Two weeks working

Hi!

In case you've been checking the blog and seen that nothing's been updated, after I had promised an update or two every week, I thought I'd post to explain why.

The Bulls are in playoff mode and I've entered a comatose state induced by rapidly changing anxiety, europhia and I-Love-Rose madness.

But also, here's what's happening in my life.  The last two weeks, I've been working for Mary's Meals during the week, and spending quiet weekends in and around Blantyre. During the week, I visit schools and under-6 centers etc, which has been very interesting, though I'm not sure how interesting it would be to read about. If you want to know more about Mary's Meals specifically, send me an email and I'll forward you two articles that I've written - one about how Mary's Meals operates, another is a diary-type thing of the days I've worked here.

However (drum roll) next week (louder drum roll) I will be updating (will some please turn up the damn drum roll!) the blog with lots of interesting information and photos! Woohoo, photos! Tomorrow I leave for Likoma Island - a small island in the middle of Lake Malawi (actually, it's quite close to Mozambique, who call it Lake Nyssa). I'm going there for Mary's Meals to take pictures, videos, interview workers and children there, and generally gather more information to be used for donors, fundraising events and the Mary's Meals newsletter.

The lake and the islands are pretty idyllic, from what I've heard. They better be pretty idyllic given that it takes a 28 hour ferry to get there, shiiiit.

Until then, I'll leave you with a short article I wrote for the Mary's Meals newsletter titled 'Width of a Smile'.  Thanks for reading!

The width of a smile

I’d heard and read many things about Mary’s Meals, but until I’d seen it in action on the ground in Malawi, it was impossible to understand the full scope of the project and the vast impact it has.

For starters, seeing the children in the flesh; moving, playing, laughing, singing, eating, is quite an experience.  They look positively full of joy and life – not how I might have expected starving children from one of the top ten poorest nations in the world to be behaving. It was especially striking when driving to a school – I see how hard some children have it along the way; so skinny, no shoes, tattered clothes, doing nothing with the sullen expression of hunger and a deep sadness… it’s heart-breaking. But then you see the school children’s smiles and all the hardship seem to dissipate.  They greet Mary’s Meals vehicles with songs, laughing, and unbound joy.  They too don’t have shoes or clothes without holes – but the despair in their eyes is gone, replaced with shining, dashing pupils that inhale knowledge like the air around them.

For some reason, I always imagine what they’ll be like in twenty years.  They’ll all have a basic education; half might have secondary schooling; a few might go to university.  And then they will be working for this country – for social services; for businesses; for Mary’s Meals.  I see that one cup of porridge a day multiplying into an engine that propels this country forward.  It’s a beautiful thing.

This image is even more striking when I visit the under-6 centres.  These could have been the children I sometimes see sprawling on the ground in and around the street. But here are orphans and needy children being given love, care, education and at least two square meals a day, which means they have the physical and emotional capacity and strength  to learn – to go to school and progress like the other children.  Their leap from despair to hope is greater than anything I’ve seen.  Their potential, once capped at a cruel level, soars.  I don’t think it’s possible to understate the importance of nutrition, attention and education on a child’s development before they’re six years old.  The UN might have statistics to compare or measure the impact of organizations like Mary’s Meals, but the strongest indicators are the luminosity of their eyes, the volume of their voices and the width of their smiles.

I am thrilled by the immediate impact of Mary’s Meals and cannot wait to see what this country is like in twenty years.