Sunday, August 15, 2010

Sorry no internet

Good Morning,

I must apologize for me and the kids not keeping our blogs updated.  But this trip has been the worst so far for power outages, no internet signals, etc... etc.........  We went an entire 10 days without any kind of internet access.  It was quite frustrating!

But anyhow, my last blog mentioned the beginning of our trip and this blog is close to the end of our trip.  We've had a very busy time here in Malawi.  Driving place to place and visiting project after project.  To the point where my head is slightly spinning and I'm trying to remember with the quick notes I scribbled, what I saw where!!

We went to check out two of the schools we left retrofit money for last time we were here.  Unga 1 had done amazing things with the money we left.  They even kept every receipts, documented where all the money went and presented me with a budget of items that are still quite urgent to complete.  We will definately be leaving them with some more so that they can continue the good work.  They are all about involving the community and the students.  The students actually have a class on brick making, so that is how alot of the bricks for the school are made!  It gives students ownership in their school as well!  Brilliant!

Unga 2 on the otherhand, did not spend our money well.  I couldn't see any sign of change from our last visit, things had just continued to deteriate even further.  Although my heart goes out to the students who attend that school in those horrid conditions, HFM sadly can't help them.  Unless the head master, teachers and community are willing to take the money and work hard to make it stretch and do what work they can on their own, they're school will not move forward.  We have to sow our money into projects that are making a difference with the money we leave.  But it really broke my heart to see those students with so much hope in their eyes.   It was a very difficult decision to not leave money with them.  Hopefully a lesson will be learned, and on our next trip we see that they have truly tried to help the school on their own and we can again begin to assist them.

We then met up with my very dear friend Katherine, my amai in Malawi.  (My Mom)  I love her dearly.  She is a fantastic 75 year old woman who had us pooped out by the end of the day with the speed she was showing us progress on her projects!!   Katherine has assisted many communities with starting up preschools for kids aged 2 to 5.  They come, learn English and have a warm meal.  The kids were so proud to show off their alphabet and calendar skills!  I was very impressed!!   Adorable little kids! And this time they weren't as scared of the azungu's as last time!! (foreigner)  Only a few screamed in utter fear at us!  lol  Poor kids.............

We then visited some of Katherine's dams.  The dams are usually built and run by woman that are HIV positive.  This allows them an income to support their families and themselves.  They stock the dams with fish and use the water to water the crops they have planted in the area.  It was wonderful!  The woman took such care of it and their crops were so green and healthy!  Better than anywhere I had seen so far!

Well, this post is getting long.  I'll continue more tonight.  Tomorrow we leave on safari and leave the country on Thursday.  It's always with bittersweet feelings that I leave.  I'm sad to leave my friends here and worry about them until we come again.  But then I'm so excited to see my little boy at home and Andrew.  Coming on these trips sometimes seems at a high expense.  Not just money wise.  But I've left my 6 year old boy at home, 3 times now for a month.  I miss him dreadfully when I'm gone.  I have to actually not allow myself to think of him too often until the end of the trip.  Then I can't wait to get home.  This time we will lay over in Nairobi for 3 nights.  Although I'm so excited to see my childhood friend Maria, I think I might be just a bit anxious to just get going home!  lol

Until later..........

Sue

Ps.  I'm not spellchecking this as we are in a rush to leave.....  sorry about the many mistakes I'm sure I've made!!  lol

Monday, August 2, 2010

Another Day in Malawi

Well, another day is drawing to an end here in beautiful Malawi.
Yesterday we visited Area 25 in Lilongwe and handed out Bags of Hope and taught the kids some english songs.  It was really fun!

Today we visited an orphan feeding centre in Namitete.  We were told to prepare for just under 100 kids, so we made 110 bags.  We were 56 short!  This was one of the worst feelings ever!!  Having kids sitting on the benches watching the other kids open their bags.  It was awful!!  I couldn't even look because I was on the verge of bursting into hysterical tears!!  What a hard day.  The director of the centre took down all the names of the children that didn't receive a bag and we are going to send them once we have made them up tomorrow.

Well, I'm signing off before the power goes down!  That seems to be a constant problem every evening here.

Sue

Sunday, August 1, 2010

We have arrived in Malawi!

Amazing!  So blessed to have returned to this country again!!  It wasn't without trials, but all that is behind us and we are here!!

A snap shot on our journey here.  We left Thunder Bay airport Wednesday night the 28th at 7:20 p.m.  All went without a hitch.  Flight to Toronto was uneventful and so was our 2 hour airport layover.  We left Toronto around 11:35 to fly to London, England.

We arrived in London in the morning and took the tube into central London and spent about 3 hours walking around checking things out and riding the London Eye.  We then took the tube back to the airport and I pulled out my boarding pass to see which Terminal our flight was leaving from.  UNKNOWING, THIS IS WHEN EVERYTHING WENT SOUTH AND QUICKLY!!!  UGH!!!

There was no terminal printed on our boarding passes, this quite often means you are leaving from the same terminal as you arrived at.  So, we went back to terminal 3 and saw that the Nairobi flight was departing from Lobby A.  We decided to clear security right away so we could have a bite to eat before our flight left at 8:00 p.m.

We passed through security and showed our passports AND BOARDING PASSES to three different airport staff and were cleared for our flight and wished a pleasant journey.  Once thru security I check to see what gate our flight was leaving from, it wasn't listed yet and showed that our flight now did not depart until 9:00 p.m.  I didn't find this odd as flights are delayed quite often.

We went and ate and around 7:00 p.m. decided to check out some duty free shops.  Upon purchasing Janika's pillow the store clerk who needed my boarding pass for the transaction, gave me a really odd look when I handed over my boarding pass, but he did not say anything.   So I paid for her pillow and off we went.

We went to sit by the monitors so we can wait for our gate to come up.  As we were sitting there, I started to feel really uncomfortable about the flight.  I decided to get a closer look at the monitors, no info change.  I went and sat back down.  The feeling kept getting worse and at about 7:15 I decided to pull out the itinerary that the Thunder Bay agent said I didn't need because everything is electronic, but I of course kept it so I can scrapbook it later!!

I read on that itinerary that our flight was leaving from TERMINAL 4!!  AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!  Talk about instant panic!  I told the kids and Hannah to pack up and run!  We ran to a help desk and they confirmed we were in the wrong terminal and couldn't believe that security had cleared us!!  We had to get from one end of Terminal 3 to the other to catch a bus to Terminal 4.  We arrived at the bus pick up location at around 7:25.  The bus was there but wouldn't allow us to board!!   They were on the other side of a glass so they couldn't hear our exclamations!  We were in major panic and tears!  And then he left............

Another bus arrived a few minutes later and parked outside.  The driver was talking to somebody and I was frantically waving out the window and pointing to my watch (well Pirkko's, but that's a different story) and he just kept calming putting out his hand saying hang on!  We kept waving and what seemed about forever, he finally let us board.  I explained to him that our flight left at 8:00 p.m. and we were in a hurry.  He asked you have to board at 8?  I yelled NOOO, our flight leaves at 8, we have 20 minutes to be on that plane!!  Well, he took off like a shotgun!  We were stripping off belts, sweaters, socks etc so we would be ready to clear security AGAIN! What a site we must have been!!  He drove so fast we were stumbling all over!

We arrived at security at about 8:47ish and must have cleared in about a minute or less!  We were pro's at this now!!

We located a monitor and our gate?  WAY ACROSS THE AIRPORT!!  I told Jaako and Hannah to take off and run to the gate and Janika and I would follow.  Due to a poor knee surgery, I can't run, so I walked very, very fast!  Jaako being the awesome son that he is also took my pac and the laptop that we didn't pack up after security and began to run.  I told Jaako not to separate from Hannah!  So they took off!

As Janika is running, and I am walking very, very fast we start hearing announcements, "Would the Polkki family and Wilson family please board the aircraft at gate 8.  We kept hearing the page.  Then it got worse we  heard "Would Polkki and Wilson please come to the gate right now!  You are delaying your plane!!"  A few seconds later, "Polkki and Wilson,  your luggage is being removed from the plane so that the flight can depart!"  I'm thinking oh crap Jaako and Hannah hadn't made it!  And I'm yelling, no don't we're coming!!  At this point I see Hannah just ahead of us and Jaako is nowhere to be seen!

Jaako decided to run ahead once Hannah grew tired.  Although he didnt listen to me, I have to admit he made the right decision, Jaako saved our day!!  He was just running up to the gate when that final announcement was given.  If he had listened to me, we would have certainly missed our flight. With a plea full of emotion he explained what had happened and explained how I couldn't run!  At this point I sent Janika running as well, I figured the more of us that showed up, the more likely they would be to hold the plane!

I then got there and the staff were very understanding and we boarded our flight! The time was 8:00 p.m. on the nose!  How had we run clear across two terminals, taken a bus ride and cleared security and arrived at our gate all in 35 minutes???  A miracle!  We couldn't believe it!  We were so shocked that we had made it.

As we boarded the aircraft all the passengers were glaring at us and when we sat down, some guys said with a laugh "So you must be the Polkki's and the Wilsons!!"  We all cracked up!  They announced to the whole flight that we were holding them up!  The worst part?  Once we boarded, the plane didn't move anywhere for about 15 minutes!!  What the heck?!?!?!

But anyway, we were on our flight, high fiving each other for making it and probably annoying everybody even more!!  Ha ha ha

We arrived in Nairobi at 6:30 a.m. and had major flight delays.  We were exhausted and just wanted to get to Malawi!!  We finally left and arrived in Malawi quite late, but we cleared customs wonderfully and we were in Malawi.  Our second home!

What a feeling to just walk out of the airport and smell the air that I love to breath and see the smiling faces of my friends!  This is always one of my favourite moments.  My lungs just fill with Malawian air and my heart soars to be here once again.  I can't describe the feeling, but it's a great one.

I will write more tomorrow about our days here. That is if we have power.  We have had black outs every evening here so far.  Tonight the power came back on early enough for all of us to blog.

So until tomorrow..............................................

Sue