Tom and Bree’s post volunteer reflections
Wow, where do we start? We’re currently sat in a tiny Malawian airport, slightly delirious from waking up at 4.30am this morning to make our first flight. We think this it a good time to try to answer this question and reflect on our experience as a whole as we try to show you just how impactful a volunteer trip can be.
Thinking back to the last time we were in Lilongwe airport, feeling very lost and stressed in a new country, it’s clear we’ve grown so much in our time here! The final few weeks of our trip went especially quickly and we think this was because it was when we really felt at home in Zomba. On one of our last nights when Eric, Mbedza’s driver and our good friend, read us his goodbye speech, it really hit us that we were actually leaving these incredible people and what had become ‘our new normal’. As he spoke, one of us couldn’t stop crying (and Bree was very sad too!).
We can’t speak highly enough of the work Mbedza is trying to do in communities who so desperately need their help. It’s not just slogans and headline-seeking. The sanitary project really does keep more girls in education, the MOEP students themselves told us they would not be able to go to school or achieve their future success without Daphney and her team and local villagers really are changing their farming practices to become more efficient and climate-resilient thanks to Richard and crew!
During our conversations with these groups, there were also other key takeaways that we wanted to share. Firstly, the gratitude that students have in Zomba for education was startling in contrast to our experience back home. At one secondary school there, our English class was meant to only have 10 students but week-on-week more and more desks were squeezed in as children shouted out the window to their friends on breaktime to come and join in. It was also empowering to see the drive and focus of Malawians generally; from the elderly ladies digging for long mornings in the fields to the Hope Ambassadors who, undeterred by the challenges they faced, were ambitious to improve their community. We will look to inject some of this into our own lives from now on.
At times, we were able to tolerate certain things that we saw, such as some scenes of desperate poverty, because we knew what was waiting for us in a few weeks back home. There was definitely a feeling of guilt associated with this. It’s like the feeling you get when you switch off your 55” plasma TV and go up to bed after watching a news broadcast from an area decimated by war, when you think about it the juxtaposition churns in your stomach. On one of our last days, we conducted a survey in an area surrounding Mbedza’s maize mill- which offers discounted rates and is one of the only ones in Malawi to pay its workers an acceptable wage. During our interviews with locals, they spoke about their poor harvests, often yielding just half a bag of maize for the whole year, when families need at least one bag a month to survive. As the sun rose as we were driving to the airport today thinking about seeing our families again, we felt more guilty than ever as that same family were waking up with that same problem and no means of escape. As well as all the fun we had during our 7 weeks with Mbedza, this feeling will equally stay with us for a long time and we won’t be the same going back home.
Overall, Malawi is a fantastic place to visit and Mbedza is a fantastic charity to visit with. We hope you have enjoyed our blogs and please reach out to the communications team who will pass on any of the questions you have for us if you’re thinking about volunteering!
There are so many people from Mbedza that we could thank for making our time in Malawi so special but that would take up a whole blog in itself. Mbedza is an organisation made up of great people, all of whom we hope to meet again soon! We did however want to extend extra special thank you’s to Jessie, Blessings, Prisca, Jess, Peatry and Eric who all made our experience so incredible in their own ways. They are characters we will never forget when telling stories of our time Malawi but most importantly they are great friends for the future. Zikomo!