Category: News

Dear Friends of Bridges to Malawi,

Just wanted to thank you all for your generous donations. You gave us $6013 between Giving Tuesday and December 31, 2018!! Cindy and I were so inspired that we changed our minds and agreed to match many more of your contributions with our own money. We were ultimately able to match $5350, doubling almost all of your impact. Thanks again, hope your holiday season was wonderful, and have a great 2019! Brian Lisse, MD, (President, Bridges to Malawi) and Cindy DeRuyter, RN, (Brian’s wife and fellow board member).

 January 2, 2019:  Happy New Year to all!  Congratulations to Olivia Rainville, the 2018 high school contest winner.  She will be traveling for free with our annual Bridges to Malawi medical mission trip in April of 2019.  She will be accompanied by 12 other high school students, who will be paying their own way.  A 24 person team of healthcare providers and computer experts will also be going.  This the largest group we’ve ever had and includes many people new to the organization.  We’re very excited to have them all along with us!

October 18, 2018: The Annual Bridges to Malawi High School Contest lectures and test will be held at the First United Methodist Church in Hudson, MA. First set of lectures 6PM-9PM Saturday November 3, 2018. Second set of lectures and test will be held 6pm-10pm on Saturday November 10, 2018. Nonrefundable registration fee of $75 is due on Nov 3. Students eligible for this contest include high school Juniors and Seniors from Marlboro, Hudson, Nashoba Regional, and Ayer-Shirley Regional HS, UNLESS you have already been given permission to take the test by Dr. Hangen or Dr. Lisse.

Trip report from April 7-22, 2018:
The 2018 Bridges to Malawi trip lasted from April 7-22, 2018. The group in total consisted of 6 high schools students (Halle Hangen, Samantha McLaughlin (this year’s contest winner), Jessica Gordon, Maddie Edwards, Herzen Reis, and Gabriella Oliviera); Drs. Brian Lisse, Don Hangen, Lalita Matta, and John Lozada; Jennifer Hardy (IT teacher); Naomi Lisse, Maggie Del Ponte and Gail Benkover (chemical engineers); Louis Cote( English teacher); Jennifer Mehigan, NP; Andrew Gibson, EMT; Ellie von Wellsheim, Kelly de La Rocha, and Lori Ludlow of the Mooncatcher Project.
We arrived in Malawi and went straight to Mtunthama, arriving on April 8th. The next 24 hours were spent in travel recovery, orientation to the Mthunthama Anglican compound (living quarters, St. Andrews Hospital, Orphanage, primary and secondary schools, and the church. I purchased a polaroid camera prior to travel to Malawi; it proved a huge hit with the orphans as well as with the moms of sick kids at St. Andrews Hospital and at our outreach clinics. As usual, our high school students took an instant liking to the orphans, picking them up, hugging them and having to be persuaded to eventually put them back down again.
St. Andrews was full when we first arrived, with patients sleeping on mattresses on the floors in many places. Many of the patients were ill with malaria, dehydration, malnutrition, or pneumonia. Fortunatley this year, all the patients recovered; there were no deaths. We also met Karen Brokke, a Dutch medical student who had been working at St. Andrews for several weeks prior to our arrival. She proved to be quit inspirational, setting up a go-fund me page to replace hole- filled mosquito nets in the hospital and provide them as well for the St. Andrews’ family member “hostel” and the “antenatal unit.” In addition she storve to raise money for window screens for the hospital as well as for mattresses for women with high risk pregnancies sleeping till then on the floor of St. Andrews’ “antenatal building.” We took up a collection and provided her with over $700 to help accomplish this. Within a week, the screens were up on all the hospital ward window and we had helped place all of the new mosquito nets and mattresses.
As usual, many of our team members donated blood, including me. It’s always so gratifying to watch your blood being transfused into some critically ill person, especially if it saves their life! We also spent a lot of time aggressively treating a child very sick with asthma, and it was wonderful to see his breathing improve over the next few hours. He went home a few days later, completely back to normal.
We were asked to help interpret the ultrasound of the abdomen of a patient who had appeared to have a mass. The ultrasound was felt to be consistent, unfortunately, with metastatic cancer of the gallbladder. At least we could tell the patient what was wrong and give him a chance to get his affairs in order. So sad. There is almost no cancer care in the entire country; certainly none in Mtunthama.
I was shown the book used to list all the ultrasounds done since we donated the machine in 2014. The book must have had over 2000 names in it. I also noted that Peter Minjale and his fellow CMO’s have significantly expanded their proficiency in ultrasound; they don’t use it just for OB-Gyn concerns, which was the case when they first got the machine. This is particularly important in a setting where there is no other means of radiology imaging available.
One day when we were making rounds in the post-operative ward at St. Andrews, a relative of a patient asked to speak to me. She wanted to express her profound gratitude for the indoor residual spraying we were doing in the area where she lived. She told us that there was, as a result, no malaria in that area, and that her daughter, who had worked as one of our spray operators. Made enough money by doing this to pay for 2 years of school fees as a result, thus enabling her to greatly advance her education!
Because of the difference in our skill sets, Don Hangen our orthopedist spent most of his days at Kasungu District Hospital (KDH), often performing operations on patients who could not be helped until he came back to Malawi. Drs. John Lozada and Lalita Matta as well as Jenn Mehigan, Pediatric NP, spent much time working at St. Andrews , but also had a chance to go to KDH and try to help out. I spent my inpatient clinical time working exclusively at St. Andrews. All of us healthcare providers had an opportunity to be involved in rural outreach clinics which were held in 3 different villages on different days. We saw about 1,000 patients overall doing this, diagnosing and treating much malaria, but many other significant illnesses as well, sending about 10 patients to the hospital for further treatment and work-up.
Over the 2 weeks of our trip, we also toured various sites of BTM development work. Because of time limits, it was impossible for us to see everything we were doing, but it was great to have a taste of the level of our success! We saw an earthen dam being constructed by Land Lease farmers to help irrigate their crops. In this same village, we held a rural outreach clinic as well. As well on this day, Peter pointed out a farmwoman who had benefited from our goat pass-on program, explaining that she had gone from 1 goat to 6, and that, once she sold 5 of her goats, she would make enough money to send 2 of her children to secondary school (this can’t happen unless one can afford school fees and textbooks and uniforms). In another village a few days later, we met a group of about 40 farmers who had benefitted from our programs. When asked how many had received goats from us, all the hands went up, while about 2/3 raised their hands when asked if they had received a micro-credit loan from us and started their own business.
During much of our stay, our tech team, led by Jennifer Hardy and Naomi Lisse, spent an entire day at village after village participating in laptop donation ceremonies and then teaching faculty, parents, chiefs, PTA, school board members, and high school students how to type and use a laptop. In the 4 villages where this occurred, only about 4 of the 400 some students had ever seen a computer or had a chance to work with one. Peter and I participate in the ceremonies as well, but then went back to the hospital to work clinically. The headmasters of the school s took particular delight in showing off the lit bulbs from the solar power systems we had donated. Peter had arranged a K2TASO comedy team to help introduce the idea of solar power and laptops to the community (when Peter said we were stopping at Wimbe to pick up the comedians, I was sure I had misunderstood his English). It turned out that this group was using ancient technique (dating to at least the Greek around 400BC) to educate and sing the praises of our 21st century technology. The skits they performed were outside under the shade of a large tree at each of the schools we had helped. This made the whole experience even more magical. As if this weren’t enough, part of the ceremony included celebratory singing and traditional dancing by the students. In our speeches we emphasized how the solar lighting would enable students to study at night, which, among other things, will help improve their national test scores and thus give them more chances for future educational opportunities. We also emphasized the extraordinary amount of educational materials in the laptops, which are filled with Khan Academy, among other software. This includes most of literature in the English language, videos on biology, physics, chemistry, and other sciences, encyclopedic references, and information on modern agriculture practices, including conservation agriculture. In short, we told these students we were giving them a chance at a better future, a means to break the multi-generational cycle of subsistence farming and consequent persistent and predicable poverty by giving them a chance to farm better or learn skills useful in the city and likely to provide for a regular job and better income.
We also initiated a girl’s empowerment curriculum, working closely with our Malawi colleagues. We showed the movie, “Queen of Katwe” as a way of starting the conversation about gender equality since it’s the story of a poor African girl who becomes a chess master, easily beating her male competitors. This generated lots of discussion and interest. The best comment I heard was that of a male teenager playing chess with another male teenager right after we showed the movie. He said, referring to his competition, “he’s our male Fiona,” referring to the heroine of the movie. In other words, he had taken the message to heart and was using the female character as the ideal to be compared to! We gave copies of the movie to each school we worked at while we worked with the local educators to continue the process of empowering girls further. We also donated chess sets as part of this process, assuming, rightly so, that the movie would generate much interest in learning the game.
As part of our development visits, we also went to a village where over 2500 BTM donated tree saplings had been planted and were being cared for in the hopes that a “forest” would result. The farmers in our area understand about the ills of deforestation and the consequences of global warming. They are interested in planting thousands more trees if possible. It was wonderful to meet these people and experience the depth of their dedication to eloping to reverse climate change.
Since we were last at the K2TASO secretariat, we noted several changes. First, Cindy’s House, the grain storage facility we had constructed is now filled with grain as well as the “mouse mitigation project” (i.e., a cat to keep our grain safe). Other parts of this building were being used by K2TASO for open air palliative care counseling sessions and also for the mooncatcher project (Ellie von Wellsheim, who runs the project, came with us again this year in order to do quality control and enhance the current program). In addition, the corn field surrounding the secretariat had been replaced by approximately 1500 trees of all kinds, including ones that will provide among other fruits, oranges, guava, and papaya to the poor beneficiaries of K2TASO’s work. There is a plan to plant another 1000 trees or more here. These trees were all provided by funding from BTM and are a part of our reforestation program. Always great to see our plans coming to fruition (pun intended!)
We left and returned home safely an exhausted from all of our hard work on April 22, 2018. All in all it was a wonderful trip, as always, filled with many incredible and inspiring moments. It was particularly wonderful to see how effective all of our work seems to be. Always inspirational to work closely with Peter Minjale and his tireless K2TASO colleagues. And always sobering to see how much more needs to be done. Brian Lisse, MD

From Peter Minjale, CMO, head of K2TASO, our Malawian sister organization:

Dear Naomi and Jane,

Chamwavi headmaster’s office has benefitted from the solar power as shown above. The same applies to the deputy headmaster’s office. From Right To Left: Mr. Gidala- Deputy headmaster, Mr. Masaiti- Headmaster for Chamwavi secondary school, Peter Minjale- K2 TASO Director and finally Geoffrey Kamkwamba- The man behind the success of the entire solar power installation as he has done the good work. Thanks to William Kamkwamba, Geff’s cousin for connecting us to this blessed hands man.
We will also donate cement and the school will manage river sand and labour for the sealing of the electricity pipes so that they invisible.
We are very grateful to BTM, Jane, Naomi and all the people behind support of introducing computer studies here in rural Malawi, Kasungu east.
Best wishes.
Peter.

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Dairy Industry:

Our final new 2018 project is not really new, but a direction to be headed in on a road we’ve already taken. I’m talking about cows. If you’ve been following us at BTM for awhile, you’d know that we have managed, thus far, to donate 24 cows in our area of the Kasungu East District. Most of these are females, and, therefore, milk producers. It is our hope that we will reach a critical mass of donated cows at some point in the future which will produce enough milk to make a milk processing center and distribution network worth attempting. Sometime after that, if enough milk is produced it could be provided to primary school students in the local schools, improving nutrition while establishing a market and helping raise the economic standards of the local farmers. The Heifer Foundation has done something just like this in southern Tanzania, about 120 miles north of the Kasungu East District. Heifer doesn’t do work in our area, but we think this is such a great idea that we hope to reproduce it. Our next new initiative for 2018 is a “Women’s Studies/Empowerment” Curriculum. This grew out of an ongoing colloboration with Tabia Kazemebe, a Malawi native who is currently pursuing a master’s degree in Boston. Tabia got in touch with us when she found out what BTM was doing in Malawi. Tabia spent time working with UNHCR in a refugee camp in Malawi which houses people from many war-torn African states (they are safe in Malawi, which is not a violent country). She was struck both by the second class status of her fellow Malawi sisters and of many of the refugee women as well and hopes to find a way to change beliefs and therefore ultimately the status of women in her country and perhaps, someday, all of Africa. To this end, Tabia is working closely with Jenn Hardy and Naomi Lisse of BTM, Ellie von Wellsheim of the Mooncatcher Project, Jacqueline Minjale of K2TASO, and Lalita Matta, MD and Louis Cote, HS English teacher, who are coming along on this year’s BTM trip. As we develop this curriculum, we are working closely with the headmasters of the secondary schools in our part of the Kasungu East District to ensure that it is acceptable, culturally sensitive, and likely to be taught. We hope to begin an on-line book club as part of this initiative. We plan to teach the first segment of the curriculum as part of our upcoming April 2018 trip to Malawi. Wish us luck!

The next New Project of 2018 is “Artemesia.” Consumption of the leaves of this plant has the potential of reducing malaria rates and perhaps effectively treating malaria as well. Although safe to consume by humans, for a variety of reasons, its use is currently somewhat controversial. We are looking into setting up a research study in Malawi to see if it would be an effective prophylactic against malaria. If you have the time, you should do a literature search on this topic. It is most interesting! Dr Lisse, President of BTM, will soon be meeting with Dr. Pamela Weathers, an expert on artemesia and it’s anti-malaria potential, to see what BTM can do in this area.

Next on the list of New 2018 Projects is “Conservation Agriculture.” We at Bridges to Malawi have met some remarkable people who are now advising us about the best ways to help the poor subsistence farmers of the Kasungu East District in Malawi get better crop yields in as sustainable manner.as possible. They recommended that we encourage “no-till” or “limited till” agriculture. This includes the use of mulch (not commonly done in Malawi), which provides more organic material for the soil, traps more moisture in the soil, and reduces weed proliferation. In addition, we hope to introduce the Magoye Ripper or a similar cultivation device. The Ripper is designed to minimize the amount of soil disturbed as crops are planted, thus limiting topsoil and moisture loss. We plan to conduct a study intended to convince the local farmers of the benefits of such changes in technique. Each ripper will cost about $100. We will replace all of our current plows with these and use them exclusively in all donations to aid farmers in the future. We hope to have them locally made by a blacksmith or two as a way of aiding the local economy, something we always strive to do. As part of our desire to change agricultural practices in the Kasungu East District, we will be paying for an agricultural expert soon to be hired by K2TASO, to help ensure that we carry out our projects in as effective and culturally acceptable a manner as possible.

Next is the “Palma Soap” Project. Palma Soap is an mosquito repellent soap which can be made locally in Malawi. Bridges to Malawi was instrumental in bringing Enactus Edinburgh (a Scottish University based group) together with K2TASO (our Malawian partner organization) to establish a small business run by local farm women in the Kasungu East District. These women have already made 40 bars of the soap and plan to ramp up their production as their market increases. This is yet another way that Bridges to Malawi is hoping to help the local economy and reduce malaria infection and death rates.

Solar Dehydrator
They say that Malawi has 3 seasons, the rainy season, the dry season, and the “hungry” season (when a subsistence farm family hopes to have saved enough food to live on while waiting for their growing crops to reach maturity and be harvested). Most of Malawi’s farmers don’t have access to electricity and so refrigeration is not an option. Survival during the “hungry” season is particularly difficult during those all -to -frequent years when the rains fail and reduce crop yields,sometimes making it a matter of life and death. We hope to institute small businesses which will produce simple and cheap-to-make solar powered fruit/vegetable dehydrators which can be used by farm families to preserve food for the “hungry” season.
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Solar Power Rural School Electrification:
Last year we donated a solar powered battery charged computer tablet system to a rural Malawi secondary school without electricity, teaching faculty and students how to use and program the tablets, which had been filled with educational software, including “the internet without the internet,” Khan Academy. This year we decided to power the schools directly. We raised enough money, with your help, to pay for the installation of solar power electrical systems in 9 rural non-electrified schools in the Kasungu East District of Malawi. The first school should have its power system up and running by April 7, when our annual Bridges to Malawi trip begins. We will be bringing approximately 30 more laptops to donate, divided among 3 of these soon-to-be electrified schools. We hope, by doing this, to enhance the education of secondary school students in the area in which we work, making it possible for some to become so facile with computer use that they can get a job in the city, earn a better income, send money back home to their parents, and thus break the perpetual generation after generation cycle of poverty inherent to the 80% of Malawi’s population who are subsistence farmers. We hope to electrify even more schools while providing more laptops over the next few years until every student, both primary and secondary, in the Kasungu East District can enjoy this benefit. We will also be covering the windows and doorways of these schools with mesh screen to reduce exposure to mosquitoes and therefore malaria as part of the project. Please help us out!

Learn about Our Most Urgent Needs

About

We have partnered with The Mooncatcher Project. A mooncatcher is a handmade reusable/washable menstrual pad. Girls all over the Developing World miss a lot of school because of menstruation. The school boards tend to be entirely men who choose either white or pale pastel colored skirts for the girls to wear as a school uniform. Many of the girls cannot afford underwear or bleed through what they have. Menstrual pads and tampons are expensive and hard to come by. Most girls will not go to school when they are having their periods, and, as a result, fall farther and farther behind in school and ultimately drop out. The Mooncatcher Project seeks to solve this problem by providing, free of charge, reusable menstrual pads to these girls. The Project is already in Uganda and Kenya and we brought them to Mtunthama, Malawi in April 2017. BTM purchased/donated 3 sewing machines and paid for the founder of the Project and her Ugandan colleague to come to Malawi. They trained local Mtunthama women how to make mooncatchers. These women will be paid a small amount of money to produce a monthly allotment of mooncatchers, following which hey have the use of the sewing machines for their own purposes (especially if they wish to start a small business of their own!) So far, over 300 mooncatchers have been made and given away since we started the program in April.

Update

Nov 2017

Dear Brian,
I hope this mail finds you in good health.We are fine too although its too warm here.  May you find the replies to Ellie’s questions on moon catcher progress.This is about the first amount of the set of pads you left behind in April this year.
-So far 300 kits have been distributed at All saints secondary school and  Chikanda community secondary school where  solar i-pads were distributed by Janet and Naomie.
-Jacqueline spent her time  together with the tailors in teaching the girls using the aids which you gave us for teaching.They also received calendars too so that they are able to know what is hapenning like during their ovulation and menstruation days.
-We still have the same step down as it was rechecked in the same shop and that its functional and they said that there could have been more current getting in to the step down than required so we still keep it.
-The new building is not electrified so we are still waiting for electricity
for the old office which we were using the time you were here. The tailors are
progressing well and they are really working hard.So far we have two tailors which you left behind and with the new one summing up to three tailors.
-From the money you left behind we spent abouK316 500.00 according to the exchange rate we used from the first set of pads.The tailors received K300 000.00 as per your advice.
-This program for moon catcher is benefiting alot to the school going girls because  previously there was a high drop out rate for girls in these  schools especially Chikanda Community Secondary School.
-As of our tailors,there is a difference in various developments in their houses since they are becoming empowered.
Lastly on behalf of my fellow workers at K2 TASO ,we are much greatful with this new project at our organisation  and also with much support and encouragement from BTM.Let me assure you that we will keep on working hard so that we reach these needy girls in Kasungu.
Lastly ,we wish you all the best as you are assisting us on this project.
Greetings and stay blessed,
Jacque.

This year we traveled to Malawi from April 8-April 23, 2017.  Our group totaled 16 at maximum and consisted of doctors Brian Lisse; Don Hangen; and Sanjay Ram (an infectious disease specialist new to BTM this year); Trina Carroll, RN; Jen Hardy (IT teacher at Worcester Technical High School and point person in charge of laptop/tablet donation to Malawi secondary schools); Naomi Lisse (chemical engineer and Jen Hardy’s educating sidekick);  Ellie von Wellsheim  and Phoebe Nabwami (our Mooncatcher Project experts); and high school students Hallie Hangen , Helen Crosby, Melissa Buck, Kaitlyn Libby, Samantha Cirillo, Samantha McLaughlin, Megan Haberle, and Kelsea Blair.

What a fantastic trip!  With the exception of our waterwheel project, still in its infancy, I can gladly report that all of our projects have been extremely successful.  And we’re only just getting started!

The first and most wonderful thing about the trip was what a marvelous group of excited, energetic, and enthusiastic high school students we had this year. All women!  All team players!  All indefatigable! Bridges to Malawi began as a combination medical mission trip/high school and medical student experience and each year I’m struck by how powerfully rewarding it is to see some of our future leaders, the ones who are going to help solve the world’s problems, cutting their teeth on global health and international development while working with us in the Mtunthama area  and know that we are a small part of the change they will someday bring to a suffering humanity.  You can’t top this as one of the world’s best experiences; it should be on everyone’s bucket list.

The next wonderful (sorry about all the superlatives, but what can I say?) trip aspect I experienced this year was that Malawi wasn’t brown and withered, it was verdant!  I started going to Malawi in 2012 seeing everything through the eyes of the doctor I am, but now, after 2 years of devastating drought and consequent famine, on this trip I felt more like a farmer, marveling in delight at how tall and healthy the maize (corn) was this year.  Know what that means?  Healthier people and that means less disease! 

Oh yes, there were still lots of people in the hospital both at St. Andrews and Kasungu District, but we saw only a few children with kwashiorkor or marasmus  (protein and carbohydrate malnutrition respectively) this year, unlike the last two.  As usual, we saw far too many children with malaria, some of whom tragically died from it, but what was different was  that none of these cases came from the 9 villages (25,000 people) currently being protected by the Rotary IRS (Indoor Residual Spraying) grant (with the exception of a few households that had refused IRS).  We, as usual, participated in rural outreach clinics in two different villages, both non-IRS, and found malaria rates of 52% and 61% respectively.  Unfortunately, these are typical numbers in this area without IRS.

As part of our time in the hospital, our students got to help as we, working with our Malawian colleagues, treated patients with pneumonia, asthma, dysentery, and seizures among other illnesses.  Some of our EMT high school students also got to watch Trina deliver a few babies and a few even saw a C-section.  Hard to beat an experience like that; still one of my favorite parts of medical practice!  All of the students had a chance to spend time at Kasungu District Hospital as Don worked with outpatient orthopedic and trauma cases.  Our students also had a chance to work in the lab, pharmacy, dental, nutritional, and HIV clinics as well.  As always, many of our group donated blood and had the opportunity to meet the patient (usually a child with malaria) whose life they had helped save as a consequence. 

Overall, it’s easy to say that the hospital and rural clinic experiences are life-changing for so many of our students.  Frequently, those who were considering a career as a healthcare professional will really catch fire in Malawi and know that they’ve definitely picked the right calling.  Occasionally, some students will be converted from “can’t see it” to “oh, yeah I want to be a nurse (or doctor)!”  Less often are those who are more interested in the development, cultural, or journalistic aspects of our trips.  They usually come home certain that medicine/nursing is not for them, but find they want to alter their life goals to include changing the world for the better.  As I said earlier, in so many ways, the high school students are the best part of the trip for me!

Since the last trip report, Bridges to Malawi has significantly expanded its development operations.  This was a direct response to the ongoing famine and the belief that good medical practice starts with prevention.  Wipe out poverty and malnutrition and you have a good start eliminating some diseases and significantly mitigating the effects of many others.  This is particularly true in a place like Malawi where 80% of the population survives on subsistence farming, barely making it when it rains and starving when it doesn’t. 

So we started a goat pass-on program, and a microcredit bank, and our Land Lease program, and cows and ploughs program, and irrigation projects.  Peter Minjale, who makes all things BTM happen when we’re not in the country (and most when we are)took us to meet beneficiaries of these various programs, and wow!! was it wonderful to see how we (YOU!!)  could make such a huge difference in the lives of the hard working impoverished farmers of the Kasungu East District.  We drove through villages teeming with goats and were told that this was a result of our pass-on program.  We met one women who had started with 1 goat in 2014 (given her by K2 TASO our Malawian partner, not us) and now had 8, which made it possible for her to help feed an extended family of 30 people (or more…I lost count), including her 101 year old mother . 

We met 5 women, typical of the 230 recipients of an initial microloan of $10 who had gone from subsistence farming to thriving business as a consequence.  One had started a restaurant, another a tea shop and bakery, the other 3 each had opened a small grocery business. All had paid off their initial loans ($10!) and some had enhanced their business with a second ($15) loan, also paid off in the case of the women we met.  In fact, Peter told us that 100% of the first loans given out had been paid back while 88% of the second loans had as well, with an expectation that the remainder would be paid back soon.   These women each had powerful stories of poverty and need before they got these loans and then told us about now: children’s school fees afforded, medical bills for sick children payable, solar panels bought, a pig purchased, better nutrition for all, and best of all, hope for the future!  $10. $25.  Imagine how easy it is to spend that in the US on so little; in Malawi it was life changing.  Remember too that the average Malawian family consists of 7 people.  230 x 7 is a lot of people whose lives we’ve changed!  We were overwhelmed and right there and then agreed to double the bank’s capitalization.

Peter took us to meet “Brian” and “Cindy” the cows, part of our “Cows and Ploughs” project.  They are both pregnant but had been used to plow a field before this was known.  I had expected to have a bull named after me, but I realized how much more useful a pregnant cow is, so I’ve decided it’s an honor.  Peter took us to the plowed field, and introduced us to the very grateful farmers who had not had to break their backs cultivating with hoes, like all of their neighbors. These farmers were also delighted to meet “the Brian” for whom their cow was named.  They were disappointed that Cindy (my wife and fellow BTM board member) couldn’t travel to Malawi (bad back), but were equally excited to see a picture of her which I had in my wallet and left behind with them.  As a result of this BTM gift to them, they hope to plant 3 successive crops this year, not just the usual single planting.  In addition, he pointed out that this field had been irrigated with one of our treadle pumps last year and produced a good crop despite the drought.  Thus far we have donated 8 cows and 4 plows to groups of 180 farmers each, and also donated 8 treadle pumps for irrigation purposes, again to large groups of farmers who then share them. 

Finally, with regard to development, Peter took me to a Land Lease Project.  13 of the poorest farmers in the village of Chiwela (about 2 hours from Mtunthama over a string of potholes that passes for a road) had pooled the money we donated to cultivate a ¾ acre field donated by a local chief.  These guys did cultivate with hoes.  They dammed up a spring to provide year round water, even during drought, and had raised 8,000 tomato plants from seed.  They had also grown onions, mustard greens, and  “chinese cabbage” from seed.  They had even constructed 6 inch high thatched structures to protect the seedlings after initial transplant.  The day we visited, we brought them watering cans made entirely by hand in Kasungu town from the remnants of automobile bodies (cost $2.50 each).  They sang songs of welcome,  joy, and gratitude just to me, Peter, and Patrick (K2 TASO’s microloan and Land Lease expert) since we represented the entire group.  Peter explained to me that the average tomato plant yields a minimum of 20 tomatoes and that 4 tomatoes go for about 150 kwacha (20 US cents) in the market.  Assuming that all 8,000 plants survive (I was told this was very likely) and that the sudden large number of available tomatoes doesn’t depress the market, this means that these 13 farmers are likely to make, at a minimum, from this one crop alone, about  $615 apiece.  The average per capita income in Malawi in 2013 according to WHO was $750.  One crop, $615!  This will make a huge difference in the lives of these people.

We did go to the Bua River where Peter was thinking of siting our first waterwheel.  It was clear that it wouldn’t work in the place he chose because the wheel would have had to pump water uphill, something it can’t do. Peter seemed to think that two other rivers nearby would be better candidates but we didn’t have time to check them out while there. He promised to take this up with William Kamkwamba when he arrives in Malawi next month.

Speaking of William, we also went to his house and met his dad, Trywell, and his cousin, Geoffrey, who had partially built our first waterwheel in Malawi.  He didn’t have a chance to finish it while we were there, but it looks like it will work, given the right site.  At William’s house, we inaugurated the “William Kamkwamba Museum of Science (or whatever he wants to call it) by donating posters (in English and Chewa) explaining the workings of the internal combustion engine, electricity generating windmill, and typical Malawi water pump along with a plastic model of the “visible engine”, and a cut-in-half real auto engine as exhibits.  We also carried William’s original windmill (no longer in operation) and placed it as an exhibit inside the museum along with everything else. It was a great start; who knows where it will end up, but the idea is to provide a learning opportunity for Malawi children that they wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Then there was Ellie and Phoebe and the Mooncatcher Project.  In the developing world, girls and young women often miss school once a month because they have no access to underwear and menstrual pads or tampons.  The mooncatcher project is designed to help a group of interested women start a small business by providing them with sewing machines and training in their use.  The women are then provided with materials necessary for producing the “mooncatcher,” a reusable washable menstrual pad.  They are expected to make a certain amount every month with the material provided.  All of the mooncatchers are then donated for free to needy girls.  In return for their free labor, the women can then use the sewing machines for their own purposes; thus they provide an amazing free service and they get to start a small business on the side.  So far, the mooncatchers are produced during “moonbees” in the US and also by groups of women in Kenya and Uganda.  Ellie and Phoebe agreed to come to Malawi to initiate a mooncatcher program with the help of BTM and K2 TASO.  They were amazing!  With only about a week to accomplish anything, they spent every day teaching, training, working.  It was such a pleasure to walk into the big K2 TASO headquarters conference room and find it filled with a busy group of women having a wonderful time as they learned their trade.  By the time we left, they were successfully making mooncatchers without difficulty!  Ellie and Phoebe both plan to return sometime in the next year to help grow the project.

Meanwhile, Jen Hardy and Naomi Lisse were busy every day with our laptop/tablet donation project.  BTM donated laptops to the All Saints School secondary school in Mtunthama (which has electricity most of the time) and the secondary school in the village of Chikanda, which has no electricity(where we donated a solar powered tablet system).  Both computers and tablet system were so filled with educational software as well as microsoft office, that they enabled the user to “access the internet” without actually being able to do so.  Jen and Nao spent every day teaching faculty and students at one school or the other.  Nao told me that in Chikanda the students had never seen a computer before, and they loved them!  At this school they had over 60 students show up to learn.  At All Saints, students and faculty came in to learn on Easter Monday, even though they were on break.  Jen and Nao left already planning next year’s trip.  They exchanged contact info with the faculties of both schools so that they could continue support throughout the year.  In addition, they befriended a local Mtunthama internet café IT expert to help continue the project in their absence.  They both plan to return next year to keep the project going and help it expand.

I can’t produce a trip report without mentioning that everyone spent a lot of time at the AMAO orphanage in the Anglican compound which also contains St. Andrews Hospital and our living quarters.  The over 70 orphans love it when we come to town.  They are all so cuddily and they quickly adopt their own special members of our group.  Most of our high school kids and Trina carried a small child on their back, Malawi style and, thank goodness, nobody dropped anyone! Don brought a lightweight projector and we had movie night.  He also organized an Easter egg hunt.  Both events were certainly a novelty for these kids and everyone had a blast.

As a reward, the group went to the Salima craft market after tearful goodbyes on the last day in Mtunthama.  From there we swam in Lake Malawi and spent the night on the lake.  The next day we returned to Lilongwe and the airport and flew home.

Sorry this report was so long, but we did so much it was impossible to make it any shorter.  If you want to see pictures to go with this narrative, please check out our facebook page (I haven’t figured out how to get the pictures on this website yet).  Thanks again for your interest and support!  Brian

 

February 2017: The rains have finally started and are persisting!  Peter Minjale says that there is hope for early crop harvest, thanks to our irrigation projects!

William Kamkwamba has come and gone.  Both he and his talks and his wife, Olivia, proved to be amazing!  He drew some very big crowds (overfilled a room at the Bolton Library with 70+ people!) and raised over $4633 in addition to raising a tremendous amount of interest and awareness in our work and the crisis in Malawi in general!

William Kamkwamba is here!!  He will give his first talk in Hudson at the Library today.  He is scheduled for multiple talks through Jan 21st (see schedule).  Please come and meet him and get your copy of his book, “The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind,” autographed (or purchase a gently used copy and have him sign it for you).  If you are unable to attend, see our donate page for another option  So wonderful to meet him face to face and have him join us in our crusade to help the people of Malawi.