Wow

So you know how a couple posts ago I was talking about how, during my time here in Malawi, I by no means expect a sea of a thousand smiling African children to welcome me with open arms just because I’m white?

Well, today the unexpected happened. Initially it was a little weird, but turned out to be really great.

Today, Finn and I went out with World Camp for Kids, an awesome NGO based in Lilongwe and directed from none other than the mountains of North Carolina (Asheville/Boone). Started by 2 Americans in 2000, this is a very successful and well-organized volunteer-based NGO that let us joins in on one of their educational camps in a rural village school. They mainly focus on HIV education and environmental education, and get mostly young Americans to come over for 5 week periods to volunteer. Such a great idea, such a great group of people- definitely Google them!!

So today as we arrived in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, our car was swarmed with hundreds of children, jumping up and down, all smiles, and chanting “A-ZUN-GU!!! A-ZUNG-U!!!” which means “WHITE PEOPLE!!!!! WHITE PEOPLE!!!” I felt like a celebrity and couldn’t help but laugh at how ridiculous and strange it felt. I had done nothing to deserve this attention. 

But after some ice-breakers and warm-up activities, things felt a lot better and the day was underway. World Camp is so organized! They mainly worked with teenagers and split up into different classrooms. I got to sit in on a long sex-education class taught by a WC volunteer and one of WC’s translators. The students were so well behaved, so involved, and very receptive to all of the information. Bananas and condoms were busted out, which is always fun. Of course I was reminded of my time in Tanzania; teaching the same things by myself (and a translator), and how neat it would have been to have the resources that WC has! They have so many charts and handbooks and condoms- wow! The students asked some really intriguing questions, such as “If a HIV + mother pumps her breast milk into a pan and then boils it, is the HIV gone?” and “If a child finds a used condom in the trash, unties it and drinks the semen, will that child get HIV?” They kept asking alllllll of these questions- which was really encouraging. After 2+ hours of this, it was lunch time, followed by a section of the day called Empowerment where the students are divided into groups of boys and girls so they can really talk candidly about anything they want. This was my favorite part of the day, as we all sat in a circle on the floor and the girls were able to ask anything they wanted and the WC volunteer was able to talk about gender roles in society and women role models. I’ve seen this attempted before, but never executed nearly as successfully as I saw it today. Recently I thought I was getting too jaded with ex-pats coming over to do HIV education and empowerment and all that, especially after South Africa. But today with World Camp I genuinely felt what they did made a difference, I could see it in the student’s faces. WAY TO GO WORLD CAMP! It was so nice of them to let Finn and I tag along, and we were so thrilled with the whole day, especially with meeting this one man.

He is a teacher at the school who is HIV + and very open about his status. He has started a HIV support group within his community, and even accompanies people in his community to go get tested. He talks very candidly about how his sexual history and everything- I was floored. This kind of openness is really extraordinary, especially in Malawi.  When Finn talked more with him one on one (with the aid of a translator) about the project and if he would be willing to provide a narrative for us to use for the album, the man simply said, “I am more than ready to fight this war with you.”

WOW!! 

(or "GUAU" for my Chonga-lese audience)