A Wedding

The longer I wait between writings the more there is to say – I apologize in advance for my long-windedness.

Wedding Bells!

To add to my cultural immersion of late, I attended a Malawian wedding the other Sunday The ceremony itself was nice – held in the Malamulo church with many attendants (lots of children) who marched/sached/danced down the aisle. There was a choir that sang a couple of special wedding numbers, a unity candle, the flowers were artificial but the bride was beautiful. There was a hug after pronouncing them husband and wife. A kiss would have been way too much “PDA”. The reception was held about 2 hours later (after everyone went home for lunch). The DJ played music from huge speakers with the MC calling various people up for pictures with the couple or to give gifts. While up front they had to dance to the music while tossing money into baskets held by the bride and groom. Explaining it in words doesn’t do it justice and I’m sure you’d fall over laughing at us trying to dance. They called up the “white folks” and so we presented our gift and then had to toss money into the baskets. It was Cristy, Ali, me, & Demitrio. I’ll just say that we were all laughing at ourselves and each other!! Most people threw in 20 kwacha notes which is about 10 cents so there was money flying everywhere with us laughing at each other! Then after a few minutes more people came up and joined us. We made a lot of people laugh and the next day at the hospital it was all people could talk about and tease us about.

The interesting thing about the money dance is the freedom and joy that was on the people’s faces. It struck me (and maybe this is deeper than it really was) but this is one chance when you really feel generous with someone and a chance to give away something to help others. When you are so poor, like the Malawians, it is not often when they can be carefree and just fling money around. What an amazing gift and chance to celebrate with each other as family and friends. I was so glad to be a part of the celebration. The bride and groom made quite a bit that day – over $1,000!!! That is a lot of 20 kwacha notes! We have heard many times and even from the groom how much it meant to them for us to be part of the celebration and join them. What a special chance!

Investigative” Accounting

I admit openly that I have never done auditing and it is not my forte to find what is wrong in the accounting processes. However the AHI-Malawi board requested that I visit the Adventist clinic in Lilongwe and do a bit of analysis on their processes related to inventory. So last week was the appointed time and I took a bus up on Wednesday the 4 hour ride. The clinic is made up of dental and medical services. There is a couple from the Philippines who are both dentists and have been there 8 years. The medical doctor is Malawian and has been there about 4 years. I hope that the suggestions I made will a) be implemented and b) be helpful. My feeling is that once they are in place if there is anything questionable going on it will come to light.

Cristy ended up having a meeting on Thursday in Liliongwe too so she stayed with me at the guest house and we both came back Sabbath afternoon. On Friday after I worked in the morning we went with Clare (a volunteer from the UK that used to be at Malamulo) and she took us shopping, out to eat, to a used book store, and we even found a place to get pedicures! Lilongwe is the capital of Malawi so the base for many NGO’s and ex-patriots so for a couple of days we got to feel like we actually weren’t in Malawi which was nice for a change. I even stepped on US soil when I went to the US Embassy to register. I also did my civic duty and cast my ballot for the presidential elections. I admit though, that by the time we got home on Sunday I was happy to see my bed and have my own space. Our little house feels like “home” and that is a comforting feeling.

There continues to be many challenges and recently our creditors have been calling me directly asking for payments on our accounts. Thankfully we had some money set aside and today we were able to pay about 1 million kwacha on our debts (~$7,000). That is a good feeling!! This last week we were able to make some arrangements to provide pathology reports for our patients at a reduced rate (from the one pathologist in the whole country). We also are going to have a pharmaceutical company manage the inventory of drugs and supplies at our clinic in town. This will be a major boost to the business there since people have been going to other pharmacies to get their prescriptions filled since we haven’t had the stock to sell to them. Slowly things might be looking up although I hesitate to get my hopes up too much.

Cristy is doing well. She is on call this week so it’s always more demanding. Fortunately the hospital is only a 5-10 min walk from our house so she doesn’t have to stay at the hospital. Last week she had a patient in her 30’s with Acute Leukemia and it was just sad because there is nothing that can be done here for her – even in the states her prognosis is bad – but in Malawi there is absolutely no treatment. Cristy had to break the news to her that she would die within 3-4 weeks which was understandable very difficult.

She (Cristy) has officially been appointed the Chief of Medicine so is continually challenged with the management side of the medical staff and various responsibilities. We laugh about how we are both inexperienced and have found ourselves in these leadership positions. It is sort of like the “blind leading the blind” sometimes. Thankfully we are confident in God’s strength and wisdom so that gets us through the tough days. We are glad to have each other and that we get along so well – what a blessing!!

I’ll close for now – there is so much more to write. Until next time --- e