Day 8 in Malawi 17.3.2025
Today it’s time to say goodbye to the hospital in Mua, where I was able to experience so much in just a few days. Great suffering, the worst mutilations and injuries, but also regained quality of life, freedom from pain and mobility. All thanks to the fantastic group of doctors from Sweden. I could feel the poverty in the country every day. The great lack of demands, the suffering endured with the greatest patience. In the area around the hospital, I could see how people live. In tiny huts, not always equipped with electricity. They have adapted their rhythm to nature. They go to bed when it gets dark and literally get up with the chickens. Most of them eat the same thing every day, often twice a day – sima. This is a corn porridge that doesn’t cost much and is quick to make. On our weekend trip to Salima, our driver could have ordered any meal at our expense. He orders sima. He knows nothing else.
Despite the countless hardships, which I am certainly much more aware of in comparison with my own life, I experience so much warmth and gratitude, even though I only had the job in the recovery room. Everyone comes to see us off with a lot of sincere appreciation for the doctors’ work. They implore us to come back. Cäcilie, the driving force behind the entire project, is the shining light of the people. She is the promise for the continuous development of the hospital, for better medical care. She sets the direction. Of course, she and her foundation also have their limits, which she always makes clear. Nevertheless, people see her as a kind of promise of salvation.
We have spoken at length about how quickly people are overwhelmed by the individual fate of patients. How great is the reflex to help the individual with money or clothes! An experience we all have, but also a trap we don’t want to fall into. It is so much more important to invest in infrastructure.
With money, with our own commitment, with advice and guidance. We don’t help people here by plugging individual holes and meeting individual needs. We help them to stand on their own two feet, develop a life plan and impart knowledge. Just like the dentist from Lübeck and her dental technician who trained young people in prosthetics every day this week. The goal must be independence. This is a very long way to go, and the doctors have made great progress this week. They have trained the local medical staff in all the operations. If individual promising young people are to be supported financially, then with good training, as is the case.
My motivation for embarking on this journey was the school, which we support so much. Here, too, I had to say goodbye to some illusions and face reality. The girls’ graduation from secondary school enables them to start an apprenticeship. But how and where? They all live in the “villages”. The two largest cities in Malawi – Lilongwe and Blantyre – are inaccessible. How could they be without public transport, trains and, of course, cars? This week, we realize that only a fraction of the graduates will start an apprenticeship. So it’s all for nothing? Absolutely not! A girl with a good school-leaving certificate, with the ability to read and write, will – hopefully – face a man with more self-confidence, be able to formulate her own needs and understand that it is fundamentally important to make sensible family plans. We also spoke to the principal about the school subject “permaculture”. In the villages, farming is almost the only source of income. At school, the girls learn how to cultivate the soil optimally and grow different vegetables, which leads to better nutrition and perhaps more income.
So we move forward step by step, carried by the hope of developing a little more perspective for the future together with the warm-hearted people here.
We drive to Lilongwe at lunchtime to fly back to Germany and Sweden the next evening. Once again, I am convinced that the drive to the capital is the most dangerous part of the long journey.
We stay there for one night in the beautiful “Africa House”. Although there are hardly any guests, the room layout is not clear, the towels are missing and we wait almost ninety minutes for the evening meal. The noise of the few employees cannot be ignored.
That’s Africa too!
