Friday, April 22, 2011

Where do I stay?

The trip is getting closer. I got a tetnus/whooping cough immunization, and perscriptions for Cipro (antibiotics) and Malerone (anti-malaria). Tonight's challenge was to book a hotel.

There are two reasons why this is challenging. First, hotels in smaller African capital cities are not all on the internet, so my options are pretty few. Secondly, I don't know were Chawezi is. Or at least where she will be in early June.

Malawi is not a very big country, but it is big enough that if Chawezi is at home when I arrive, I can't stay in a hotel in the capital the whole trip. It's about a five hour drive each way from Lilongwe (li-LONG-way) to Mzimba, the nearest town of any size to her village. And her village is another 45 minutes or so (on dirt roads) from there. Too far to go back and forth every day.

What if she's still in the hospital? Well, there's another rub. I don't even know what city her hospital is located in, so I still don't know where to stay.

I just went ahead and booked five nights in a hotel in Lilongwe. I hope I can change it far enough in advance if I get more info.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Bad news

Actually, I'm going to start this off with some GOOD news. I received a call from World Vision yesterday, confirming that my trip to Malawi has been approved for the dates planned. That's where the good news ended.

The BAD news is that Chawezi is in the hospital. Although this in itself is not TOO terrible, the part that hit me was that the last time I got an update on her condition (last fall), she was in the hospital. What is unknown at this time is whether or not she's been in the hospital THIS ENTIRE TIME or not.

When a child sponsor (which is what I'm considered, even though Chawezi is not actually a child) plans a visit, the World Vision field staff ask the family/child if there's anything they'd like their sponsor to bring, as this is a common question from sponsors. I had in fact wanted to know what she might want. Since they'd already asked, they had the answer ready for me, and that answer surprised me. She wanted soap.

She's in a hospital, and what she thought to ask me for was soap???

I don't know where in Malawi she's at right now, or how modern of a hospital she's been admitted to. But if she needs soap, that's a concern. Rural African hospitals are know to be typically under-resourced, but for her to need soap... wow. She also asked for lotion and clothes. (A note on clothes, I have NO idea what size she wears, so this ought to be interesting. But Aimee is going to handle that shopping trip.) Anyway, finding out that she is in the hospital, has possibly been there since late last summer, and that she needs soap... well, not very good news, all things considered.

Helps me put the problems I face in life into a very different perspective.

Sunday, April 10, 2011

Aimee's point of view

After starting this blog yesterday, I asked Aimee (my wife) if she'd write a post explaining how SHE felt about all of this. Afterall, she's not the one who went to Africa or met Chawezi, but she's as much a part of this as I am. I mean, it's partly her money that paid for the trip and that'll help pay for whatever we do for Chawezi. And she's the one who'll be alone at home watching Rowan while I'm gone. So this is very much hers too. Here are her thoughts:

   As Pat mentioned, in her native tongue, "Chawezi" means "gift".  And what a gift she is to our family! This beautiful young woman who bears the limitations of bowels she can't control and legs that won't even allow her the dignity to run away for privacy or protection is working powerfully in our lives.  I've known vulnerability but nothing like the powerlessness that Chawezi experiences everyday.  I had the privilege of caring for my father at the very end of his battle with cancer.  It was a rare and sacred journey to be allowed the intimacy that occurs in human relationships when we can truly be present to the needs of another.  I count myself blessed to have had the opportunity to do for my dad what he could not have done for himself.  In those beautiful moments, I witnessed dignity within indignity, strength within weakness.  I had a front row seat to his daily date with surrender. 
   God has graced our family with Chawezi, a girl a world away who has the same feelings as my little girl sleeping peacefully in the next room.  She has the same hunger for love, acceptance and protection as the precious one I hold & pray over every night.  Only there's no one holding Chawezi.  No father to protect her.  No mother to comfort her.  Our hope is to go the distance with this girl.  We want to extend ourselves just as if she was ours.  We want to be the ones to reach for her in love, to show her she is beautiful just as she is and to protect her from that which would threaten her. 
   The weeks march on toward the date of Pat's departure.  Aware of the oddity it will be for her to have a white guy from a distant land pay her a visit, we are hoping that barriers of culture, language and sheer"weirdness" will be removed so that Pat can glean solid information about her current needs.  Our hope is that the visit will allow Pat to convey our love while giving us a much clearer understanding of how to express our love for her in tangible ways.

Saturday, April 9, 2011

A new journey

I'm going back to Africa.

I've been there four times, all of them as the leader of World Vision's 30 Hour Famine Study Tour (2006-2009). But this time I'm not going as a World Vision employee or as the leader of a group. I'm going to visit someone I met on an earlier trip. Someone who I haven't been able to get out of my head since I met her in July 2007.

Her name is Chawezi, she's now 27 years old, and she's a mess. Well, at least to our standards in America, she is, but she sure seems to be a mess even by rural African standards as well. She has no legs below the knees. Her father has never been in her life, and her mother died when Chawezi was nine years old. But that's the good stuff. The really bad stuff is even harder to handle. (Warning, don't read the next paragraph unless you've got a bit of a strong stomach.)

Chawezi was born without an anus, which means that whoever oversaw her birth (probably a midwife from the village) had to cut an opening to allow her to pass waste. The result is that Chawezi has no control at all over passing of ANY waste from her body.

As if that wasn't bad enough, she suffers from epileptic siezures. There are other medical issues as well, which at this time I can't recall.

In many African cultures, women are second class citizens. Disabled persons are as well. To be female, disabled, and constantly soil yourself is to be an outcast from society, to be sure. How many young girls dream of growing up, meeting Mr. Perfect, getting married, having children, living a happy, fulfilled life? I'm guessing almost all little girls do. For Chawezi, that dream will never happen. Just figuring out how to survive is all she has time for.

Luckily for her when I met her, there was an elderly woman in the village who was caring for about half a dozen orphans, including Chawezi. The others were all sponsored by World Vision donors, and were going to school (the oldest of the group other than Chawezi was about 17). Due to Chawezi's infirmities, she had not been able to go to school, and had no skills with which to care for herself. Once her caretaker passed away, Chawezi would be on her own, with no marketable skills.

So this is where we started. Some of the members of the group I was leading raised some money to send her to a trade school (although in reality very few group members chipped in, and Aimee and I covered almost all of the cost), where she learned how to tailor. But over the next couple of years, her medical issues started getting worse, and by last year, Aimee and I knew we'd have to take further action to her Chawezi. Namely, how can we stablize her medical issues and allow her a way to support herself and live as happy a life as someone in her condition can.

Let me be frank here. If I had the resources, I'd offer to bring her here to the US, get her doctors who could do the necessary reconstructive surgeries to allow her 'functions' to function, fit her for prosthetics, etc. But I don't have those kinds of resources. So we're going to do what we can.

For now that means I am going to Malawi to visit her, encourage her, let her know we want to help her, and find out through her and World Vision staff in the area what she needs and what can be provided. I don't yet know how we'll pay for it, but we'll worry about that once we know what 'it' is. And several members of my family have already offered to chip in, so that's an encouragement.

I leave on June 3, arriving in Malawi June 5. I'll board a plane to return home on the tenth, and arrive home the eleventh. I'm excited to go back to Africa, yes, but I'm more excited to see Chawezi, to talk to her, and to let her know that she is not alone.