Day 2: Aug 17, 2017. Thursday Having spent the first day of Rory Buckman, Elizabeth Bender, and myself, Dylan Jones’ inspection trip to Solomoni Village, Malawi checking into our hotel (and quickly passing out onto our beds) I was, along with a faulty Wi-Fi-card, unable to remark on my thought and send them back to Medford. However, Day 2 has proved to more propitious. On the first day of our trip, we arrived to an hour-long line to get our passports stamped at Chileka Airport, Blantyre’s main international airport. Joseph Chiundiza of Joshua Orphan and Community Care picked us up in a mini-bus and greeted us warmly. Once we arrived at Doogle’s Hotel (the main hotel for Westerners in the city) we discussed our itinerary with Joseph as he made suggestions (Sunday being a holy day and thus not the best for interviewing villagers).
After a night’s rest we left at 8:00 am the next morning to head into the city, where Joseph discussed common phrases and greetings in Chichewa for us to use. He also warned us we were about to be badgered by street vendors as we walked through the souvenir market. After haggling a quarter mile through we went through a larger market, and inspected shops we could buy supplies for in the future. At 11:30 we left for Joshua’s center and discussed how we would use Joshua in our project. Louisa Songol discussed our translator needs and worked out which day would be most efficient to conduct interviews of the villagers.
At 2:30 we arrived at Solomoni Village. It was about 4km from the Chileka Airport and another 16km from Doogle’s. The road leading in was unpaved and debilitatingly bumpy, and resembled a slalom course of dirt and discarded bricks. The village chiefs and the chief village head, along with headmaster Fred Kalinge and other community leaders dressed semi-formally and respectfully greeted us outside the primary school Joshua had helped constructed. We went on a small tour through the village only to be greeted by song and dance, as well as shy smiles from children.
When the time came for our meeting with the community leaders, Rory, Elizabeth and I gave opening remarks and a small outline of what we planned to do for the village and how we planned to do it. We explained that we had to interview villagers first so we would fine the best technical way to solve the problem and also work with the villagers so that they themselves felt invested in our project. The end goal is sustainability, and we did the best we could to convey how important community input would be in our project. Headmaster Fred explained his sincere gratitude to us and proudly informed us how ready the community was to solve its water problem. He told us that hard work was the ethic of the community and we would find no shortage of it here. Another leader named Chrisa asked us when we could install our distribution system and repair the boreholes, and I did the best I could to explain how we would need till May ’18 to map out our course of action, design the fixes and return to build them. I also explained how our university was similarly filled with hardworking and determined individuals and that we would be employing our full attention to assuaging their troubles. This answer seemed to placate Chrisa while Fred enthusiastically motioned for the group as a whole to clap at my response (he being one of the few English speakers).