Malawi 2006

By Hans and Hennie Helleman    

Hans and Hennie Helleman of Ottawa, Ontario (pictured at right) volunteered with CRWRC in Malawi, Africa from January to April of 2006.  They worked as international relief managers for a food distribution project in partnership with the Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB).

It all began in 2004, when they volunteered in Chicago with their youth group.

     We have a story we want to share.  Yesterday we went to the dambo.  The dambo is an area of wetland along the river bank just down the street.  The Malawian villagers have found it convenient to plant crops of different sorts especially rice, in the dambo.  Here we are, as Christian Reformed World Relief Committee International Relief Managers, tending to food distributions because of the drought situation in Malawi last year, when a cyclone off Madagascar dropped over 300 mm of rain in two days leaving too much for the river tributaries to handle, resulting in devastation for the dambo area. 
     Our neighbour in the village lost much of her maize crop in the dambo.  We ventured out to see how the water was receding after four dry days. We were accompanied by our new found friends.  Being white in Malawi you are always found and the fact that we had brought a new soccer ball, or football as they say here, for the village children made us true friends.  From the distance we could already see that the water had receded somewhat.  We had seen the damage of the flooding along the dambo the previous week where children eagerly swam out to pluck whatever green maize (corn) they could salvage.  The rice had been swept away.  As we wandered through the existing gardens down along a narrow path which almost made the dambo feel secluded, the sounds of the children’s glee filled the air.
     Was it the new soccer ball?  Was it walking step in step with the zungu, we whites?  Was it their natural disposition as children to just want to play and participate fully in life?  The glee ended as a verbal exchange between children and two female parents caught our ears.  The Chichewa language is foreign to us, but the sense of tone indicating instruction and embarrassment , touched us.  We had stumbled on a time old practice, digging a hole beside a stenchy river bank and carefully scooping out the water into a pail for transport back into the village.  From the photo you can make out the shadow of the hole positioned in front of the women.

• Life-giving water.

It would all seem somewhat touristy, but this is life here.  The hand pump has been broken for some time and this was easier than walking the several kilometers to the original stream where they usually get water.  It would not have touched us except a month ago we spent about $700 Canadian, or almost 3 years average wages here, to fix an AFRDEV well pump in another village.  Even though we have never suffered for lack of water, we suffer knowing that there is something wrong in a system which does not ensure its supply for their people.  Food shortages we can understand, but when fixing a borehole can be as little as a dollar or as much as a $1,000 it remains a challenge to call on government to make it their number one priority.
     You cannot fix a government in a day but we discovered that a well pump can be fixed in a day or two which was our last experience.  Resources are always in short supply, whether it is the water pump expert, the availability of parts, the need for village accountability to maintain the pump and the funds to do any major repairs.
     There remains much to be done in the world today but it starts a village at a time.  Do we have a cup of water to offer them?

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Before leaving Malawi, Hans wrote a letter to one of the pastors he came to know well while serving there.  You can read his letter 'Imprints from Malawi' here.