Day 1 in Malawi – 10.3.2025
My trip to Malawi began with a strike at Hamburg airport. Instead of Lufthansa, Deutsche Bahn to Frankfurt – and overcrowded. Of course, we weren’t the only ones affected by the strike. In the evening, Ethiopian Airlines took us to Addis Ababa on time. After a more or less sleepless night on board, I sneaked through the lively African airport early in the morning with my friend Cäcilie and the Swedish medical team. I was flying to Malawi for a school project and joined the six Swedish doctors.
From Addis we headed for Malawi, unfortunately not directly, but with a stopover in Lubumbashi in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The plane touched down in the middle of the bush to get rid of a large load of Chinese people. We passengers stayed on board and a short time later were able to welcome a similar volume of new Chinese people on their onward journey.
After a 24-hour journey, we finally reached our destination of Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. Our destination was Mua Hospital, which really has nothing to do with a German hospital. The team of doctors there want to spend a week operating, straightening and treating teeth. In the past, many children with deformed limbs and cleft palates have been given a new quality of life.
We set off in two cars towards Mua Mission Hospital, a hospital in the countryside surrounded by the poorest of villages. At first we drove along the busy African thoroughfare in subtropical sunshine. There was no central reservation, no pavement at the edge of the road and no lighting, as we later discovered. The mood was still good. As darkness fell, the tension in the car increased. Everyone was looking spellbound at the dark road full of pedestrians, motorcycles, bicycles and huge trucks, which occasionally swerved into the oncoming lane. Time and again, headlights approached us menacingly fast in our lane, only to swerve out of the way at the last moment in a razor-sharp maneuver. Our prayers were silent until we finally reached our hospital.
Day 3 in Malawi – 12.3. 2025
I have a first impression of the suffering of the people here. Driven by hope for healing or relief, they often come to the hospital from very far away. They sit there patiently for many hours until it is finally their turn. Nobody complains. The hard life has made them undemanding.
The Swedish doctors operate on an assembly line. Severe burns, cleft lips and palates and tumors are the most common ailments that often torment people for years. A doctor is an unaffordable luxury for most people in Malawi.
I have taken over the duty in the recovery room. I feel a great need to support the doctors who, with their unparalleled dedication, give people a new quality of life. When I look at the people sleeping soundly, I can’t help but think of the future. Do they have one in the third poorest country on the poorest continent in the world? They often arrive in the poorest clothing, their few belongings in a plastic bag. I am ashamed of our prosperity. What are we complaining about? Many very young mothers have a hard life written all over their faces. Some of them sit next to their children who have undergone surgery, as if extinguished.
So few people are helped, but how many have to live or die without help. Is it even worth it? The Swedish doctor Gie said an incredibly beautiful sentence: “It’s just a drop in the big ocean, but for the individual it’s the whole ocean.” Yes, it is the whole ocean when a baby’s milk no longer flows out of its mouth because of a cleft lip or when an old woman can suddenly walk independently again. That was so clear today.
I deeply admire the Swedish doctors. They stand in the operating theater all day and treat the poorest of the poor – without a penny of money. When I finally finished my shift at 7.30 pm and wanted to go to my lodge, my driver was gone. Now I was standing there in the deep black African night. It’s not far, only 10 minutes. No problem in the light, but definitely not possible in the dark. A security guard finally took pity on me and guided me through the pitch-black bush with a flashlight.
Day 4 in Malawi 13.3. 2025
I spent the whole day in hospital again today. The recovery room is my work area. There are no machines or devices to monitor bodily functions, just my attentive eye. Patients are operated on in their clothes. Surgical shirts – not to be thought of. When they wake up, they lie on blankets that are no longer completely clean. Our German standard of hygiene is light years away. Many are HIV positive, including many children. The queue of patients waiting patiently on hard stone steps is getting longer and longer. Word has spread in the villages that there are “Swedish doctors” in the hospital. Faith in their abilities is unlimited, supported by the hope of less pain, fewer restrictions and a longer life. Severe burns to children were particularly common today. As the villages have to make do without electricity and gas, the women cook on the ground with charcoal. How quickly would a small child reach into a fire or take hold of a boiling hot pot of soup? My imagination was not sufficient for such an archaic life. Now I know and am bitterly aware of the consequences. How happy it is to see a wrinkled grandfather weeping with joy when his little granddaughter regains functional fingers after an operation. We are “angels” to him. From his point of view, we are angels.
Full of gratitude, I set off for my lodge in the evening – today with a driver. Grateful for this experience, grateful for people who spend their vacation operating for ten hours a day, grateful to be a witness to how much the actions of the “Swedish doctors” change lives. But also grateful for everything that makes up my life without this daily struggle of people here in extreme poverty.
Later, I lie in my little house under the mosquito net and listen to the sound of the African bush. Buzzing, whistling, trilling, hissing – the concert of Africa.
