The Mellens in Malawi

A Chapter closes

2006-12-08T21:58:00.000+02:00

Liz and the kids all finished school today. We have been into our sequence of "last" events for some time now, but with the end of the school term it really does feel like the end of a significant chapter in our family life. Not only the children finishing, but Liz as well, after teaching at Sir Harry Johnston International Primary School for the last two and a half years.
So now we have done our last Sunday at church, last WFP meeting, last staff monthly prayer day, quite a few other lasts as well. We actually leave Malawi a week from today, and with still quite a bit of work to do, not to mention packing up the house and our luggage, it still feels a bit hectic.
We are doing our best to "leave well" as it say in all the missionary manuals. Not sure if we will arrive too well though! Counting our blessings though, we have a house to move into, a car to get around in, schools all sorted out for the children, and family and friends to cheer us through our festive re-introduction back into the UK. On the BBC website today it said that Wyverstone (our new home) had a max temp. of 9 degrees C today. Thats only 25 less than where we are now!

Madonna and Child

2006-10-17T20:10:00.000+02:00

So Malawi makes the news again - this time because Madonna has adopted a little Malawian boy. There's clearly a lot more to this story than the press knows, its been interesting to read and hear quite a few inaccuracies in the media these last few weeks, so here's a few thoughts and facts from the Malawian end:
A figure often quoted is that there are somewhere between 800,000 to 1 million AIDS orphans in Malawi. That figure is not far wrong, but very much depends on what you call an "orphan" - here it can mean a child which has lost it's mother or father (a single orphan) and less commonly a child that has lost both parents.
The Independent today was reporting that Malawi has "a million children in orphanages" which is absurd - the vast majority of both sorts of orphans are cared for within the extended family by Uncles, Aunties, grandparents and neighbours, only a tiny fraction are cared for in residential orphanages.
Its weird to think that Madonna has adopted a boy who still has a living parent - but the truth is that there are very few actual abandoned kids available - we have friends who have been involved in adopting here but they found that often a child in a orphanage still has a parent somewhere, or family connections who are not willing to let them be permanently adopted - the orphanage is used for some kind of respite care until the community is able to take them back.

If she is bringing the child back to the UK then Madonna and her husband will have already gone through the strenuous process of assessment by social workers - so this is definitely not something she is doing on a whim. Contrary to some press reports I have heard, she has definitely been here in Malawi for about three weeks, visiting various orphanages and presumably checking out various possible adoptees.
Has she shortcut the usual system here? For sure. Her commitment to put substantial funds into orphan support here probably helped swing things her way.
Is this the best thing for little David? Difficult to say. I'm not sure that the father would so willingly have given up his son had he been to one of her recent shows.

Betwixt and Between

2006-09-23T22:20:00.000+02:00

We do seem to be pretty bad at this blogging thing - no posting for almost two months! If anybody is still bothering to check this, you deserve an award for persistence.
So . . . back in Malawi for 15 weeks! Betwixt our summer house-hunting break in the UK, and a permanent move back there just before Christmas.
I have to say that coming back here was a relief, particularly after a lot of travelling in our last few days in the UK. Being able to stay in the same bed for several consecutive nights was fantastic. Within a couple of days of our retun to Zomba, routines were re-established, roots sunk back into work, school and the local community. But at the same time we are all too aware that its a temporary state, a hiatus of normality before we leave Malawi and start life again somewhere else.
Don't get me wrong - the next stage is exciting and we are really looking forward to it - but for now we are here, still doing our jobs, maintaining our relationships - (even making new ones in the transient ex-pat community) and life goes on.
Change is exciting, but it isn't always easy - we need to keep focused on today rather than thinking too much about tomorrow.

Sorry again

2006-07-05T20:20:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone,

sorry that we again havn't posted for a while. Our laptop stopped working for a while (quite scary as we have a lot of photos on there not backed up) but luckily it turned out to be just a loose memory chip - sometimes I think I have the same problem. All OK again for now.
Liz and the children finished the academic year at school today, with a big sense of relief. Its great also to have Kezi back with us from boarding school for an extended period, rather than just the weekends.
In two weeks we fly home to see friends, family, supporters and to look for a place to live.
Thanks once again for all those who help us so we can be out here.
A very special thanks to our friends who have given us a car for when we get home. Its a very special thing to have people caring for us in such a practical way.
All for now, Andy for the Malawi Mellens

Another month, another meeting

2006-05-26T20:40:00.000+02:00

Today is the last Friday in the month, and thats when all the project staff meet together at the church headquarters for what is called "prayer day" - basically a church service with some information sharing stuff thrown in, then we all have lunch together.
Previously it had also been pay day, so there was a big incentive to show up and collect your envelope of cash, but recently we have started paying people through the bank, and the attendance had dropped off and it had really stopped being what it should be - a chance to celebrate together with the staff, get them excited and motivated about the projects, and spend time together.
Well today was a bit of a "re-launch", and it was great - good attendance, people on time, good participation, even a speech by the country director! I did a little ice-breaker / team-building activity which seemed to work very well, all in all the atmosphere was really good, and I look forward to the next one.
Less than eight weeks until we are at home for our brak in the UK. The main thing we hope to do is find a house for when we come home for good at the end of the year. Prices seem to be on the rise again, so I just don't know how its going to work out, all we can do is trust that God will provide - as he has done in the past.

Back on the blog - at last

2006-05-20T23:39:00.000+02:00

I really don't know how few people look at our blog, but nobody has complained about the absence of postings recently! We've been struggling with technical problem for a while - our 3 year old laptop developed a fault, eventually we managed to get it sorted out and are back on line and back on the blog.
Some of you will know that we have decided to extend our time in Malawi by a further three months or so, which will take us up to Christmas, though we will be in the UK for about 6 weeks in the summer, mostly we'll be looking for a house where we can live when we come home.
Life doesn't seem to get less busy - (even though I'm aware that we have less stuff going on in general than when we lived in UK) so even though its still two months away, I'm looking forward to the break.
The picture is Caleb with our friend Giles - he's someone we help regularly by giving him a day's work each week. Giles has a slight disability, probably something like cerebral palsy, also he has no parents, but these things don't hold him back at all - he's the youth choir master at our church, plays in a football team, and cycles several miles to help with a disabled group once a week. Caleb and me usually drive out to his place on a Saturday and have been helping him with some farming, trying out some different ideas which may help his family's food security. Last year he harvested 2 bags of maize, but with the good rains this year, plus a hefty dose of chicken manure which I brought in for him, he's got 8 bags, and will also have some sweet potato to harvest later on.
Its not difficult to help people, but how to ensure that they don't need the same help time and time again in the future? Malawi has just emerged from yet another food crisis, where food once again became a hand-out to stop people starving. Lives are saved, but at the same time arguably we create dependency for the future.

End of term

2006-04-09T21:34:00.000+02:00

Dear all,
apologies for the long silence without any posts - a combination of technical problems and lack of time.
This is Liz writing. The last seven days has seemed like being in a parallel universe as I have been totally flattened by a bad bout of malaria. Though we take prophylaxis ( protective medecine) it doesn't give 100% protection. So there goes the first week of the holidays with nothing done!
Malaria apart, this busy term has gone well. A highlight was being able to take 25 students (years 3-6) to visit Zomba Hospital. I imagine this type of trip would be impossible in the UK for all sorts of Health and Safety type reasons. The trip included the chance to see the special baby-care ward where mothers act as human incubators, carrying their premature babies kangaroo-style bound skin-to-skin on their abdomens; in groups of five we also watched pregnant mothers being examined with ultrasound; two students had their arms put in plaster and then cut out again. We were lucky that four of the doctors are parents of children at the school and hosted the visit very well.
Of course the visit showed the hospital in a positive light, the children unaware of the almost Dickensian conditions of the older wards which have not yet been upgraded or knocked down. At other times we have visited friends from our church who were admitted, finding them sharing a bed with another patient, with the room on the floor between the beds being used for others. Whilst there is a long-term plan for development and refurbishment of the hospital, the need far exceeds the current capacity of both facilities and staff. In Malawi development happens, but the pace is exceedingly slow.
Malaria kills thousands of people each day across Africa, luckily I have survived with tlc from my husband, and access to good medecine and doctors. Tomorrow my sister and her family arrive for a two-wek visit, hopefully accompanied by substantial amounts of healing chocolate.
Bye for now, Liz

We're on the Beeb

2006-02-10T23:22:00.000+02:00

Have a look at this link to see a picture and some info. on one of our distributions.

Cheers, Andy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/picture_gallery/06/africa_struggling_to_eat/html/7.stm

Rain, rain, beautiful rain!

2006-01-26T20:36:00.000+02:00

Its pretty much been raining consistently since the end of November, which is wonderful news for this season's crop here in Malawi, and an answer to the heartfelt prayers of everyone. The rains started a little late, but we have had rain of some sort almost every day, and heavy thunderstorms two or three times a week. Everywhere is green ( or a greeny-yellow where the soil is poor and the farmer couldn't afford fertilizer). Christmas week gave the most torrential downpours, which at least had the benefit of cooling things down a little so we didn't drip sweat over our Christmas dinner like the last two years.
Another few weeks like this and we'll be looking at a decent crop of maize ripening in the fields, and an end to the current relief programme. Of course one good harvest will not solve Malawi's food security problems, which are deep-seated and enduring, but it will give people some respite and something to celebrate for once.
Q - Which singing group released a single in the late 1980's with the same title as this post? A bag of maize to the first correct answer posted.
Cheers all,
Andy

You know you're in Africa when . . .

2005-11-26T21:00:00.000+02:00

You rush to attend a funeral and after arriving, sit around under a mango tree for three hours with nothing apparently happening.
At a communal meal, you are handed a plate with a large chunk missing, which the host cheerfully announces has been gnawed away by a rat.
You see a chameleon on your way to town, and a hyena prowling around in the evening.
When the harmonies in church are so complex and interwoven, you have no idea what the main melody line is.

2005-11-12T21:56:00.000+02:00

This one of our three distribution teams, who are pretty busy with the food distributions taking place almost every day. We have had lots of visitors, from Tearfund, the EU, USAID and journalists covering th situation. Under political pressure, the President has now declared a state of disaster, but we are yet to see what effect that will have on the donors. Tearfund have apparently decided to launch a full appeal for Southern Africa towards the end of this month, next week we have a media team from them coming to film and get more information for the publicity campaign. The rains have just about started now, in some areas people have been confident enough to plant their maize, lets pray the rains continue consistently for the next four months so we can all draw breath and forget about food aid for a while!

Its all rather strange

2005-10-26T04:39:00.000+02:00

Hi everyone who looks at this thing - havn't had time to post anything for a week or two.

Sometimes we end up in these situations which remind us how truly "African" things are here in Africa! Our housekeeper Martha recently attended a community meeting the purpose of which was to discover who had been allegedly practising witchcraft, since a baby had recently died. The presumed cause was some kind of curse rather than any conventional medical explanation. The meeting was held on a Sunday, lots of people from our church went along after the service, showing how deeply held traditional/cultural beliefs can mingle with conventional Christianity.

Then yesterday our night-guard came to the door, obviously quite poorly, asking for time off to go to his village so he could take some traditional medecine for his sickness, which he called "Chimutu" - literally big-head. I'm sure that herbal medecine has its place, but so often we hear stories of people getting worse after trying that route. The symptoms he described (fever, headache, pain in the joints) sounded much more like common malaria, which after a quick trip to the clinic for a test was confirmed. He's on the mend after a shot of quinine, its interesting to note that he could very well have been given a treatment called artemeter, a "herbal" medecine which the Chinese discovered and is now one of the front-line treatments.

Our relief projects have had a lot of visitors over the last week or so - representatives from the EU delegation came round, some visitors representing the US government's aid arm, tomorrow we have journalists from Newsweek magazine. The disaster hasn't gone away, despite the Pakistan earthquake being the main focus of attention at present. Malawi's President, under political pressure, did eventually declare a state of emergency about a week ago. Not sure what will change as a result of that,but it is an indication of how serious the situation is.

What can we do?

2005-10-10T07:10:00.000+02:00

Several people have written the last few days after the publicity about Malawi on BBC and other TV stations. I havn't seen the coverage, but I had a look on the BBC website and found, as usual, a mixture of the truth and some misunderstandings.
Yes, Malawi is in the grip of a food crisis, but its not a "drought" or a "famine". The last rainy season was shorter by 6 to 8 weeks than it usually is, but the real reason for hunger now is the underlying factors which have kept Malawi poor for so long: too many people dependent on farming; small farm size; poor farming methods; dependence on maize rather than a healthier mixture of crops; lack of off-farm income opportunities, and just a general lack of economic growth and development in the economy. Alongside this you have HIV/AIDS, 15% of the total population is positive and those most affected are the productive generation, farmers, teachers, nurses, agricultural extension workers and so on.

Food aid is already moving - and the UK government particularly has done a great deal to help purchase it. For those really want to help, I would suggest making a contribution to Tearfund, BUT request that it is spent on their long-term development projects in Malawi.
Tearfund works with a consortium of churches and Christian organisations here, and has strict accountability rules for its partners, and also promotes proven and innovative ideas within a process of sustainable community and church-led development. Definitely worth supporting. I should say that Emmanuel International (who we work for) is one of their partners.

Those first precious drops of rain . . .

2005-09-29T21:16:00.000+02:00

This morning, after a night of distant thunder rumbles, we had our first "rain" of the season. Not a real African downpour, more a sort of misty English drizzle, but as far as we are concerned it still counts. Since we got back here a month ago, its got drier and slowly hotter, then the last few days a swirling wind has been lifting up the red dust and spreading it everywhere - I come back to the office after lunch to find a thin layer of ochre covering my desk, paperwork and computer screen. Even the light rain for an hour or so has done enough to dampen down the dust. This is not the real "planting rains" as the Malawians call them - we probably won't get any volume of water for another month or so, but the odd shower or to is so welcome - it reduces the sweat factor and cleans the sky - the haze which cuts off distant mountains is washed away for a day or two. It has even slowed the forest fires which have been flickering each night up on the mountain above our town.
Malawi, among other things, desperately needs a good steady rainy season - please add that to your prayers.

Yet another African crisis

2005-09-12T06:03:00.000+02:00

While here we have known hunger was coming for some months (in fact since the rains stopped halfway through the last rainy season) suddenly Malawi, and southern Africa, are on the news. The impetus was some kind of press release from Oxfam, who are partners with us in the consortium of organisations working with the UN world food programme. They must have a very good PR department because suddenly everyone is taking notice. A lot of planning has been done, food is already moving into the hands of hungry people, the publicity helps in that it focuses the attention of donors on the problem. (USAID is having an "emergency meeting" tomorrow), and hopefully brings in more resources. The key question for the next few weeks and months is an economic one - what happens to the price of the main staple, maize? If prices start to shoot up even more than they already have, it shoves a much larger tranche of the population into trouble - their meagre resources simply will not buy enough to eat.

First day at school

2005-09-06T19:44:00.000+02:00

Yesterday felt like the start of a new chapter, dropping Kezi off to start at boarding school. She will be fine I am sure, but its just that loss of control at what seems like a very young age, and really feeling for her as she negotiates a new environment with all that entails. To us as her parents this is probably the biggest sacrifice we have had to make in being "missionaries". Luckily enough I had to go into Blantyre again today for a WFP meeting, so was able to drop off the few things we had forgotten yesterday. Sounded like her first day was a bit mixed, but generally OK. (On a totally different subject "a bit mixed, but generally OK" - sounds like quite a reasonable epitaph to me). All for now folks. Andy

The Mellens back in Malawi

2005-09-04T18:05:00.000+02:00

Just writing a quick note a couple of days after getting back to Malawi. Our two months in UK were great, though a little hectic, particularly at the end. Some of the "hecticness" was not our fault, but just circumstances as we had to travel for several medical appointments which we hadn't anticipated. Also my Dad (John Mellen) was seriously ill and hospitalised for two weeks during our time there.
The last weekend we went to Greenbelt, which was great as usual but we weren't really able to do it justice - I think I only went to one seminar, but we did hear some great music. The Proclaimers were a highlight - those boys are fantastic songwriters. Also hearing Ricky Ross late on the Sunday evening was fantastic - I only knew one of the songs he played - an old Deacon Blue number, but almost every song was great.
The next day was a complete contrast - burying our "Auntie" Freda. Who had died the previous week. The timing was fortuitous bearing in mind our travel plans, and in a way its a relief that she is finally somewhere without pain. It was still very emotional though, as it felt like another significant person from my childhood was gone.
Back here in Malawi its dry and dusty, but at least not too hot. It will take a few days at least to get grounded, going to church today felt strange and I understood the least Chichewa I have for months - I guess it will come back with practice. A mountain of work seems to be looming ahead - no-one has been recruited for my relief position, yet there seems to be an increasing opportunity for developing the agricultural activities with Tearfund and other donors. I have made it clear I can't do both, but that's what I'm looking at for a while at least. Maize prices are going up, people are openly talking about "njala" (hunger/famine). Can't yet get a feel for how the food situation will work out.

First Post

2005-08-23T12:23:00.000+02:00

You have to start somewhere and this is it