Village Ladies Conference

Last Friday I had the pleasure of attending a church ladies conference with my friends Lorrie and Heather. Lorrie is a missionary and this was a group she works with and Heather and I tagged along. Heather is a physican and gave a brief talk on HIV and I talked a little about nutrition. It was a great, great experience! Two things probably affected me the most 1) I could not believe I had been in Malawi without attending a village church until now. It was so fun and so similar to what I grew up doing. In Lilongwe there are so many expats and so many international organizations and diplomatic missions that there is also a bit of a bad attitude - almost as though the average Malawian has been told they are poor too many times and so now they totally believe it in their spirits. In the villages, however, you get a pure, simple joy. People are very, very poor and need help but they don't necessarily think they are poor - a key difference! Of course, the best part of the village is the food and I was not disappointed. It was the best Malawian food I have had since arriving - complete with "local" chicken, not "hybrid" as our interpreters told us. To us this equivacates to very little meat on the bones and quite tough - to them it makes it a delicacy! I was quite happy to eat the soup and leave the chicken for our interpreters and whoever else came behind us. Rest assured it was not thrown away
2) I had a very brief glimpse of the affect of HIV on this community and the choices faced by women. It was heartbreaking. Heather gave a brief introduction to the disease and encourged people to get tested. These are some of the questions/comments she got in response"

• "If my husband is positive and I am not and he refuses to wear a condom, what should I do?" (in this culture, refusing sex is really not an option)
• If I get tested and am positive and tell my husband, he will leave me.
• The Bible says it is wrong to use a condom.

Heather handled it beautifully but it was heartbreaking because there just aren't any answers for some of these issues (from a secular standpoint, that is. Thankfully this was a church group so she could address prayer more specifically).

Lorrie speaking to the ladies. I have no idea what some of them went to to get there. It took us an hour in a landcruiser. Most of them likely took public transport (seriously loaded mini vans) that dropped them off kilometers from the church and then either took a bicycle taxi or walked (many with a bag on their head and a baby on their back)
the top picture is the cooking fire and the ladies lined up for lunch! When the stray dogs are that thin you know not a lot of food is thrown out!