Sally Anne's Visit

I am planning on spending the next few posts sharing reports from visitors to Malawi about some of our work there.

The first of these visitors was Sally Anne Timbrell in 2009.

“My visit to Manyowe was truly awesome. In fact, I subsequently visited lots of schools, churches and orphanages all over the central and southern region but none was as moving or as powerful as the visit to Manyowe.”

She describes her wonderful welcome and meeting many people including the Chief of Manyowe Village (pictured right).

“However, the most challenging visit was to the home of a 14 year old girl, a ‘double’ orphan (this is a new term to me - double orphan is a child who has lost both parents, and a single orphan is one who has lost just one). She was caring for 3 siblings as well as 2 children of her own. The poverty and deprivation in this child’s home left me lost for words. The church is caring for them, feeding them and providing what they can for them. She had a baby suckling at her breast - and it was evident that there was very little milk there for the infant. The home had gaps in the roof (another issue for when the rains come), a few clothes were in the corner of one part of the house, and they were sitting eating some insima from a bowl - barely the amount you and I might have for breakfast. I must admit it was at this point that I wept. 

A major issue in the press at the moment is about girls being promised in marriage sometimes even before they are born. A new law has just been passed that a girl cannot get married before she is 16 - an outcry has arisen as women’s groups and health and education organisations believe that even at 16 a girl is not biologically, emotionally or intellectually ready for marriage (often to older men) let alone to take on the responsibilities of having children and raising a family. The girl in the hut is the result of such tradition and law. Unable to provide for herself and her siblings, Pastor Julius Damson said that girls are then forced to prostitution - with the resulting increase in babies and AIDS/ HIV.

The greatest killer in Malawi is Malaria. One of the most effective preventative measures is mosquito nets. These can cost as little as $4 - and can significantly reduce the death rate and illness. And yet, I did not see 1 mosquito net in all the homes I visited in Manyowe. Not one. Cerebral Malaria strikes with overwhelming frequency and invariably leads to death.
It would seem that there are levels of poverty in Malawi - and this is the deepest level of need that I came across the entire visit. It was heart breaking and left me deeply challenged. It is more than a question of throwing money at the situation - although that is desperately needed. It is about education, health and welfare.

Manyowe was, for me, characterised by the deepest level of poverty I met in all the time I was in Malawi. But it was also characterised by a deep sense of community, where the people are prepared to love and to serve each other. This sense of community emerges with the preparedness for people to find meaningful common goals and purposes (welfare, sharing of scarce resources, education, worship) - and it becomes a rich community because within the community there is room for diversity as well as unity.”

In this picture are: Sally Anne with Julius Damson (carrying the choirmaster’s son), some elders from Manyowe Church and Aise Kachenje (who Sally talked about in her report) with the six children she looks after.

Aise was married to an older man when she was 11 years old. He died and she was left with her own children and also several siblings after her parents died as well. She was 14 years old when this photo was taken.

We re-roofed her one room house and gave her seeds to plant her own vegetables, which she could then sell to make a living.