A Few More Months To Go

It has been an interesting last few weeks. I have been really struggling with feeling pretty useless and hopeless and finding that any ideas I have are quickly smashed. There is a constant learning curve of finding out more and more of cultural beliefs and how these impact the health practices of the community. Oftentimes, simple solutions are not so simple here and there begins to seem no solution. I have recently stopped helping at the health center because I am not very useful there since I don't know the language and to be honest most people here do not use the health center because they rely more on traditional healers and witch doctors. Instead, I am turning my focus to the community and doing home visits of children that we find are very underweight at the under 5's clinics. One such child that I visited is tiny and severely underweight. Any idea I suggested in terms of nutrition did not seem to be an option as the mother does not have any source of income and is single. She is feeding the child only nsimma, a local food made from cassava roots with basically no nutritional value. Even simple things like groundnuts are too expensive for her. I saw a few chickens around and asked about eggs, but the chickens do not belong to her. Plus, I am learning that things like suggesting eating chicken eggs is not so simple here. There is a belief that eggs are bad for children because they will cause seizures and that if pregnant women eat the eggs, the child will be bald. I am reminded of a Zimbabwean friend of mine that was very dismayed at my wondering of why people in the South African townships do not eat the many chickens that are wandering around aimlessly. He said, that you wouldn't dare eat the chickens because someone might have placed a spell on them. In the West, we often want to be accepting of everyone's cultural beliefs and say that they all have merit and value, but unfortunately many of them are killing people in poor parts of the world. The mother of the child I visited had gotten pregnant because she could not afford to pay the witchdoctor for muti, traditional medicine, so had slept with him.

I had a glimmer of hope this week though when I went for the day with a man working with the Malawi Council for the Handicapped. We visited several elderly people to give them dates of their upcoming cataracts surgery and also visited several children that have been helped by surgeries for physical deformities or prosthesis. An NGO in Germany pays the costs of the cataracts surgeries and fly an English doctor in twice a year to do 400 surgeries each time. These surgeries can usually provide lifelong cures to people. It was encouraging to see that this work is being done because I have often wondered what is happening to people with physical disabilities.

When I am discouraged, I often am humbled when I think of the impact of Jesus's life. It is amazing to think that he changed eternity during his short life and by surrounding himself with very few people. Sometimes, I think we always want the big solutions and to see major changes, but I am hoping that God will give me the grace to make a small difference in a few people's lives and to at least show them that they have value. I honestly can not imagine doing this work without the hope of Christ in my life. It would be too frustrating and hopeless.

Don't get me wrong, things are also amazing here. I climbed into the hills last weekend and saw the amazing landscape and I swim almost daily in the lake. I am meeting incredibly gracious people who call me 'Ama Molly' and have been hit on by more men than I have ever in my life (Some of them incredibly good-looking), unfortunately there are quite a few cultural differences:->. It would be nice if Western men thought the bigger and curvier the better, but I think that is a losing battle. Anyway, I am continuing to be challenged and growing more than I could have ever hoped for. I am down to my final 2 months and it is sure to continue to be interesting.