Hello everyone! It’s Natasha and Sophie again. This is a bit of a combined update of our last day, with our Malawi University of Business and Applied Science (MUBAS) meeting, water tests, grocery stores, many chats with Sue, a bookcase, and more!
On Monday, we woke up bright and early to meet the Civil Engineering department head at MUBAS. We were planning on working together on a water test at the schools in Makwelani Village! We rushed over with Sue and John since we were running late as usual. However, despite being in collaboration since June, some miscommunication made it so we ended up needing to wait for a while before meeting with another professor.
In the meantime, we chatted with Sue while we were waiting, catching her up more about what EWB did last year, and what we hope to do for the future! We learned that Joshua supports a couple students every once in a while, to go to University, which was pretty cool!
Finally, we met with the professor, a technician, and 3 students at their lab, made some introductions, and gathered the supplies we needed for the water testing. Since it was a bit pulled together because of the miscommunication, we only could do on site tests, and would have the biological testing conducted by the technician the next day.
We drove from MUBAS to Makwelani in 2 cars, with the MUBAS students and our CivEs (Sophie, Adda, and Annie) heading straight to Makwelani. When we arrived, we met up with the Chief, Steve, and other members of the village CBO. We got straight to work doing the testing at the borehole outside the primary school. The technician did a great job of explaining each step, and it was really cool to see how the tests are done.
We were then guided to the borehole near the CBCC (community based care center, essentially the preschool) and tested that borehole. This borehole had a new type of sinks which were interesting to see. Here, the technician allowed the MUBAS students to do the testing, and Adda and I (Sophie) got to assist with timing and scribing. Hopefully next time we can be even more hands on. All of the levels were within a safe range so far, but we are still waiting on many tests to be done.
Meanwhile, Natasha, Gordon and Hudson went on a bit of a side quest to the grocery store “ShopRite” and bought some bread, cheese, and soda for lunch, and ziplock bags for soil tests.
We regrouped as a team and set of for some community interviews! At the past two villages we had stayed in pairs to minimize the number of interpreters we needed, but this time the MUBAS students assisted us with surveying and translating! They said that they enjoyed the in field surveying experience, and they were able to help us change some of the questions that were the most appropriate. We got all of their contacts and hope to stay in touch!
Natasha was lucky and met with some of Chief Makwelani’s brothers and their families and learned more about their lives. Although Chief was related to the brothers, she mostly talked to the women. It seemed as though they were head of their home lives so were more helpful to talk to? She wasn’t really sure about that part though. One woman sewed clothes, and the other gathered TONS of tomatoes. Another interview was with a grandmother who supported many of her grand kids tuition fees by making and selling “local beer”, or as Sue explained to us Moonshine made up of sugar cane.
We later gathered and ate lunch, while Sophie pulled me to the side as we were dealing with some more misunderstanding with Chiku back in Solomoni. There was some confusion about payment, which was eventually cleared up. We learned that working for free isn’t common at all in Malawi, and we chatted about the unofficial “welfare system” that involved paying people to help with small tasks. It was considered rude if you didn’t hire some help because it meant that you were depriving someone of a job.
We then went and visited a nearby health clinic sponsored by a friend of Sue and learned a lot about how healthcare was encouraged in the community. It went from community health education, fines for giving birth at home, free testing for various illnesses, and more! We met the sweetest nurses, clinicians and midwives there who showed us around.
We then went back for the handing over of books and sports jerseys (thank you Medford youth soccer, many Facebook contributors, and A Great Notion bookstore!). It was really heartwarming to see everyone gather together, exchange wishes for the potential future partnership, and place the items onto the bookshelf made that very day.
It was a long day so we headed back to the lodge and asked for dinner to get started, and gather together recapping the events of the trip with Sue. We learned a bit more about the fun dynamics over at Joshua, and played a round of BS. Soon after, we all headed to divide up all our stuff, pack up, and went to sleep.
The next morning was a lot of goodbyes, with a beautiful sunrise at breakfast, warm hugs with Sue and fist bumps with John. We have been traveling on planes since then, with a mini “food crawl” in Johannesburg airport, bumped into UMN on the way to Newark, and resting on the plane back to the US!
Bye bye Malawi for now! We can’t wait to come back so soon!
Thank you to everybody who followed along with our emails and updates! We appreciate all of your support and this trip wouldn’t be possible without all of you who donated. We hope you enjoyed keeping up with the travelers and getting the inside look into our project! Feel free to reach out to us to learn more, work with us in the future, or comment on what we did! Don’t forget to follow us on Instagram to keep up with us during the school year! Thank you all!!