The highlight of the week has been the opening of the first MUMs feeding station. It is near the area of Lukini in Lilongwe in a village called Chimbayo. The group have called themselves Chisomo meaning grace. The main volunteer who has coordinated the other 8 volunteers is called Anunciata. She had worked for a few years with the nuns and referred many malnourished children to the orphanage. Anunciata is trusted and respected by Mother Superior so I was delighted that she would take on this role.

On Wednesday, I went to the village with Beatrice, Kathryn (the Irish Ambassadors wife, who is a great help and support) and Thoko. We were greeted by the chief of the village, the deputy and a few followers and of course over 100 women and their needy children. The phala (which is a mixture of maize, ground nuts and soya beans) was bubbling away on the open fire, as it takes about 2-3 hours to cook.

We had already the names of the 100 children in the book so we began the first job of weighing them all. Kathryn was amazed to see how malnourished the children were and their mothers. We weighed some on standing scales with the baby in the mother’s arms and then weighed the mother, then deducting the difference to get the child’s weight. Thoko had hanging scales on a tree and was weighing them in a baby bag. The weights will be done monthly to hopefully see an increase in all the children.

There were a group of women and children sitting on the ground a distance away, about 20 in total. They were not on the list and had just appeared wanting some food, and they all looked hungry. It was decided that when all the children on the list had been fed and the volunteers then any left would go to the group.

It was an amazing sight seeing all the mothers and grandmothers feeding their babies with the phala in the IKEA bowls, knowing that the MUMs money was paying for this. Fortunately there was enough to share with everyone. I have a feeling other children will appear and this will happen all the time as there will always be more mouths to feed. However when the phala is finished it is finished till the next time.

This feeding station will run at 2pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and will cost MUMs about £80 per month. Kathryn and Mother Superior are my contacts here for the next year anyway.

For us it is a small gift to bring but to these people it is giving them a healthy and better start to life.

I visited ‘my’ village as usual on Wednesday morning and did some teaching. This week the topic was on breast feeding, which of course we could learn lots from them. Discussions arising from this basic information open up and create opportunities for questions in all sorts of other areas. I feel and hope this is the best way to educate and benefit these women long term.

The women are so welcoming and love our connection. Jennifer, Christine and Hannah are some of the names I remember. None of them speak English but this does not lessen our pleasure of being together. David the orphan in the village is still thieving and his grandmother is always pleased to see us.

I asked this week if there was anything they would like to do in the weeks ahead. Surprisingly they immediately came up with cooking, knitting and sewing. So, I am going to get my mum on to the knitting as she is coming to stay with me for a month. Beatrice will do some cooking and I will bring some samples for them to taste.

We visited Ivy at home this week. Her Mum is called Zeresi and she herself was on the slow recovery from TB. However Ivy was unwell. She had a temperature of 39.0c and was dehydrated diagnosed by her sunken fontanel. She was not feeding well and had had two bouts of diarrhoea. Fortunately Zeresi’s milk supply had much improved so she was not using much formula.
We took mum and baby to the community hospital which was not far by car for admission. Ivy was treated for Malaria and even though there was a mosquito net in the hut, it was still in its bag, this issue was of course discussed.

Beatrice phoned the hospital the next day and Ivy had improved, I am delighted to say. We will visit her again in a week. Thank goodness we went when we did.

On Friday Beatrice and I had another very long day driving in the car. I drove a 7 hour round trip with two 30 minutes stops on dirt track roads- I was nearly screaming!!! We were following up one of the orphans whose mother had died in Bwaila last week. The mother had died from post partum haemorrhage secondary to anaemia and her mother was looking after the child.
We eventually found the village with the details of the physical address which Beatrice had got from the nursery staff. The baby was a wee girl called Grace and she was very small. The grandmother was not feeding her enough. She was making up 150mls of milk at one go and making this last all day- not great. However Beatrice did her ‘thing’ and gave all the advice. We had made contact with the nearest community hospital as we passed on our way and they will keep formula and the grandmothers/ guardians of any orphans in the area can go there for weights, check ups and milk.

An ambulance goes daily to Bwaila from this hospital to take their referred patients and can pick up formula milk. This is a much better way, as a 7 hour drive is madness and it is good to broaden communication, awareness and responsibility within the health professionals in these areas. These orphans would die in these villages without their mother or milk. At least with some milk they may have a chance of life.