jumbled thoughts could ever express.

This is Pastor Phiri (the little guy on the left. Sorry for the bad shot, but it helps you to see what the area looks like!). He used to work as a truck driver before moving to Area 25 of the Lilongwe slums. He and his wife, Grace, moved here and afterwards, they both became Christians and he decided to become a pastor. By the way, if you ever wan to become a pastor, come to Africa. It’s basically a self-proclaimed, self-validated title. There is limited to non-existent formal theological training, so some pastors cannot even read (60% of the pastors that work through our group in Malawi are illiterate). None of this is said to mock or diminish the work of these men and women, because I know that God teaches them in ways I will never experience because of all of the education I have received – it is just to give you all a reference for how things work here.

Anyways! So Pastor Phiri is about 5 feet tall, 98 pounds. Always immaculately clean, very dignified and humble. He and his wife began to travel out in their area, caring for the dying and the ill, and caring for their children when their parents pass away. Now, they run an early childhood education center (see photo to the right) that cares for around 48 children 5 days a week in a room the size of my bedroom back in South Dakota. The room doubles as their livingroom, and Grace spends the entire morning preparing porriage for the kids over a wood-burning stove. The porridge is made of hand-ground corn (yeah, that’s right, grace pounds and grinds the corn as well), peanut butter, and soya flour. There is one teacher who has them all learning how to count, learning their alphabet, how to count to 23 (they all miss 15. I am not sure quite why!), and what the parts of the body are.

Then there is Ramsey. He is a funny little man. Again, a pastor. He has a passion for street children. He goes out every night faithfully, meeting with the kids, asking them where their parents are, and taking them in if he has room and his wife doesn’t say no. The street kids have a massive garden of maize in the back yard of the house that I stayed in. There are literally thousands of them living in and around Lilongwe – if you drive the streets at night, you see small herds of them huddled around fires in scraps of clothing. Some are orphaned children, while others run-away children.

The thing that really got me was the women – there was this incredible group of widows who walked anywhere from 3 to 10 kilometers to sit outside of the headquarters of Hands at Work in Malawi (this is some of the women as they prepare lunch for the children who come to the preschool). They come to see if there is food for their children, they come to see if there is work that they can do, and they come to see each other. They sat quietly, watching me as I entered the gate. None of them broke a smile when I greeted them in broken Chechewa (the national language of Malawi) to say good morning. They don’t trust white people, and some of them had never seen a white person before. They have a fearless leader; her name is Fatmata. She is a Zambian refugee who is in the advanced stage of AIDS – she is so slight, you would think she could be blown over by a strong breeze. Until she speaks. She has a broken cackle of a voice, but an intellect and a wit that catches you off guard. Fatmata is industrious to a fault – she used to run a guava juice making stand in the market, and a tie-dye shop until she got to ill one day. She told me about 10 of her new income generating plans – ranging from ice blocks to sell to fish merchants to soap we can sell to the patients at reduced costs. She left her little shop for her partner to watch while she went to the hospital, and the punk stole everything, right down to the fixtures on the sink and the fridge to store the juice. When she told me, I wanted to cry. If you ever wonder if there is evil in the world, come here and see what people do to the orphaned and the widow, to the sick and the dying. I am not standing in judgment over them, because I have never known the level of desperation or hunger that people here know, but it will break you, it will make you face the darkness in man.

So I am at the 6 month point of my time here – the time where I am assessing where to go from here, what God wants next for me, and what to do with the incredible chance I have had to learn and to grow here. If you are the praying type, please please please pray for God to make clear which way He would have me to move next. Much love, and feel free to send me any prayer needs that you have as well (maeghanjr@hotmail.com) .

updates and prayers for a family...

2006-03-09T14:50:00.000-05:00

Just a note to say I am leaving for malawi tomorrow…malawi is a small, landlocked country that borders South Afirca. It is rumored to have the most beautiful and friendly people in all of Africa…
It is about a 2 hour flight from Johannesburg for me. I am going there to assess the project, and to help with computer training for the volunteers, and to look into possible income generation programs for the future. If you are the praying type, please pray for safety as we travel, and that I can go in totally open and vulnerable and available to what God has for me there. The situation is supposed to be quite desparate – the country has a 33% infection rate and over 10% of the population is made up of orphaned children.
The woman I am going to work with is one of the coolest cats I have ever known. She is a Malawian chief, which is incredibly rare, and she is passionate about the rights of the African woman, and about protecting the rights of children. She works tirelessly to advocate for the girls in her small rural communities to receive free schooling and to be protected from situations of sexual abuse and violence.
In terms of the programs in South Africa, things are going well and I am learning a lot. We just received funds from the US government to provide schooling for 200 orphaned girls in the Masoyi community. I have been given the role of project manager, which is a bit daunting, but exciting….there is an incredible need for these young orphaned girls to stay in school, and to have supplies and mentoring to help them learn how to live life! We were able to select 2 volunteers from the community who are going to work alongside of me for the remainder of this year, and then if I leave in October, they will be able to stand alone and run the projects so the funds and the benefits can continue to come.
Another need for prayer comes from a family that I knew last summer while working in Uganda. If any of you spoke to me about my work last summer, you probably heard about joyce. She was my friend, a beautiful woman with a big smile and a deep love for the colour yellow. I was working in a fishing village outside of katebo, Uganda, with a support groups for HIV/AIDS widows, and she and I would sit together at the back of the meetings weaving baskets and learning to count to 10. I was awful at the local language, lugandan.
But back to the prayer needs….joyce is the 6th of 7 children in her family. 5 have already died of AIDS, leaving 16 orphans in the care of her brother Godfrey, herself and her mother susan. Godfrey was able to go to school this last year, and joyce left the village to work in kampala, the large city nearby. Susan has been on her own, caring for 16 orphans from the age 17 to 6 monthes. This past week, susan passed away, which means that these kids have been on their own. They are beautiful. The oldest, damian, has deep brown eyes that mirror the pain in his life..his younger brother eric is lighter skinned, with this incredible smile and hope. When I visited their home last summer, these two boys would go to school from 6 am until 2 pm, and then they would work digging ditches to make money for their family for 6 hours, return home, sleep, wake at 4 am to do homework, and begin the whole cycle again…
So please pray for the family. I don’t get very clear messages from Godfrey, who I am still in touch with because of the language barrier, but I know the family is in trouble.
May God bless you all…much love. I will write you more when I return from Malawi.
Grace and peace,
maeghan

Funerals and paradoxes

2006-03-09T14:02:00.000-05:00

A big woman with a big heart…

I promised a story of a volunteer’s life here…so I wanted to share about this beautiful, incredible woman who I have kind of fallen in love with here. Next to my mom, she is one of the women who I respect and love most in the world…
Her name is MaBeauty. Here is her photo…she is the absolute Websters’ dictionary of an African mama. She is fat, and believe me, that is a compliment in Africa. She is regal and wise and humble and generous to a fault. She is everyone’s mother…
So just a few weeks ago, we (myself and a fellow volunteer, Sarah) were invited to a funeral in the community. So now I can share with you from first hand experience what the a day in her life is like…
First, let me introduce you to Ma Beauty – she is about 5’2, about 250 pounds, with a beautiful golden hue to her skin. She wears a lot of hats, and she laughs like a school girl, with this deep, resonating, joy-filled laugh. Every time she greets me, she says in broken English, Eat, eat, you never eat enough! They are trying to fatten me up here in Africa!!!!
MaBeauty has been a faithful volunteer with Masoyi Home Based Care for 8 years, working mostly in patient care until just last year when she became the cook in the kitchen of the preschool. She is ALWAYS trying to feed you, so if anyone of you are concerned about me starving while in Africa, I assure you it could never happen to me while I am friends with MaBeauty!
At around 5 am, Ma Beauty’s alarm goes off. She gently nudges you awake (although this may sound odd, it is common to share a bed when you are a guest just because of the limited number of beds), saying, “time for prayers”. Ma Beauty kneels by her bed, praying for all 13 of her children, me, Sarah, fellow volunteers, children, and for her patients and friends she visits. She then screams at the top of her lungs for her 13-year-old son, Kapela, to come and fetch water for us to bathe in. The chilly water arrives in a large bucket, and you stand there trying to bathe without getting the floor too wet. Breakfast arrives, which is Ramen noodles and tea. Then, we embark on our Saturday duties. Ma Beauty uses her spare time to visit former patients and friends who have recently died in the community.
MaBeauty’s days when we are NOT around involves much of the same…she sends one of her 13 kids to collect water, they prepare breakfast together, she travels to Lula, the childcare center, and works from 8 to 5 every day. She returns home at dusk, greeting everyone, which takes about an hour (honestly, it took us over 3 hours to walk home from the funeral. As I mentioned before, greeting is serious business in Africa), and prepares dinner for her kids. After dinner, the whole family gathers around the family television to watch the evening news in Zulu (a commonly spoken South African language), and she goes to bed at around 9 pm.
Sounds pretty regular, eh? Minus the stop at starbucks or tim hortons, life for people in Africa is like life everywhere else. They talk a LOT more to their neighbors though.
Except for the funerals. We attended the funeral for MaBeauty’s nephew, John, who was 35 and died of complications to HIV/AIDS. Funerals in Africa are a 2 day matter for you…it begins the night before the burial, with an all-night prayer vigil held at the house of the family. The service, which was held in a circus tent outside of the small brick house that was owned by John, began at 7:30 in the morning on Sunday. The funeral was supposed to be held on Saturday, but because too many people died that week, the funeral needed to be held on Sunday. I asked MaBeauty how many funerals she is invited to attend every week, and she said 8 or 9. I asked her how old the people are who are passing away, and she said 21 to 25 years old. I couldn’t speak when she told me this…I know that these are likely AIDS related deaths, and it reminds me of all of the young people we work with in the community, and I wonder about what the future holds for them.
So back to the funeral; women must have their heads covered to show respect for the dead, and the wife of a deceased man must wear all black. She needs to mourn her husband’s death for the entire year after he passes away, wearing black every day. Men also wear black after the death of their wife, but they only wear black for 6 months.
There is a lot of singing, and then the preacher shares, the friends share, and the honoured guests share. Have I mentioned before that you need to be ready to preach on the drop of a hat in Africa? If you happen to attend a funeral, you would need to be ready to preach. I was sitting there, singing hymns at the funeral when the preacher, Colin, told everyone that I had a word from the Lord to share. So I can now say that I preached at my first funeral! It was an incredibly humbling experience…I know that it was only because of the colour of my skin, but it was still overwhelming to speak to a community of people about the faithfulness of Christ in the face of extreme, challenging circumstances like those they face…
After the service, we rode in the hearse to the burial grounds, which was a desolate field just outside of the community. The entire way, the funeral procession (which was one car, the hearse, and about 45 people following behind singing songs of mourning) attracted attention from people in the city. Children covered their eyes when we drove past, MaBeauty said that they are afraid of so many people dying. There was another tent erected by a weed-covered grave with freshly turned soil, and a small team of gravediggers waiting to refill the hole. We sang more songs, I prayed again, and the entire procession (which had grown to about 60 people by the time we arrived) sang a song of mourning as the men took turns covering the grave.

I am not sure how to describe how I felt…I have been looking over my blog for the past little while, realizing that a lot of my posts are not emotional, while others were written with tears streaming down my face. I feel like the tragedy and the beauty of this place collide in such unexpected places, right before my eyes. At the funeral, I could see the beauty of family and friends, the joy and peace of mourning as a community, and I was reminded yet again of the absolute heartbreak that is the AIDS pandemic. There is a gap left in this culture – the young mothers and fathers are missing, the children are going to funerals more times than they eat meat in a week…and all without cause. As I visit the homes of the dying, and as I am beginning to know the orphans more and more, I keep facing the fact that all of this can be avoided. This thought is broken and incomplete because I am facing more questions than answers right now.

grace and peace.

maeghan

I know you want to watch CTS

2006-02-06T12:07:00.000-05:00

Hi guys!

Just a quick note to let you know that the footage that was shot while we were in Zambia is going to be shown this coming Monday, February 6th at 9 am and 9 pm. It is a 20 minute segment and there will be some footage of me working. I haven't seen it yet, so I may only be on for a minute or so, but it is cool to get a better perspective of what is happening on the ground here..

If you miss watching the program on Monday, you can log on to http://www.crossroads.ca/ on Tuesday, and view previous programs on the link "100 Huntley Street" and then "Watch The Program On Line", by selecting the date, Feb 6.
Have a superb day!

grace and peace, maeghan

empowerment

2006-01-28T06:19:00.000-05:00

Back in South Africa...
we returned a few weeks ago, and the time has been flying. there was incredibly exciting information for me upon my return. we just received funding from the US embassy to run empowerment training for 60 girls from grades 4-7. the director in south africa, George, asked me if i could coordinate the program.
so now the challenge starts! we already run support groups for 256 grannies or caregivers who care for AIDS orphans. The focus of the training is to teach the care givers what the kids are going through in terms of grieving, and other psychological issues they face. these support groups and training courses have been running well for 1 and a half years, and we asked the grannies at the end of last year what needs they see for next year. they said that they need income generation training and the kids they care for need training and support groups as well, because they need to know they are not alone. so we submitted a proposal to the US embassy to run these groups for young girls, and the request was approved.
i must say that i love the hand of God in all of this. i was overwhelmed, as the project has begun to grow and take shape, how much potential and need there is for these programs. the problem of AIDS does not end at death. instead, for the orphans who are left behind, thier lives are forever changed, and they need more help to work through what they have gone through.
so what has been going through my mind? to being, i don't think i am qualified. i feel blessed to have this chance, but i know i have so much to learn. i am excited to meet the grannies (they have more training sessions that start this Monday), to sit beside the young girls, to expand thier horizons so they can see and dream and hope for a better future; one with out AIDS and poverty. we get to do cool things like take field trips and watch inspirational movies and take cooking classes. this all may sound very fluffy, but you must understand the context. many of these young girls are heads of households; they wake at 5 am to iron and collect water. they travel to school, unsure if they will be raped or assaulted on the way, or by their teacher when they arrive at school. many have not traveled 10 km from the township they were born in, and they now live under the stigmatizing shadow of being an AIDS orphan.
and then friday we got another great e-mail. the US embassy asked if we could run programs for 150 girls instead of 60. and they will come and give training to me as the program coordinator.
so if you are the praying type, please pray for me to have wisdom, to find balance between work and relaxing. i am getting sick in my lungs, bronchitis probably, but it has been a rough week. i will post more when i get back from the planning meeting. alongside all of this, there is multinational stragetic conference coming up in March for Hands at Work, and I am involved in a lot of the planning for that. we are drafting an annual report and coordinating speakers. it is a hectic and exciting time for me and for all of us here.
adios for now.
grace and peace,
maeghan

zambia is the place to be

2006-01-13T13:11:00.000-05:00

Hello again! I have returned safely from Zambia, and started work again in South Africa. In Zambia, we were working in a squatter camp in the copper belt called Kabwe. The term squatter camp refers to a shanty town (buildings made of tin and plastic and mud) where people are living in highly insecure circumstances. they have traveled from rural villages to find work in industrial centers, and often times these camps are made up mostly of women because the men travel onto new locations for find work if jobs don't materialize.

* this is a photo of myself and a few of the teachers during one of the youth programs in Makalulu, just outside of Kawbe

These are some of the kids that we hung out with in front of the chicken farm that is run by the Hands at Work in Zambia staff. they use the funds from the sale of the eggs to help run food distribution programs, and they use the eggs to increase the food quality of patients. the young girl in the yellow is named mildred and she informed me on the second day that i was there that i am her best friend. if anyone ever needs a friend, you can go to africa and you will find plenty! They may be under the age of 5, but I assure you they will love you a lot.

So in Zambia we were doing a few different things. I was helping to gather information for a new fundraising initiative for Visionledd, the Canadian organization that I am working with. The program is called WOW, Women for Orphans and Widows, and it is a community partnership program that pairs womens groups in Canada with women and orphans in need in Africa. I did needs assessments, speaking with women and orphans about thier greatest physical needs, meeting with the Zambian directors to coordinate the purchasing of supplies once the funds have been raise, and then send all of these instructions back to Canada so the program can start (the marketing, the fundraising etc).

We were also running a number of vacation Bible schools for the orphans in the squatter camps. the areas were pretty devastating in terms of poverty; the area is comprised of 50% orphans. that means when you meet two people at random on the street of Kabwe, one of them is an orphan. it was pretty staggering for me to comprehend. there is a village that the program director, eric, visited a few monthes ago in Western Zambia. in that village, all of the people are orphans. every single parent has died, and the children are all just caring for themselves. i was stunned when we spoke.

so the people in zambia are stunning....i have never met more joy-filled, generous, simple people. because of a lack of funding the volunteers and staff have gone without pay for the past 3 monthes. regardless, they have all continued to work. the director works around 80 hours per week, and the volunteers work 5 days a week, visiting upwards of 20 patients per day.
*this is at one of the children's camps. the kids are reciting Bible verses and poems for us. a favorite verse to recite was "Jesus wept." because it is the shortest verse in the Bible. we all got a good laugh at that one. they also sang and danced and even marched for us. they were SO excited to have us as guests, it wasn't even funny. the kids would just start to smile and jump when they saw us. we were like celebrities!
in many of the homes we were visiting, i was amazed at how clean and well-kept they were. there were stunning gardens, and beautiful fabric hung on the walls. i am suprised every day to see the perserverance of the human spirit - how much people maintain thier dignity and self-respect and love for beauty regardless of their circumstances.
so i think if there is one place that i would consider staying, it may be zambia. the only problem was the food. lots of maize and fish. anchovies. blech.

*this is me serving food on Christmas Eve to around1150 orphans. that is one of two massive pots of rice. the woman behind me is serving cabbage. the kids got chicken (which was an incredible treat for them. they eat chicken maybe once a month), rice, cabbage, and then scones for dessert.

i struggled as well in zambia to see my role in all of this. i know there is a huge need for income generation activities. in every home we visited, people asked if we could help them to earn some money so thier kids could eat more regularly. we had 3 children pass out from hunger at the last day camp we ran. they hadn't eaten in 3 days. the problem of hunger is incredibly difficult when people are HIV positive. In zambia, the US government has just made antiretroviral drugs free for all Zambians. the problem is, people are still starving to death, despite the fact that they have the drugs that they need to stop the spread of the AIDS virus. the drugs are having incredibly terrible side affects in the patients because they do not have food in thier stomachs, and many are made more sick after starting the drug regiments. i wanted to stay, to work with them, to try to come up with a plan for years to come, but i know that it will take an investment of years to properly run a program like this, and 80% of the work is training the africans to do the work so that the programs are sustainable, even if i return to Canada.
the last part of our work there was to film segments for a documentary that will be featured on CTS (Christian Television Station) in CAnada. I may be on it! i will let you know more when i do when it will be playing.

Merry Christmas!

2005-12-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

I have been away from any internet access for some time, and I am still in transition as I write this. I will be travelling to Kabwe, Zambia tomorrow to work with a Canadian short-term team. We are running AIDS education programs for HIV positive women, and a vacation Bible camp for around 400 orphans...so it will be an amazingly warm Christmas for me here, filled with hundreds of Zambian villagers! We would love your prayers for the camp and the seminars...

and i appologize for being out of touch. i am jotting down thoughts and reflections in my notebook, and i promise to upload a slew (is that really a word?) of photos when I return to South Africa in early January.

so I pray that you all have a blessed Christmas season, full of turkey and goodness, with time to hug your families a lot. take time to think about the beautiful reality behind Christmas ... hope, peace, love and Christ. God bless.

grace and peace,
maeghan

World AIDS Day

2005-12-02T09:37:00.000-05:00

“Somehow I have to trust that God is at work in me and that the way I am being moved to new inner and outer places is a part of a larger movement of which I am only a very small part.” Henry Nouwen, In the Name of Jesus

to begin, I want to let you know that my next blog is going to be a day in the life of...i am going to follow one of my friends here and talk to you about them, what they like, favorite colours...just so you can put names and faces together and you can meet the cool Africans that I get to work with. they all went out for Christmas dinner tonight at this all-you can eat buffet. You have not LIVED until you have seen an African woman get dressed up to go out. Dang. They have got style.

also, i am going to do a post next week with just pictures. i can't get them to upload from this computer, so that will have to wait.

Thursday was World AIDS day. World AIDS day is not a huge deal in this part of Africa. The only mention of it was over the loudspeaker in the grocery store; a reminder to contribute your spare change at the check out in honour of World AIDS day. Most people are reminded constantly of the reality of AIDS. It is part of life...as I mentioned before, people usually know 20 to 30 people who have died of AIDS. Instead, World AIDS Day is a day for people around the world to become aware that this disease may bring to bear the darkest days for Africa, for India, and for other countries impacted.

50 million people. This is the population of England. It’s also the number of AIDS orphans in Africa by 2010. The kids I am working with are all living with grandparents, who are also getting older and older. Basically something massive needs to happen in world awareness of the situation, and in terms of proactive measures to help these kids grow up…

I spent this morning at the clinic with the pre-school children from our daycare who are HIV positive (this is a photo of a little guy from the local refuge camp) . There were just 16 children who received their medicine and shots and such. I sat in the waiting room with the kids trying to tell them to sit on the bench in Siswathi, trying to hold the ones who fell asleep, and trying not to think about the reality that each and every one of these small beautiful children have a terrible virus raging in their veins.

For the first time in my life, I glimpsed something deep into the heart of God, the heart of God the Father Who sent His Son so that we may live…I can honestly say that I wanted to give my life so that these children could live. I felt so hopeless as I realized that few of them will live to be older than my brother Colin, and none of them will be as old as my 16 year old brother Cody.

I have begun to face my own smallness here. We have been with some critically ill patients, and I have no medical training and no life-saving medication to offer them. Instead, I am asked to pray at each home. Or to give them clean water to drink. The children we work with; I cannot even speak the language let alone help them to work through the pain that they have known. Instead, I encourage those who can help, the local people from the community who run the day care centers and after school programs. I bring them tea and help them keep track of the incredibly high-energy kids and give tons of hugs and love. I do all of this trusting that God will multiply…that one of these children will go on to lead South Africa, or that they will go on to live a positive life or more importantly that they will see my love as the love of Christ, and that someday they will know true peace.

The director of the organization, George, says that each of the international volunteers are merely the scaffolding that supports the local communities. In order to address the AIDS pandemic here properly, the change must come from within. The leaders of these communities must recognize the issues that lead to the spread of the virus, and community members must be mobilized to respond and to be a part of positive change…

So from this point on I will learn more about what it means to really trust…to trust that I am part of something greater. I am having to trust that the pain that I feel is only a microscopic portion of the pain that these situations cause God…I have to trust that He hears my prayers, our prayers, and that He desires to bless His children, regardless of race or creed or terrible disease.

I don’t have all of the answers yet about how to address this…I am merely reeling at the face of this virus. At the brevity of the task at hand…at the need for grace internationally, and generosity never before seen…there is a need for every single home in Africa to open its doors to these orphans and to give them the instruction and love and patience and guidance they need.

I feel like all of the statistics and news stories I have read over the years have come to face me this past little while. I pray that whenever you read this, wherever you are, you take the chance to pray for the children here, for the leaders of Africa, for the United Nations. To understand that this pandemic is posing challenges that can bring entire nations to their knees…take the chance to read something that will make you feel uncomfortable, consider coming to Africa to learn, let the situation here become personal, let these children remind you of someone who you love dearly. And with that incredibly long, run on sentence, I will close.

God bless.

today

2005-11-15T08:57:00.000-05:00

Greetings,

I am going to open with a poem that I like a lot:

(this is a shot of the sunsets here taken while I was climbing a local mountain, Legogote)

Today
I thought
I would like
To go to Africa
Yes, I will go to Kenya
And see if time
Has stood still
Where at least
The walk
Is on the ground
And all comes
To a sudden halt
At Dusk
And sounds
Come from the voice
And travel a mile or two
And strength comes from the family
Near to you
Yes, Today
I thought
I would like to go to Africa

Sallie Lanier, 1995

I enjoy that poem because you can almost hear the author patiently pondering her thoughts. Read it really slowly, and you will begin to feel Africa. The words illustrate life here. Life does come to a halt at dusk in the rural community, and strength and meaning is drawn from family, from those in relationship with you. People greet EVERYBODY. Not just your best friend who you happen to see on a subway. I was speaking with my good friend Gugu about life in Canada, and I told her that we don’t greet in Canada (this is a picture of Gugu and her son). Like I mentioned last time, you greet EVERYONE in Africa. Unless they are sketchy men who are trying to get you to marry them. It can take you 20 minutes to walk down the street, simply because you cannot pass a person with out saying hello, how are you? How is your family?, and waiting for the appropriate response. In Canada, you walk to work or class or car in silence, not making eye contact, untilyou get to your destination. When I shared this with Gugu, she sat there, mouth open, aghast. She said to me, don’t people get lonely in your country with no one to speak to them? Don’t they get sad? She makes me think…

So I have begun to work with the orphan programs here over the past little while. In South Africa alone, there are 1000 children orphaned every week by the AIDS virus. MHBC began to look at orphan care just 4 years ago, and since then, we have taken over the care of over 1700 children. How it works is when a patient becomes ill and near death, MHBC (Masoyi Home Based Care) speaks with them about where they would like their child to go when they pass away. The social workers begin to prepare the child for the death of their parent, and we take pictures of the family all together so the child can have a physical memory of their parents. After the parent passes away, the child is designated to a volunteer from the community who becomes like an auntie to the child. In Africa, there is a huge extended family structure, and part of that structure is aunties. These are women who are like mentors and big sisters and protectors to the kids. So each child has a volunteer who they know personally, who lives near their home, that checks in on them regularly and who they can go to in the case of physical abuse, poor living conditions, and such. For the most part, the orphaned children live with grannies or close family members, but if the child has no home to go to, MHBC also has little foster homes set up. These are houses with 6 kids and one auntie who cares for them, providing good food and parenting. We always keep children from the same parents together as much as possible…

I was able to visit the daycares run by MHBC and work with the kids for a few days. Many of the kids are touch-starved, meaning that they don’t get physical affection at home. There was this beautiful little girl, Specicio, which means gift from God, that I met at the daycare. I placed my hand on her head while the daycare instructor was telling the kids how to do the craft for the day. She slowly molded into my hand, starved of touch, and sat on my lap for over 2 hours that afternoon. I definitely fell in love with at least 5 children over this past week, one of them is pictured here. He was too young to ask his name, and I couldn’t figure out where his caregivers where, but I would guess he is about 2 or 3.

The daycares are run to give the grannies and caregivers a break for a few hours each day, because many grandmas are caring for as many as 7 to 12 kids. Which brings another concern for groups who are trying to help – many of these grandmothers are not healthy themselves, and the orphans face the chance of being orphaned again when they pass away.

A large part of what I have been dealing with is how to look at the social tidal waves that are left in the wake of AIDS…that poem spoke of how strength comes from the family. AIDS has taken away an entire generation of parents and aunties who are the people that teach these kids about life…how to farm, how to pick a good husband or wife…how to plait your hair or how to dance…whole cultures in Africa face an identity crisis as these kids are growing up.

My work is starting to take me away from the people side of things, and into the background, which I had anticipated. As a non-governmental organization (NGO) we receive funding to run programs from USAID, Visionledd, and other international groups. There is a lot of bookkeeping and logistical coordination that has to happen in order for the funds to be available…My days are now going to be divided between helping with the annual report preparations and the hands-on work in the community.

I wish that I knew how to share everything that I feel and see…I don’t want my postings to be negative but I want to be honest about what I see. Many of the situations I walk into make me uncomfortable, and they make me long for a pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks and a good book to escape into. But I feel this incredible burden to bear witness to what is happening here – to tell of the endurance and the beauty of the human spirit. To tell of the faith and love and hope that I have seen and do see amongst the people of Africa who have been largely forgotten by CNN and by the Western world. To tell people that we have much to learn from this way of life, from the simplicity of value systems, from the value of tradition and family and relationships. But to communicate as well that this way of life is in danger…in many communities, it is in crisis. I pray that you don’t read my message and go away feeling guilty for your blessings, but rather go away wanting to learn more about what happens here. Maybe even come to visit me…but please keep reading. Keep journeying alongside me…

Grace and peace,
maeghan

My dream

2005-11-11T10:28:00.000-05:00

the beautiful struggle

2005-11-08T03:17:00.000-05:00

Gunjani,

That means good morning in siswayti, which is the language spoken in this region. Siswayti is also the language of Mozambique, which is just to the east of where I live.

I am unsure of how to express the depths of joy and stuggle that I have gone through over this past week, so I will try to speak about what I am learning, those I have met, and what I am doing.

I have begun to travel in the community with the home-based care (HBC) workers, and the social workers. These individuals are mostly women from the community who volunteer their time 6 days a week to care for thier neighbors who are dying of AIDS, and to coordinate the care of the children who are orphaned from AIDS. I have been so humbled by these women and men. They serve selflessly for years, putting their lives on the line.

we begin our days at around 8:30, travelling to the clinic for prayer and singing. spirituality is very different in africa. Everyone prays, regardless of their faith background. the hospitals open each day with the head nurse leading all of the patients in the waiting area in prayer, asking God to bring healing for them. Although people may not believe in God, they still believe in spirituality and in a higher power, so these activities are not offensive.

After prayer, we receive a list of patients to visit. Because of the nature of the AIDS virus, and how it weakens the patients, it is most effective to visit them in the home rather than waiting for them to come to you. patients may be strong and well one week, and near death the next. also, African culture revolves around relationships. relationships are more important than time, money or possessions. when people become sick, they are often times ostracized from the community. people stop visiting them for fear of contracting the virus. often times, this is more painful for the victim of AIDS than the disease itself. as we visit these patients, we are offering them love and support and relationship. it is amazing to see the patients transform even as you speak with them, asking about their health and the weather and such. thier eyes gain glints of light, their speech becomes more clear, and they sit up straighter. the power of love has overwhelmed me here...and the need for it.

masoyi HBC (home based care) also makes patient referrals to a local clinic that administers advanced patient care, such as anti-retroviral drugs (the drugs that fight the spread of the AIDS virus) and tuberculosis treatment.

so now i will tell you of my most powerful patient experience...they have all overwhelmed me on some level. the patients range from very very ill, to entirely healthy. with each one, i find myself trying not to cry. i know that everyone i meet will die. they are all young, in their 20's and 30's, with families and dreams and favorite foods. if i think too much, i begin to liken them to my family, my mom, my brother, my closest friends...

this past thursday, we walked into a small brick house. say the size of a large walk-in closet. i could hear the laughter bouncing off of the walls as we entered. there was a young girl of about 12 on the floor, doubled over in laughter, a man and a teenage girl seated against the wall. they all stood when we entered, because it is customary for a guest to be seated in the best chairs. i was with emily, a nurse who works with Masoyi Home Based Care. she is incredible. she has a great mass of braids atop her head, and she is from zimbabwe. the patient was a woman named josephine, who was quite emaciated. so much so that i almost lost my breath. josephine weighed probably around 70 pounds, and she wore a dress with a vibrant African floral print. her hair was neatly braided, and her smile was so wide that it overtook her face each time she smiled. she was 34 years old, and the mother of the two girls in the room. emily began to greet her (which takes around 10 minutes - greeting is an artform in Africa. if you ever plan on coming, learn to greet in the local language!), and to ask about her health and such. josephine smiled the whole time. she laughed and told jokes and just breathed joy into me. i could tell that she was at peace with her life, gained joy in all of her days, and had overcome much. we began to speak with her as well about plans for her daughters when she passes away, where they will live and who will care for them. i was able to hold her hand and pray for thier little family, for God to protect and provide for them. I began to cry while praying, overwelmed by the situation.

why do i tell you this story? i struggled over which story to share, which life to bring to your minds...josephine brought me such hope. her little home, clean and full of joy, reminded me that although this disease is terrible, that life continues. there is a generation of children who are living on, who are in need of security and direction and love and healing. I know that the work that i am part of offers that, and it brings me great joy to see this program at work. i know that i am here for a purpose, and for such a time as this. so thank you for all of your prayers....

we are also starting the orphan Christmas parties these next few weeks. all of the orphans who are in the care of Masoyi (there are around 1700 total) take part in parties with cake and traditional dancing and gifts and skits...we do around 2 each week before Christmas, and around 200 children attend each event. i will write about those next week, and have a few pictures to share with you as well. unfortunately, i have arrived at the internet cafe with a camera and no batteries. i took them out for recharging and forgot to replace them...

so thank you all for your prayers, and notes, and encouragement. i welcome and need them here. heather, the poem was great. i am doing really well. there are tons of fresh veggies here, so my diet is good, and i have felt embraced by both the international volunteers and the volunteers from the community. i feel it is such an extreme privalege to be a part of this work, and to share what i am learning and what i am seeing with all of you. it is my prayer to be able to connect my friends at home with the lives here, so that we can grow in understanding and compassion.

humba kathye, which means go well. God bless....

grace and peace,

maeghan

Touch down

2005-10-30T04:15:00.000-05:00

I still can't spell the words that are used to greet here, so I won't try yet.

So hello and greetings from South Africa! I have landed safely, and I am now at my first internet cafe here. In a mall, oddly enough. Africa is full of paradoxes; fully-equipped North-American style malls just 5 miles from an impoverished village. My living arrangements are great. I will write more next week. I just wanted to make a quick post to say the weather is beautiful and hot, the air outside my room smells like flowers due to the iris tree growing there, and that I am due to begin my work tomorrow. I have little or no jet lag, and my bags are unpacked. For all of you who are praying, thank you for your prayers! I love reading people's comments, so pelase continue to post!

More to come next week. As they say in South Africa, go well.

grace and peace,
maeghan

The things that drive me...

2005-10-23T16:57:00.000-04:00

So this is my first real post. my hope for this blog is to inform you about what I am learning, to incite challenging discussion around these issues, and to communicate the stories of those who I come to know and love. I invite you to journey with me, to hold my hand across the miles as I adventure into faith and the unknown of the African experience. Feel free to ask questions, to ask for clarification, or to ask personal questions about what you read or learn.

I leave in 0.5 days now. My ticket is in my hand...

Many people have been asking me the same type of questions over the past few weeks, so I thought that I could have a FAQ (frequently asked questions). That way, whether you have know me for a year or for a few weeks, you can know the background behind this blog and behind my journey. The last question is going to have a little photo album section, so if nothing else, scan right to the end to see the pictures from my work in Uganda last summer.

Question #1
What exactly are you doing?
I am moving to South Africa to work with an African non-governmental, faith-based organization called Hands at Work/Masoyi Home Based Care until September of next year. In English, it is a group of national South Africans who do not work for the government, and they believe in Jesus. They do not require the people they help are of the same faith, but their core motivation is their faith. The organization works in a region with 34% HIV/AIDS prevalence. Specifically, the coordinate home-based care for individuals with advanced HIV/AIDS, orphan care for the children who are left behind by the virus, orphan empowerment and skills training, and food distribution for those infected and affected by AIDS who cannot provide food for themselves.

So what will I be doing? First of all, I will be learning. Although I have an undergraduate degree and I have worked for 2 summers in Africa, I feel that I know very little about what is being done and what needs to be done in regards to HIV/AIDS in Africa. I need to come along side people who are involved in effective work and learn from them.

Practically speaking, I am going to be working with the home based care program, visiting the homes of those in the advanced stages of the disease. It is estimated that 90% of those infected with AIDS in Africa do not receive medical care. The health care infrastructure in many areas of Africa is simply not developed. The AIDS pandemic has put extra strain on these resources as well. I won't be providing healthcare, because I am not trained to do so (although I will get training in basic home-based care), but I will be working with a team who delivers pain killers, assesses the patient's health (if they have signs of pneumonia, tuberculosis, etc.), and just clean up the house and help with food prep. As people advance in the stages of the virus, their immune systems are weakened so much that can get sick really easily. Daily tasks like cleaning and preparing food become nearly impossible, and this assistance is critical.

I am also potentially working with the orphan empowerment program. I say potentially because anything can happen in Africa. Every day is truly a new adventure... This would include basic skills training for orphans; sewing instruction, etc. In Uganda, I worked with skills training and empowerment for HIV/AIDS widows and orphan care-givers, so this work should be similar. I am not sure exactly what I will be involved in, because I haven't seen the programs yet. But I will keep you posted! Get it. Posted, like a blog post. Ha. Okay, maybe that is only funny to me.

Question #2
Why in the world are you doing this? Don't normal people your age date highly attractive men, purchase a house with a walk in closet, and a compact car with good gas mileage?

I am doing this primarily because of my faith. I am a follower of Jesus Christ, and my faith in and experience with Christ is central to all of my actions. I have not been a person of faith all of my life; it started when I was 16. My goal in life then was to become the first female president of the USA, and to get enough plastic surgery so I could go into modeling. No joke. Since then, as I have journeyed closer to knowing God, and I have been changed. How I see people, the world, everything has changed...I have learned about how much the God of the universe is concerned for those who are unable to care for themselves. Specifically, the widows and the orphans. When I worked with my women in Uganda last summer my heart was broken by the desperation that these women are living in. But the God I believe in is a God of hope in all circumstances, and He will change both me and those whom I serve this coming year.

The second reason that I am doing this is because of how the impact of HIV/AIDS has been largely neglected in the eyes of the world. The World Vision commercials numb the North American brain to see the problems created by HIV/AIDS as insurmountable...There are too many mouths to feed, too many compounding problems like education and healthcare and the like...And it is not the type of issue that can be solved with a one time donation or a relief package. The statistics are overwhelming: 6,700 die in Africa alone every day. The pandemic is ongoing and growing, and these deaths go largely unrecognized. The reality is that one person's life is invaluable, and changing one person's life is what is important. I feel there is a great chance to change the life of one, and that is my focus...Which brings me to my final reason...

I do this because of the women that I have met, that inspire me and make me want to do this work all of the days of my life...

This is Teddy Kwagala. She was the woman who worked alongside of me in Uganda, setting up the accounting procedures for the women's group and purchasing all of the supply needs for the women's empowerment program. She is 28 now, and she was one of my most trusted friends...She always wanted to be learning, advancing herself. She was the youngest of 7 children, and all 6 of her siblings had died of AIDS. For some years, she cared for the orphans, but they now all live with extended family members. Teddy made me laugh SO much because she wanted to marry an American black man, because they were funnier than Ugandan men. Oh jeez. Specifically, she wanted to marry Eddie Murphy. I informed her that he was taken....
Teddy inspired me because of her perserverance, her hilarious laugh and her tenacity to learn.

Harriet was my best friend. She had the BEST laugh, like this deep rolling thunder that would erupt from her very soul...She would always chase the other women during our meetings and play games like a school girl. The women in Africa work hard, carrying firewood and water many miles, preparing food all day, tending the garden, caring for children, and for sick family members if needed. The women's group was often their only social activity, their only escape. Harriet was their leader. She would faithfully visit their homes, delivering the supplies for the crafts we made. Harriet was sick, meaning she has AIDS. Because of the social stigma surrounding the virus, many people will not openly admit to having HIV. They risk alienation from family and friends if their status is known. She was also 28, and had a bad cough, which probably meant pneumonia or tuberculosis. Her youngest son, Deda, was also sick. The thing that caught me off guard with all of my women, but especially Harriet, was their absolute vigor for life. She wanted to do EVERYTHING to get her kids in school, to provide shelter, to support her husband...Harriet's love of life strengthened me on my rough days.

Well, that wasn't exactly the photo album I promised, but it is a start.

My mind is spinning tonight with uncertainty...Who will I meet? How will I change? Will my friends and family recognize me when I return? What are the plans of God in this next year? Did I pack enough deodorant? Will my luggage meet the weight requirements?

so for now I will sleep..Thank you all for reading and I will update again upon my arrival...

grace and peace,
maeghan

The first message

2005-09-22T21:52:00.000-04:00

This is the first message...just testing this thing out!