Trip to the Capital City - Lilongwe

This past week Monday started a new experience for me as I left Stephanos at 6AM and climbed on a coach bus headed for Malawi’s capital city, Lilongwe. I settled in for the 4 hour drive and started chatting to my seat mate who happened to be a teacher in Lilongwe. I had planned to use those hours to prepare a short speech that I had to make since I wanted to speak to the children I planned to meet without the use of an interpreter. She was a huge help! It’s such a blessing to meet people who are teachers because they love their job and care about their individual students rather than those who just teach to receive their month-end salary. Needless to say, those 4 hours went by in no time.

That afternoon, I met 50 children who are sponsored through Stephanos. This is the biggest part of my work here. Some of them had received letters from their sponsors. Handing out letters from sponsors is one of my favorite things to do. The children are so encouraged just to receive something from their sponsor. It literally makes their day (and mine!). After explaining that their sponsors would feel the same way receiving something that had been written and/or drawn by their own hands, they were given papers on which to start drawing.

Something as simple as drawing and coloring is a thing that they don’t often have supplies to do. You will often see them drawing in the dirt with a stick, but not often do they have markers or pencil crayons. This activity settles them and they contentedly begin to draw whatever comes to mind. As they draw, I and those assigned to help me, make our rounds to help the young ones fill out what should be written. This is especially a challenge, since it must be done in English. However, together we make it happen.

Finally, once their drawings were handed in, they come one by one to have their photo taken. This is also something that they thoroughly enjoy! One challenge is the lighting though! If they are not positioned correctly, their facial features are hidden in shadows :)

Another experience in Lilongwe involved going to the Road Traffic office on Tuesday so that I could get my Canadian drivers license changed to a Malawian one. Now, if you know anything about Malawi, it’s that typically these things take H.O.U.R.S. When we first got there, I thought here we go. I had expected to be there all day. After crossing the city to the foreign affairs office to collect a paper we still needed we made our way back to the Road Traffic Office. Imagine my surprise, when we walked out of their less than 3 hours later completely finished, new license in hand. We were done before 12 Noon!

Wednesday was my final day there and I wanted to meet with the remaining children in the program. I had hoped to meet with all of them in the morning, but alas, not all of them came as we had hoped. This meant pushing off my return trip until Thursday morning and driving through the villages to various schools to find the rest of the children. Thankfully, we did manage to finish that day which meant I could go home the next day.

I was amazed to find that as I drove through Blantyre on my way home, it truly felt like I had come back home. After 6 months here in Malawi, it seems this has become home. What a wonderful feeling.