10/50 = too many

this morning i went out with the water&sanitation team to a sanitation training. the training is for members of a village in which we recently rehabilitated a well and teaches the importance of hand washing, etc. to avoid fecal-oral diseases such as cholera.

before the training started, we had the chance to speak to headmaster emmanuel of the secondary school which was allowing us the space for training. for the sake of conservation, i asked him how long he'd been headmaster, how many students he had, how many went on to college, etc. this year is his 10th, there are 300 students across the 4 grades, and about 3-5 go on to college every year, he responded. emmanuel went on to disclose his school's problem: young pregnancies. this school year alone, 10/50 first year girls have dropped out due to pregnancies.

10 out of 50.

i stared at him with a dropped jaw and felt shocked, sad and mad all at the same time. i was shocked that this statistic was so large, sad that these girls would never be able to see their dreams come true, mad that they didn't make better decisions for themselves. i looked into the faces of the girls around me and couldn't help but wonder which face would soon disappear from the school due to pregnancy. "they don't value their education" he explained.

endless questions overflowed my brain's capacity: what do these girls dream of? what will it take to decrease these numbers? why does this happen? and most haunting "what should i do? what can i do?"

so i offered to talk to the girls and lead a workshop for them. on what? i have no idea. maybe on leadership, decision-making, realizing dreams.

any advice is most welcome and needed (HE).

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and some fun stuff:
great great weekend (:

friday night; watched jack&the beanstalk at the international school, babysat for the eggerts, watched madagascar(go africa!), and stayed up talking to kathleen until 1am - weee party animals.

saturday: zomba market and bargained (YES, me, bargaining) 3 chitenges for 1500MK, went to thomas' 5th birthday extravaganza, and a bbq/meetup across the road that was full of masters'/phd students researching for the world bank

sunday: went to church in blantyre, split a boneless chicken lunch with kathleen since my order was missed, then no longer available, played volleyball(YES, me, volleyball!) with local volunteers, went to the local hangout to watch the confederations cup final (where this malawian man kept chanting "O-BA-MA O-BA-MA")

discussing ways that fecal waste can make its way to your mouth

paying attention in training, realizing the importance of hand washing

kathleen and i found a baby boy with asian eyes to bring home (:

im hungry.

my first full week in malawi involved 4 hosted dinners in a row, a chichewa lesson, liwonde prayer day, and 2 days out in the field.

on wednesday, i went out with the world food programme(wfp) staff to do food distributions. wfp has a FoodforWork pilot wherein beneficiaries work certain tasks and are paid with food. i asked kathleen what she usually does for lunch when she's out in the field and she said "oh, well we don't really eat lunch when we're in the field". oh...ok. i brought a kitkat bar along with me "just in case".

by 11am, we were at our 2nd distribution centre and the men had to pick up more food from the warehouse. i stayed at the school with another woman. the younger children were already done school and sat in front of me staring. after my failed attempts in conversing in english and chichewa, i decided to organize a game: boys catch girls. this took 15min. for the next 2h, we played any game i could recall from my childhood. 2h later the men return and we proceed with the distributions. by this time, i was feeling a bit lightheaded thanks to the hot village sun - what a change from the mountains. i take a sip of water and feel slightly better. the lightheadedness continued and mixed in with feeling faint. i continued to find comfort in water. i felt like throwing up but had nothing to throw up. at 630pm (almost 12h since breakfast), i finally sit down for a meal.

yes, maybe i was being a bit dramatic but eating 2 meals a day is not the norm for me. yes, i could have eaten the kitkat, but it wasnt something i'd be able to share with my 3 coworkers. no, i was not going to faint, so i just sucked it up. if my coworkers are not eating, i didn't feel that i needed to either. this is culture and i didn't want to be a weak little canadian girl.

the reality is, hunger and poverty is real. it's rampant. and this experience was a lesson in humility and simplicity. i'm learning to be sincere in giving thanks for food rather than just saying the words. most malawians can only afford to eat 1-2 meals a day. most times, the meals are the same: nsima, vegetables, and sometimes a bit of meat. one coworker was asked by a malawian "i heard in canada, you eat something different for 3 days". all she could do was smile and brush it off because in canada, it's very easy to eat something different everyday for a month.

so there you have it. the girl that loves food went struggled through 12h without eating (:

world food programme projects

water & sanitation projects

life. add water.

today, i continued my rounds of vaccines pre-malawi and only got 1: hepatitis a. the process is fairly good in that i am always required to read an information sheet before receiving the vaccination.

hepatitis a: is an acute infectious disease of the liver caused by Hepatitis A virus, which is most commonly transmitted by the fecal-oral route via contaminated food or drinking water.

wait a second. fecal-oral route? at first i was a bit shocked. how does that happen? how can that happen? but then i actually thought about all the knowledge i've been gathering on clean water solutions. in developing countries where a water hole is shared by one or more villages, animals, and development, how could this not happen?

water is scarce is developing countries, forcing any water to be communal. the water that you bathe in, that animals clean themselves in, that garbage is dumped, is the same water which is drawn to suffice thirst.

pause.

it's not fair. so what can i do? what can you do? support charities that give 100% to clean water solutions such as charity:water. come up with an innovative solution like lifestraw. other than that, i dont know. which is the hardest part. personally, when i think, watch, and read about clean water problems, i get this feeling in my stomach and this anger in my heart. it's not fair.

is hepatitis a something that you have to worry about every time you take a refreshing sip of water?

i know you can't wait. but i promise i'm going to help. help others help and think of new ways to help myself.