It
has been a long journey for my first mission with MSF, I have finally arrived
in Nsanje, Malawi. Starting in January
of this year when I signaled to MSF that I would be available, I was sent
different possible programs from them, the first being Myanmar which was
quickly taken off the table as that was not for a first missioner, then several
programs in Uzbekistan for HIV/TB but for a period of a year and I preferred
six months which I was told not a likely scenario as the minimum length of the
mission was for nine to twelve months. Then quickly in succession came a HIV
project in Zimbabwe again for a period of a year, an Ethiopian program in
kala-azar, medical program in South Sudan in medical care and even before I
could wade through the information that kept on piling electronically, the
Malawian project in HIV/AIDS was presented to me as perhaps most suitable with
my training and mentorship experience in HIV/AIDS in Africa. The rest of the projects were not then further
discussed. The Malawian project was to
be for a period of nine months despite my wish to be there for six.
I
was asked to send in my notarized diplomas and a police report and be ready to
leave by mid-April while they applied for a work permit for me which might take
up to two months. In the meantime while
waiting I was asked to go to South Sudan by Medical Teams International in
April; that was a trip that was on and off again several times since January
because of security reasons and other reasons unknown to me. So off I went
delaying leaving by two days so I could run the 117th Boston
Marathon fundraising for MSF.
Right
after my return from South Sudan in late May, I received permission by the
immigration office in Malawi to stay in their country for six months while
waiting for a work permit! It was not really a work permit. My departure date
was slated to be June 1st. But then my mysterious illness
intervened, I got sick shortly after returning from South Sudan. I had to delay my departure and for a while I
toyed with the idea that if it turned out that I was not to go with MSF, I
began to consider other alternatives: going to Lebanon to volunteer in the
Syrian Refugee Camp with Medical Teams International but then my passport has
entrance and exit stamps for Israel, a sure thing to prevent me from entering
Lebanon. Fighting in North Kivu in the
Democratic Republic of Congo between the government forces and M23 rebels has
started again and there might be a possibility of volunteering in the refugee
camp as well.
And
so it was to be almost another two months before I left for Malawi. MSF has agreed to let me go to Malawi for
seven months, closer to what I originally wanted, six months. On July 26th
I finally boarded an early train with my 20 kg bag to MSF-NY for my briefing. New York City is
not one of my favorite cities, perhaps because I do not know it well despite
having run through all five boroughs in the 2009 NYC Marathon. It looks rather imposing and impersonal
compared to Boston. In the evening of the same day of the briefing, I flew to
Lilongwe, Malawi via Charles de Gaulle and Nairobi. Unfortunately because of
delayed departure in Charles de Gaulle, I missed my plane for Lilongwe which
meant staying overnight in Nairobi. My
luggage did not arrive in Lilongwe and after two days of waiting for it, Kenya
Airway informed me that it was left in Paris.
Perhaps my luggage rebelled and strongly hinted that I was meant to be
in Paris!
The
temperature in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, was cool, not at all humid;
this is their winter I was told. Malawi, formerly Nyasaland, is nicknamed “the
warm heart of Africa” probably because it has been a relatively peaceful place.
From the little I saw, Lilongwe seems like a big and sprawling city. The tarmac
road that we were on was smooth and not pot-holed, surprisingly for an African
country. However like most African
countries, there is a conspicuous absence of sidewalks so that the edges of the
road are slowly being eroded. Soon a
two-lane road will become one lane and opposing traffic will have to dodge each
other while traveling on it.
We rose early the next day to drive to Blantyre
named after Dr. Livingstone’s birth-place in Scotland, a five-hour journey. It was cold, probably in the 50’s, clusters
of men in warm jackets huddled over open fire that they had made from dry
leaves and trash. In the distance layers upon layers of mountains shrouded in
purplish-blue hue with gentle mist gracing their peaks resembling a lovely
water-colored painting. Now and then in
the vast plain rose isolated globs of mountains as though God was tired of
making mountain ranges and just simply dropped earth and rocks on the plain;
they appeared out of place. Women were hurrying
in the early dawn to market. The orange-red sun rose over the mountain ranges
slowly dissipating the mist. Calvin and Hakim,
the driver stopped at the markets to haggle over potatoes, onions, okra, and
tangerines. Men and women stood in the
middle of the road with arms outstretched holding onto a full-grown chicken to
passing vehicles hoping to make a sale.
Frequently we were overtaken by minibuses which started here in the
1990’s, the locals call them “mdula moyo”
which means literally “cut your life” in Chichewa. They sped on the motorway and resulted in senseless
loss of life. One minibus passed by with a slogan of “HARD TIMES NEVER KILL”
printed on the back.
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| Mountains on the Way to Blantyre |
Baobab trees stood stark naked looking rather
pregnant with their bulbous trunks; they are my favorite trees in Africa. This being winter, they shed all their
leaves. At one point between Dedza and
Ntoheu, the motorway ran along the border of Mozambique, one could literally
step off the vehicle and walk right over to it.
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| The baobab Tree |
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| Mozambique at the Border |
I finally was dropped off MSF office in Limbe,
not too far from Blantyre. There I had two days of briefings fighting off
jet-lag trying to keep awake. On the bulletin board was a news release;
Somalia: Kidnapped MSF staff released after 644 days. These two ladies were
kidnapped at Dadaab, Kenya in October, 2011 where I went a month later to do
medical relief in the Kenya/Somalia border during the drought; they were just released this
month.
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| MSF Office in Limbe |
Five days after I left New York, I was finally
on my way to Nsanje. We left the cool, almost wintry weather in Blantyre, the
highlands for the lowlands. I was
freezing without my warm clothes as my suitcase still had not made its
appearance. As we descended the highlands
the Shire River that flows out of Lake Malawi and eventually joins the Zambezi
River could be seen basking in Nsanje.
Half of the trip to Nsanje is on tarmac road and the rest of the road is
under construction. This part of the Rift Valley where Nsanje nestles is flat and the temperature is surprising pleasant at least for now. I have finally arrived.
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| Shire in the Rift Valley |
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