What is the biggest challenge you will face in the next six months?
I must admit, I really had to think when this question came up a few days ago. [Edit: And that was before Cyclone Freddy hit Malawi!!]
That’s 3 litres of music there. And you have NO IDEA how sweet it sounds!
Over four years ago, Goodson and I were travelling home from Lilongwe (Lee-long-way) when the engine in my Isuzu pick-up packed in.
It wasn’t a good situation. We were a couple of hundred Kms from home, on a section of road which skirts along the edge of Mozambique. It’s an area notorious for armed bandits who take advantage of the open border. And there was only a hour or two of daylight remaining.
The car had overheated several times recently, so I put in a distress call to the mechanic who’d been working on it.
He disowned me.
I’m still amazed at times that you can get internet coverage in the middle of Central Africa. Then, I was just grateful. I repeated my distress call on a local Facebook group, and within a few minutes was in touch with another mechanic in Blantyre who had a recovery truck. Or at least, he knew a guy with a recovery truck. He’d get on the road immediately. And a couple of hours later he did.
It’s a beautiful part of the country, but I wasn’t much enjoying the scenery as the evening shadows lengthened. A small crowd of interested onlookers gathered. Some were drunk. Or had been smoking dope. Or both. Some offered kuteteza – to protect us (for a fee, implied). Hmm. Friend or Foe? I don’t know.
It was very late when the recovery truck arrived. The Isuzu was winched aboard, we paid our protection money, and were on our way.
When travelling to/from Lilongwe, we used to joke, why not take the short way? I can tell you, it was a long way in a recovery truck, but I didn’t complain. And, boy was I glad when we rattled into the yard of the workshop – even if it was the wee, small hours.
Where the car remains until today.
The story is a familiar one in Malawi. Relievable parts are hard to find. Reliable, skilled people are scarce as hens’ teeth. Trust me. I know. I’ve dealt with more than my fair share of turkeys!
My mechanic – we’ll call him Mike – has had his problems. His problems became my nightmare. Unanswered calls. Unfulfilled promises. Over and over again he assured me the car would be ready “next week”. Over and over again, it wasn’t.
So, to say I was sceptical when he told me it was running, would be an understatement. I’ve lost count of how many different things he claimed he tried. But he invited me to come for a spin – and wow – it spun! When I arrived at his place, the car was sitting out front with the engine running – music to my ears!
Mike has lost weight and is looking well.He’s off the booze, eating healthy and working out. After a “nasty separation, he’s dating a nice Christian, is slowly getting back to church,and has lots of good people in his life.” As he thanked me for my patience, and apologised for letting me down, I reminded Mike that going to church won’t take him to heaven, and that it’s the Lord he needs in his life. “Yeah, yeah” he said , “we need a good talk.”
Pray for Mike. A few of you know his real name. Better still, the Lord knows everything about him. Pray that the Lord will really work in his heart and that he will repent and trust the Saviour.
And pray too that he won’t let me down with the remaining repairs on the car. CV joints, ball joints and bushes he can find in Malawi. Some other stuff, I’ll bring from the UK. Maybe if the Lord tarries we’ll have the old girl back in service again soon. After all, she’s spent 20% of her working life in Mike’s workshop!
To be brutally honest, I never expected a course on safeguarding children and young people to be so profitable – and so enjoyable.
I don’t think it was just the entertainment value of the numerous cars and trucks playing “stick in the mud” on the road passing the site. Or the valiant, if entirely futile efforts of the many muck-defying entrepreneurs offering to dig them out for a fee. There is, as you may have heard, “money in muck”.
But I digress.
On the contrary, our three guest trainers, Martin, Susan and Robbie from Tehila Zambia, did a truly fantastic job of engaging and informing us all. Their professionalism and passion for safeguarding children and young people was plain to see. And as usual, Brother Harold excelled in translation on those occasions when the visitors ChiNjanya was just too different to the local Chichewa to be understood.
A very good question. Children make up over 50% of the malawi population. Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the entire world. According to Unicef, a staggering 42% of girls in Malawi are married before they are 18 years. As many as 9% are married before they are 15. This makes a huge impact on education and literacy levels, as most of these girls drop out of education. These hard statistics bear out what we know intuitively after almost 21 years experience here.
Malawi has one of the highest rates of child marriage in the entire world.
Sadly, child abuse is a world-wide problem. However, as our course continued, I began to to gain a deeper appreciation of just how big the problem is.
Some cultural practices encourage children to be sexually active at a very young age. Many children in their early teens still attend initiation camps where they learn, and often practise, the secrets of adulthood. Incredibly, some people believe that having sex with a young child will bring them success in their business or career. These, and other beliefs, put children at great risk.
Edit: In the 24 hours since I wrote this piece I have had a further disturbing conversation with a sister in the Lord who works with orphaned children in the Central Region of Malawi. She told me that 90% of the girls she works with have been sexually abused, some from as early as 3 years. One young girl has been left deeply traumatised as a result of being repeatedly raped from 5 years old. Most of the abuse is by family members.
Almost all of us agree on the need to safeguard children against sexual abuse. However, I was equally struck by the many other risks facing children in Malawi. Honestly, I hadn’t thought enough about the issue of children “footing it” when going to school, or our programs at Saidi. You can see from the photos of the “stick-in-the-muds” above that heavy rains can make travelling treacherous. Children walking on village paths often have to negotiate swollen streams and broken bridges. In so doing, they put themselves at great risk.
some people believe that having sex with a young child will bring them success in their business or career
Not to mention, the very real threat of abduction!
You may think it incredible, but stories abound of kidnappers abducting adults and children to traffic them, or to harvest their body parts for ufiti – witchcraft!
The dangers are real – and plentiful.
Which is why we were so happy to welcome several local community leaders (village chiefs) and representatives of the local police unit to our week of training. Although it’s important to have a Child Protection Policy, together, we were able to explore ways to really protect children. We are less interested in just satisfying our legal obligations than we are in genuinely safeguarding children and young people in Malawi.
And so the journey begins!
As I anticipated, there has been real interest in MGO 2023. Although we are not fully subscribed, there are limited places remaining.
If you think you may be interested in joining MGO 2023, we strongly recommend that you fill out the application form soon. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you are committed to going – there is still a month or two before we require deposits to be paid.
