Africa Journal Day 24, Monday May 16

Monday, May 16, 2005
Day 24
Linlongwe, Malawi

After breakfast prepared by Jackson, Dave and Joy’s cook, I joined Dave for some errands in town. The “new town” part of Linlongwe is definitely more spacious and modern than either Jos in Nigeria or Yaounde in Cameroon. We stopped in a couple of shops for supplies that reminded me of stores at home. You could even pay by cheque.

The biggest part of my morning was spent with Sue Harrell, a counsellor who works with the children in the Children of the Nations (www.cotni.org) sponsored orphanages, which Dave and Joy also work with. We shared some of the latest research on neurodevelopment and she concurred with my observation that secure early childhood attachments do “immunize” children and adults somewhat against the negative psychosocial effects of trauma and hardship later. She also noted the resilience of Africans from the attitude that says, “You just have to accept that life is hard.” While the children and adolescents she works with here do show the signs of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD), depression is still surprisingly rare. And the kids do very well in the homes where they are re-parented by house parents, who feel this work as a calling, rather than a job. I look forward to visiting some of these homes over the next few days.

In the afternoon, Dr. Mark Boersma gave me a tour of ABC Community Clinic, a medical facility on the Africa Bible College (ABC) campus. It was funded by money raised in the US, and largely equipped with donated equipment. I was impressed with the quality of the facility, and I suspect the quality of the care.

Later, Dave took Andrew and I on a tour of areas that he has been working at since his arrival here in July, 2004. We saw the Chitipi Children’s Home where 32 children are cared for by Esther and Patterson Lungu, Malawian houseparents, along with two aunties, who are younger single women. There is a farming operation at this facility, with an ingenious irrigation system that very much impressed me. This is a model that could easily be reproduced around the region, helping alleviate the food shortage when the rains fail. There were hogs, three dairy cows, 42 goats, turkeys, chickens, rabbits and pigeons. Some of the pigs are sold, the profit being reinvested into the farming operation.

Dave has been supervising a building program for a new children’s home in Njewa, a village nearby. That project is temporarily on hold due to the government’s request to have the land rezoned, even though it is out in the country. They hope to resume building within the next month. A large portion is already built, all red brick.