Confirmation

Well it has been quite a week.  We started it of by working around the compound and sealing the roof.  The rest of the week was spent preparing for the coming of the Bishop on Thursday and then Confirmation on Friday.  There was to be 400 people confirmed, which did not settle in until I had sat in the sun for the entire process.

So the Bishop came Thursday evening and he was a lot of fun.  We sat around at the dinner table and joked for a few hours.  Then he went and was telling me about the history of Malawi, which was quite interesting.  He is quite the personable Bishop, which was fun.

We went to sleep Thursday and woke up on Friday.  Mass started at half nine so we had some time to get prepared.  I went for a quick run in the morning to a local mountain and proceeded to run up it.  As I reached the summit and as my lungs were about to explode I enjoyed the nice scenery.  And off in the distance I saw one which was higher.......so I will do that one in a few days.

When I returned to the house I was told by the bishop (or maybe warned) that this mass was going to be 3-4 hours long.....well okay, I have done it before, why not again.

So I showered and got dressed up in my black attire  and then continued
on to mass.

All around us in the farmlands and surrounding villages, the people had been burning the land to make it fertile again.

Allegorically it is quite nice.  To see new green chutes coming up from burnt ground.  Fire to destroy and cleanse and then from death rises life.

A nice way to start the day.

but because of this burning all around, there was a scent of smoke in the air throughout the day.

As I arrived, I was not too shocked by the amount of people there, but there was quite a few of them.

 This is only about 1/3 of the people.  I do not have a camera big enough to fit them all in.

I had to stand back pretty far to take this picture.  This is about everyone.  People were currently in line to get the Sacrament of Confirmation.  On the left in the picture is the choir, which were amazing.  And on the right is the rest of the people.

So mass started, and of course it was all in the local dialect.  So I ended up sitting around for the entire mass not too sure what was being said.  And going around and photographing also and smelling the smoke.

There was a lot of singing and dancing, even more than the first 3 hour mass which I had attended.  Here is Father Stephen dancing in the middle of the space.  The guy in the front, with the stick and green shirt, I had seen at a mass 2 weeks earlier.  He had some wicked moves with that stick, accompanied by slick dance moves.

We continued on through mass and I just snapped a few photos:

 Here is the Bishop.  Not smiling at this point ( I think we were 3 1/2 hours into the mass)

Father Stephen grabbed the camera and snapped one of me real quick.


So when it came time to confirm the candidates, all 400 of them, I had to run get some water because I was feeling a little light headed.  And they had been going to 10 minutes.  I left, sat down, got water and came back.  And they were still going.....and going.....................................and going........you get the point.

It took a while.

Father Emmanuel (little E), The Bishop, Father Stephen

(The Bishop was making a joke at the time)

So we finished up mass and then headed back to the compound for lunch.  Rice, chicken, nsima, veggies and a cold cold beer.   Oh how that was good.

So it was nice to speak with the Bishop again.  He was extremely down to earth and we joked and laughed.

As he was leaving, the Bishop asked if he could have a few items, and I told him that was fine, but in exchange I would like a picture of all of us.  He laughed and said, of course:

So this is all of us as the Bishop was to leave:

Father Emmanuel, The Bishop, Me, Father Stephen

After the Bishop left we all took a nap and then watched some German league futbol and I gulped down another beer.

It is Saturday night now and I am tired again because Father Stephen and I played a futbol match this morning which was a lot of fun.

Tomorrow I am heading out with Father Emmauel (little E) to celebrate mass in a village.  Then all of next week is the Youth Rally which I have been invited to be a speaker in.  

Lots of fun and futbol will happen.

The Roof

Well here is how this story goes.  There is a Health Clinic in Bowe, which was in shambles about 2 1/2  months ago.  A group of 11 came from Texas and we restored the inside of the clinic.  After we left the priests and the locals finished up the job with a few extra things inside, making the clinic useable.  At the beginning of August another group came, this time with 2 doctors.  And we used the clinic to administer medicine to the villagers. 

With that being said this is how we left the building.

As you can see the main joints on the roof got sealed to prevent water from leaking in.

But this was not enough.....

There were still many holes in the roof.  So this Tuesday Timeyo and I, after breakfast, got up and we had 22ish cans of sealer.

The sealer is the nastiest stuff in the world.  It is like tar.

So we went up to the roof around 8:30 and started work.

First we had to clean the roof.

Second we had to Primer the roof.

Third we had to seal the roof.

It was very interesting, throughout the day different villagers would walk up and talk to me asking my name and chatting for a bit.  Father (Little E) said that everyone was timid to talk to me but they wanted to.  And so they took the chance as I was out working.

This whole process took till about 3:30 in the afternoon since it was only two of us.  but the clinic's roof is now sealed and everything inside is protected from the rain.

I ended up only getting impaled by a rusty piece of metal and ripping open a blister on my hand.  So I need to wear better gloves next time I guess.

Timeyo and I after work has been finished (Credit to Father Stephen for the pictures)

The finished roof all sealed up.  The end is not sealed because it is not part of the clinic.  But we have extra cans of sealer left (we went through 18 5l cans and we have 5 left, so we are just going to seal the last part on Monday).

Up to This Point

Well it has been quite eventful since Wednesday.


We woke up on Thursday and left for Lilongwe.  We wanted to get off early because there were quite a few things we wanted to handle in town.  Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi and is quite a large city.  It took us just over 2 hours drive to get there.

The priests are holding a Youth Rally in Bowe and were interested in inviting certain individuals to come out and say something to the youth.  Our first stop was at the International Aids Commission, because Big E had an appointment there..........and after we got there, the guy was in another meeting.

We could not wait because we had other things to do.  So disappointed that our scheduled meeting did not happened we left.  As we left I looked at Big E and this smile grew on his face as he told me, "Luke.........this is Malawi..........this is how it is"  So we laughed and got back into the car.

Our next stop was UNICEF and surprisingly the same thing happened here.  And with another blown appointment and some very funny jokes, we left and continued on.

We met up with a lady there who was friends with the Priests.  Her name was Theresa, and she is such a wonderful lady.  It was too late in the day for us to return home, it is like a death-wish to drive at night on the roads, so we ended up staying at Theresa's house and watching wonderful Nigerian Soap Operas all night.  We all sat around and talked and had a lot of fun the rest of the night and the following morning.

Friday morning we returned to Bowe with a stop at Kasungu to check up on some supplies and get a few quotes.  The plan is to finish the Kalembe Rectory very soon so that the priests can live out there.  Right now they are having to commute.

When we returned to Bowe, everyone was tired from that long drive.  So we just took it easy the rest of the night.

Saturday was a day of rest and so we all kept to ourselves, except when there was food and when there was  football.  Saturday was the start of the English Premiere League so we watched a few matches.


Sunday was a great day.  I got to go out with Big E this time to celebrate mass with him in a village which he had never been to.  So it was an experience for both of us.  The road to this place was made for a 4 Wheel Drive vehicle and nothing less.  The village was extremely remote.

This is the setup that they had for the church when we arrived.

The ceiling was a little low and Big E and I kept hitting our heads on it.

Big E said mass and it was a lot of fun to hear the people singing and watch them dancing.  Out of nowhere at the end of mass he asked me to give a speech which was fun to do.  We had a translator there of course, I have not mastered Chetimbuka yet.

Finally after mass was over, Big E had the translator call up all the orphans of the village.  We had brought 2 big sacks of clothes and also my Aunt Suzie had given me clothes from a group she is part of called St. Paula's Threads of Hope.

So after calling them up there we handed out as many clothes as we could.

Here is Big E giving clothes to these two babies.

Here I am handing these clothes to the girl in the blue shirt.

Not all the children were there at the end but this is most of them posing with the clothes that we gave them.

It was quite a exceptionally good feeling to give these orphans clothes.  To see these kids and how happy they were when they got these clothes.  And how beautiful all of them looked once they put them on.  It was very good to do this and I will continue to do this as much as I can with the priests.

That made us very happy to do that, and then we packed up and went and had lunch at the Agrupa's house which was a dirt filled rice accompanied by hairy fried chicken.  It was not too bad.

We finished up and headed back to Bowe.

As I was sitting at the computer once we got home typing this, the power went out.  And it stayed out from 5:30 - 9:30.  The longest yet.  For some reason the power goes out almost every night and sometimes during the day also.  I do not know where the source of power is but it is quite fickle.

But we manage.  we have a good supply of candles and many philosophy books to read so we are set.

It is now Monday night as I am finishing up this blog post, today was spent working tirelessly on floor plans for the new Guest house in Kalembe.

Tomorrow we finish sealing the roof of the clinic and then that will be done.

Metric vs. Imperial

Well it is now Wednesday.  The trip for Kalembe was set for Monday but got moved to Tuesday.

Monday we had some different tasks to settle in Kasungu.  It was Big E and I who did this.  It was not a very eventful day.  Although while driving to Kasungu there was a extremely wasted dude walking in the middle of the highway.  Luckily Big E being a priest avoided hitting him but he told me that drunks stumble down the highway and night and most of them are hit and killed.

So in Kasungu we traveled around doing different tasks.  I remember going to the bank though as quite memorable.  It was 2:45 and the bank closed at 3 and Big E did not want to wait.  So he, in his calm assertive manner, walked in front of everyone and told the bank teller what he needed.  I in the meantime, stood chuckling behind him.

The next morning we woke up early to head to Kalembe.  There were 2 tasks to accomplish there:

1.  Install locks on doors on the new rectory for Father Joe.  I believe 14 doors in total.  We want the rectory finished very soon so the Fathers (Joe and Levinus) can stay out there.

2.  Survey the adjacent site.  This is where guest housing will go, which also happens to be my first building.


So we left at half seven and it took a total of 1:41:52 to get to Kelimbe.  When we arrived we got right to work.  Timeyo and I worked on installing the door locks:

This is Timeyo working on one of the locks.

After this we had lunch and then took a site visit.  For lunch we had nsima (pronounced See-ma).  Which is powdered maize and water (I believe that is correct), chicken and greens.  It was good and we had some laughs.

Big E on the left and Father Joe

Father Joe and I and the Agrupa of Kalembe

Agrupa is the man in charge of religious affairs.  i am still not completely clear on what agrupa means but he organizes and runs a lot of stuff.

So after lunch we went and did a quick site analysis for the new guest house.  

This is a collage of the site.  There is a 1:6 slope on the site which will make it interesting.  The building which you see in the background is the rectory which is almost finished.  They were installing some of the final flashing on the roof while we were leaving.

It is now Wednesday night and the power has just come back on, hopefully long enough for me to finish writing this entry.

Tomorrow we head to Lilongwe to take care of some business and work out details for my visa.

As of this moment I have a 30 day visa but am going to apply for a 1 year visa.

The Bishop of Mzuzu is coming to stay with us in 2 weeks so he can perform some Baptisms and Confirmations and so we are preparing for that.  And by we I mean the priests, I am just sitting around sketching buildings and stuff.

Next week school starts again here which will be good because I can join in on some football matches.  Also this weekend the Premiere League starts (Saturday) and each priest and half-priest (which they have labeled me) have their favorite clubs, which are all different of course.  So it will be quite passionate and eventful once those matches start.

And I almost forgot about the whole title of this entry.  When I was trained at school everything we did was in the Imperial system, and I am quite used to estimating dimensions in feet and inches.  But lo and behold they use Metric here.  So it was quite a difficult day when I was drawing up floor plans and did it all in feet and realized I needed to convert to meters.  

So meters won this round.

The First Week

I understand now why my Granny was a tough person but at the same time cared so much about me.

My Granny was the head of nurses at the VA in Lubbock for quite some time, and I am sure that the things which she saw come through the hospital had an affect on her.

This realization came to me on Wednesday as we were running a health clinic.  We had run 1 on Sunday in our home village of Bowe.  And then had gone out Monday and Tuesday to different villages to administer health and medicine.

It was not until Wednesday though that I was affected.  I woke up at 5:30 in the morning and did my exercises and continued to Church at 6.  We ate breakfast afterwards and then hopped in the trucks and headed towards the next village.

It was all of 45 minutes away, although riding in the back of a truck on bumpy roads the whole way makes the trip seem much  longer.

We finally reached the village, which was a central village and there were lines of people outside waiting for us.

So we set up inside this building, which was a church.  So we set up the pharmacy on the altar and made sure it was not a sacrilege before we did (Father Stephen said no) and we started work.  The pace was good and people were coming in but what I noticed is that these people were really sick.

It was like I could feel death lurking around.  And what I found out later was that in these villages 3-4 people would die a week.  One of our first patients in there was a young boy who was an epileptic and while he was there he was having seizures.

This was a hard one to deal with.  I happened to be the one who had to go give his father and mother the seizure medicine for him.  That is his father sitting next to him.  As hard as it was at this moment I was glad to see later, after the boy had taken his medicine, to stand up and walk out of there.  We were all very happy after seeing that.  I realized at this point about my Granny.  That there was a switch which you had to develop when treating people.  One which you had to switch on while you were at work and one which you could turn off when you leave.  But with everyday exposure to that environment I could see how that would become part of ones personality.

The rest of the time Tom and I were quite busy running the pharmacy and did not have much time to do anything else.  Actually it was a very depressing day because of all the sick people we saw.  When Tom and I would work it would be from 9-5 standing on concrete all day, rushing around all the time.  Nevertheless it was exhausting to do.

We did this all day and never got a break from anything.  About 45 minutes before we left we heard drums outside and people singing, but we could not leave our post because people needed their medicine.  So Tom and I quickly looked at each other and grabbed his son and this girl named Madison and had them replace us.

We rushed outside and the local choir had assembled and were dancing and signing.  Standing there and watching them I could just feel a heavy weight being lifted off of my shoulders.  It was so relieving to see that after all the pain and suffering we had seen all day.

When we returned home that night the doctors administered antibiotics to all of us because of what we had been potentially exposed to that day.

The next day one doctor was sick and so only half the crew went to the clinic.  I could feel the tension in the air from the day before.  It had never left us.  We finished up that day treating a total of 162 patients which was quite amazing.

This is Father Stephen and our great interpreter and helper Timeyo.

The next day (Saturday) we headed to Kasungu National Park.  It was about a 3:15 drive which was not too bad for the game we were promised.

As it turned out though, the park had been poached out and there really was not anything to see......except some fat lazy hippos.

So that night we took a drive (four of us: Scott, Phyllis, Tom......Me) to Blackrock Hill.  It took about 30 minutes and we got to this hill and headed to the top.  I am not sure what to call it, a hill or a mountain or what.  Regardless of all that, it did not take too long to climb and once we reached the summit we could see the entire park and even over into Zambia.

scott, phyllis, tom, luke

Tom just made a damn funny joke and had me laughing pretty hard

It is now Sunday night and I returned from a 5 hour car ride with Father Stephen.  We went to two villages today and said mass.  This was followed by Father Stephen introducing me to the village and them me shaking all their hands.  It was a lot of fun and I started working on my dance moves in Church.

Tomorrow we head to Kelimbe where I am starting to draw up plans for a dormitory.

Never did I think that riding in the back of an old truck, through an hour of bumpy roads, sitting in chicken scat the whole time would be worth it.

But let me explain before how I got to this point.....

We arrived on Saturday at about 7:00 pm and did not have much to do.  Our plan was for the next day to run a clinic at the new Health Clinic which we had put so much effort to restore.  The minister from the government came and inspected the clinic and was very happy with it.

Saturday night was spent in preparation for Sunday's clinic, but as we saw over the next three days, we were never prepared enough.

Sunday started with mass at 7 which was very nice.  The Malawian's have a unique ability to sing, without having professional singing lessons.....and all of them can do it.

So mass is always an adventure, waking up to the songs sung by the Malawians.  I think that it has something to do with the way in which their language and phonetics are set up.  Their words are very drawn out, a theory though.

We started the clinic and I was surprised because the whole day we did not have as many people as we thought.  But we treated and such, we had the entire pharmacy there so no problems.  We treated a total of 78 people.

Sunday went by pretty fast and then it was time for dinner.....chicken.....rice.....and beer.

We had already packed everything for Monday where we were going to drive out to a village and set up a clinic there.

Monday rolled around and mass was at 6 this time...and the same routine with the mass with the wonderful and extremely enjoyable singing.  After this we prepared to leave to a village.  It was about 30 minutes away but 20 of that was on a very bumpy dirt road, which was not very fun.

When we reached the village we set up 2 rooms.  One room was for the triage (spelling?) and the other one was for the doctors and the pharmacy.  We started work and Tom and I someone got into pharmacy duty.

All people come in, go through the triage and get their basic information, blood pressure, weight and age taken.  Then they see the doctor and they are diagnosed and what medicine they needed and the amount is written down.  Then it is passed on to the pharmacy.

I am not sure about the other two positions but it seems like insanity in the pharmacy (which is set up on a storage box).   But throughout the day Tom and I were backed up on orders but we had a damn good system down working with each other and burned through all of them.  We ended up running out of medicine once and Scott and Big E had to drive back to the village to get more medicine(this would not be the case for the next day).  In the end we got through 178 patients, which was a great deal for us because we helped those people a lot.

We packed everything up and then headed back to Bowe and had dinner......chicken.......rice......2 beers.

The next morning it was the same routine but this time the village was 1:19 away but most of that was on a bumpy dirt road which was not very enjoyable.  We got to this village with plenty of medicine because we were not going to drive back for more.  And this time we had the same setup, Tom and I were pharmacy and the doctors.  Kristi was running triage.

This time (today) we got through 138 patients.  It took longer because there were more extensive tests which we had to run through.

In the end though there were some serious people in a lot of pain which we helped out a lot and, fighting back the tears sometimes, we helped a lot of people out.

So we packed up, Tom was given a chicken by the village chief and then we took the ride back.  and as unenjoyable as that ride was, it was worth it for all that we accomplished that day.

Monday and Tuesday when we returned the power was out and did not come back on till half seven.

We are continuing to do clinics for two more days and then on Friday we are heading for a safari.....how could I complain.

The Beginning

There is a reason I am doing this.

A reason that is driving me.

I am not fully sure what that reason is.  I can explain parts of it though:

It could be because I will be practicing architecture.

It could be because I will be helping the helpless.

It could be because I am saving lives.

Or it could be because I will become a better person.

it has often been remarked that I think deeply about things a lot.  Trying to figure out the truth behind something.  The truth behind my reasons for choosing this adventure.

I have that about this daily since I have been offered this.  I have surreptitiously injected it into conversation, hoping for an answer.  But no luck there.....



This story begins months ago as I was sitting in my studio at school working on my architecture project.  Want to end my last semester of graduate school with a trip somewhere.  I was looking for a place to go where it was not too expensive, but I had not been there before.  Half-asleep and working away I received a phone call from my mom telling me of their plans to go to Africa on a mission trip.  I did not think of of this at the time.

About 2 weeks later I was talking to my mom again about traveling somewhere and Africa came up once more and then the idea of me going.  This sounded great to me, so I scheduled a trip home to meet with our Pastor and then everything was set.

Our pastor was more than excited to see that I wanted to come on the trip.  The mission trip was to this country in Africa called Malawi.  Well they had me at Africa.  It did not matter much to me where, I was set on going now.  I was down for the adventure.

So the semester ended back at school and I received my degree.  I spent the next month preparing, organizing and psyching-up my girlfriend for the time apart.

The day finally came for me to depart.

There was a total of 11 missionaries and and 3 priests traveling back.  After a grueling flight and then a bus ride we got to Bowe Village where we would be working.  Our objective while there was to restore a health clinic and needless to say that over the next week a lot more happened to all of us.

I would digress too much if I went into that story though.

Needless to say after leaving Africa, making new friends and armfuls of experiences, helpe me to develop a perspective on things which I had not seen before.

It changed me and affected me so much that after coming back from Africa, I met with the decision makers and we decided that I should come back for a longer period of time.

At this point there is a constant psyching-up-of-the-girlfriend.

So we agreed I would come back to Africa with the next mission group but I would stay longer when they left.

So that is what has happened up to this point.  I took up residence with the priest's house.  Tomorrow we start running our first clinic.

This is a blog on my story while I am here in Africa.