This year we had a survey team, this team was made because one of the men from Mosaic who came with us last year had it very heavy on his heart that we needed statistics about malaria in Malawi. A completely preventable disease that is easily treated and cheap, but also one of the biggest death causing diseases in Malawi. The 'government' in Malawi do not understand how bad malaria is in this country. They do not see or know it as a problem, but if you have never had malaria and were not raised in an area that has it all the time then you probably don't know how bad it is. Out of sight out of mind right?!? So the guy from Mosaic, Joshua, decided to create his own app with a bunch of questions about malaria (once again I did not disappoint you all, I did not take a photo for you all to see exactly what it looked like and what the questions were so that you could have a visual, this would obviously be a good idea, and that is why I didn't do it, haha. sorry). His hope was to go through two of the villages in the two weeks we are there and go to each home individually and gather as much information as he can to show the statistics of malaria.
His app started with the head of the household which asked a bunch of questions for them, including questions like: How many times have you had malaria this year? In your lifetime? Age? How many wives do you have? How many children do you have? What their income is? How many animals? How many people live in your home? What is your job? How far do you travel to and from your job? Have you ever taken malaria medication? Do you have any side effects of the medication, and if so what are they? How far away is the closest hospital/medical center? Do you smoke? Do you drink? Do you have a mosquito net? And many more. We even got a picture of each person. The app has the head of household first and then there are different pages designed for each individual family member or person(s) living in the home. Each head of house hold had a number assigned to them, this was helpful just in case there was a family member that was not home they can put in the number and pull them up to have them answer the questions later, also because the homes don't have addresses, we could find them easier on the map that Joshua printed up and had printed on fabric to easily roll up and go (also would have been a good picture). Depending on how many people were in the household this process took a long time (15 min a person). Joshua was able to talk to some people about getting IPads for this process so we could travel the villages door to door.
At first we thought that we would have someone from our team use the IPad and a student would translate, but we quickly realized that the students at ABC college knew how to use the IPads very well and if they didn't they learned very fast, so they did all the talking and we were their just in case they needed a different way to translate what was being said to them. Because English is no ones first language, where we are. I was able to make it for one day during this process and I am glad I did. It was so amazing to see how every thing worked and it was humbling to listen to their stories. Something that I really loved was the reaction of our own ABC students, they were so excited to do this, they were dressed up in nice clothes everyday ready to get more information. They understood more than we did how important this information is for these communities and these families.
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| Since I cant remember to take pictures of anything IN Africa here is a picture of something a drew on my flight coming home from Africa, while my brain was processing. Please note the huge ink spot where my pen broke. |
I was able to travel through these villages and see even more than I ever have, I was able to visit families that were 'rich' by the village standards, and a homeless man who was the poorest of the poor. The circumstances were different but they all had similar stories. We spoke with a 15 year old boy who wanted nothing more than to get out of the village and go to school, because he knew, JUST KNEW life where we were (America) (he pointed at me) was so much better than life where he was currently, and he knew that I had no problems, worries or cares in the world, this boy was in high school, and his father is a farmer whose land/job was 20 feet away from his home, they had many animals, and plenty of food, they were considered rich by a village standard. We spoke to a homeless man who lost his leg to disease, who laid on the dirt ground every night right behind the home of the 15 year old. He was happy and really wanted his picture taken, and was slowly building himself a small place next to where he lay at night, he proudly showed us the 'concrete' ground and the very few bricks that he had already placed for his new home approx. 5X4 feet. All he wanted was a place to stay when it rained. We also got to speak to chief Chiliza, this was not something I expected to do. I thought that the chiefs would have been complete by this time, but they were all very busy, the survey team would go everyday to their homes to see if the chiefs were available and it just happened that chief Chiliza was. I got to learn his age, and his real name, I'm pretty sure I have mentioned this in the past but it can be repeated, but when a chief becomes a chief they do not go by their name, they go by whom evers name was the original name of the chief that first started, so his name was not Chiliza. I found out that he currently only has 2 wives and is in his late 80's early 90's he cant remember, he can't remember guys, he was surprise he's still alive. He has a bunch of animals, (how many animals a person has in a village can show you how wealthy) he said that he gets a lot of animals as gifts and just keeps them around. He does not kill them for food because he and his family are vegetarians. One of his wives lives with him and the other lives in a completely different village, so they were going to speak to her on a different day potentially. It was an honor to be apart of his survey. We spent all day on the surveys, and tried to get as many people as we could, as it was approximated that there were almost 200 homes to visit in each village (we found out later that it was less, not by a lot), but Joshua and his team were able to complete every survey.
This survey team was amazing to watch come alive. It was so beautiful to be apart of and although I do not have any information as to what is happening with the findings, I am excited to find out.
Thank you all for your support and prayers, love and thoughts on Melinda. An update on her, she had a double mastectomy on Wednesday September 13th and went straight into reconstructive surgery. They got all the cancer out, and she is currently in pain, but recovering well at home. Please continue to pray for her healing as well as the chemo and radiation she will be enduring soon. As you might know this part can take a toll on a persons health and body and strength. Thank you again.
If anyone wants to continue to support Live Love Malawi and the villages that we go to you can donate here. Please make sure to select Live Love Malawi, and write in the box what or where you want the money to go. This could be for bibles for the womens team, or mosquito nets for the people in the village or you can also help donate to get a vehicle for the Live Love Malawi team who if you read here just lost their only form of transportation after they were in a rollover accident recently.
