The Final Days

Time is wrapping up.  Things are almost done.  Life is moving on.

These are a few of the thoughts which are racing through my head as I pack up all my belongings in my room.  As I organize all of my belongings into the crates I realize how may things I accumulated over the past 9 months.

On the many nights the power goes out.  We have charcoal ready to be lit to cook dinner

I will be returning back to America here in less than a week.  And in just over a month I will get married to Araceli.

The plan is to go on our honeymoon and then once that is finished, head back to Malawi just in time for the next group to arrive here.  That is the plan.

What  I have learned in Africa is to have many many backup plans because the first, second and third usually don't work out.

As I think back on all of my time living with the priest's I am astonished at how fast the time flew.

But this time that remains I have been working on one project in particular which is to help feed malnourished children.  I took a trip, as I wrote in a previous blog, down to Blantyre to get some training down there and this is what it was for.

We are working with a local Malawian organization to get the medicine out to the children.  This Thursday, after re-organizing the program, we are having the first clinic here to test it out.

A couple weeks ago we had a boy come in who was in pretty bad shape.  His legs were all red and he had trouble standing.  So I gave his mom a handful of packets of peanut butter and sent them off.  Well he returned this Thursday to get some more and he walked over to me and asked for some.  I was very happy to see improvement in this boy.

here is the boy

So we got him some more and will check on him again in 2 weeks.

That is where a lot of energy has been focused.  Other than that I have been working on finding a house for Araceli and I to rent.  So far, as Malawi has proven, nothing has worked out.  But am still trying and hopefully will find something soon.

I cannot write too much of my experience here because I have not fully realized that I am not coming back to live with the priests.  I believe though that after the change I will get a better idea.

But the reason we are here is not to live with this, or live with that, or have certain
accommodations and certain cars.  We are here to help the people as best as we can.  And this is quite a motivating thought.  I do have to say that living "like" a priest for the past 9 months has shed some light on my own life and how I live it now.  It is quite interesting the effects of living in solitude, silence and no electricity has.

I will see how this life-of-a-priest interacts with the life-of-a-married-man.  Interesting results.

I asked a guy for a few tobacco leaves and he gave me some.  This is one of them.  I cut it up and rolled it like a cigar and smoked it but it did not really work out.  I guessed on how to roll cigars and really did not know what I was doing.  But it smelled good.

I appreciate the support which everyone has given me over the time so far I have been here.  I plan on staying much longer as I feel I am called to be here for longer.

Since Araceli is coming back and staying with me (of course we will be married) she will be taking on a lot of responsibility also.  I am proud of her taking on this type of responsibility and life, it is not a walk in the park to live in the one of the most under-developed and under-industrialized countries in the world.

So we will continue to be here, taking it a day at a time, and God willing, continue our work here to help those who need it.

And I will also have someone here who can take pictures of what we are doing.  I find doing this stuff solo I always forget to take pictures.  So now we both can remind each other.