Memories of Malawi

I went to Malawi this past February. I went alone. I didn't know who would be there other than Philippe Van den Bossche, director Raising Malawi. I didn't know him personally and I certainly didn't know what to expect.

I stayed at the Kumbali Lodge, a private family-owned farm. This is the car they sent to pick me up. How cool! It set the tone for the whole trip.

The Lodge was a dream. Majestic room -- striking because of the huge white bed net draping down from the ceiling. Private balcony. Big bathroom. Home-made everything fresh off the farm. I could have stayed at the lodge the whole time and had an amazing vacation. But that's not why I went.

I came to see where exactly the funds we sent to Raising Malawi were going and to decide for myself if this was something I could/should continue to put my energy into. I was lucky enough -- or fated, or something -- to make friends with Janja, one of the producers down there getting an update for the charity. She invited me to join her on most of her interviews, so all I had to do was wake up at the crack of dawn and tag along.

On my visit, I experienced some of the saddest conditions and circumstances of my life – I choke up just thinking about them.

And yet, I am deeply inspired by the progress we’re making in real time.

I watched orphan care centers and feeding centers being built. That's Janja and Kevin getting an update.

I watched women and children pumping fresh water from a borehole we installed for the nearby peri-urban village. I met hundreds of curious children delighted (and sometimes frightened) to see a "Mazungu" (white person) in their village.

I met hundreds of sweet little orphans with not a single toy to play with -- nothing but each other, but happy and managing all the same.

I witnessed a lot full of children who walked barefoot tens of miles (yep) in the cold and sometimes pouring rain in tattered clothes only to wait hours in line for a ration of food – a heavy bag of grain to carry on their pea-sized heads all the way back home.

Typically, this burden falls to children because their parents can’t do it. One is usually sick or working. The other is usually dead.

That's Nathan on the left. He was down there to make a documentary for Madonna. It was his fifth? sixth trip? I forget, but he has been on assignment there for a long time. He's almost a local. People know him by name. He was very cool, and seemed to care as much about the people of Malawi as he did about getting his story.

On this day I did everything in my power to keep myself from a public display of upset. I wanted to scream! It was one of my first days on the trip and I felt so compelled to hug, help, warm the littlest shivering children -- give them my jacket, sarong, money, something! But I didn't, under strict counsel.

There are just too many of them. And because I was with the Raising Malawi crowd, I had to play by their rules of engagement.

Besides, you can’t just give a child a jacket and stop the cold. You can’t just throw money at a problem and expect it to go away.

Raising Malawi proposes to not only address the basic human needs for survival, but also build out the infrastructure so that survival will no longer be a daily concern.

I walked through a cornfield we helped to fertilize that yielded enough crop to feed 850 more children than the year before.

I met people who inspired me to be a better person. Smiling children who taught me to smile more. Grateful people who reminded me to be grateful for all I have. Strong men and women who shattered my ideas of what deserves drama. Dying mothers and fathers who showed me how much I complain. It makes me embarrassed to think how much I still need to learn. But I am learning, and for that I am proud. And very grateful to the people of Malawi for giving me so much of what I don't already have.

I ended my trip with a big shindig at the Lodge with new friends, great food and live Malawian music. It was a trip to remember and one that will stay with me forever.

Partners In Health is in Malawi!

I first heard about Partners in Health when I was doing research on extreme poverty about a year ago. I was watching a slide show about the Millennium Development Goals: How to Change the World by 2015.

I have a link to it on this blog if you're at all interested (The Plan to End Extreme Poverty). The presentation was put on by The Earth Institute at Columbia University, which is directed by Jeffrey Sachs.

Anyway, when you get to "Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases", you'll see this picture (courtesy Partners in Health). I have carried it in my head for more than a year now.

It changed everything for me. In an instant, my perspective shifted from woe and hopelessness (so sad that this is happening. Too bad there is nothing I can do about it) to a sense of urgency -- Are you kidding me? That's the same guy?! All he needed was ARVs (meds)?!

The "before" guy can't work the fields or provide for his family, but how about the "after" guy? If we get pills to the before guy, we won't have to spend as much on the AIDs orphans. Because there won't be any!

And yes, I think we need to do more to educate and prevent against AIDs and other diseases, but we have to stop the bleeding first. The only reason that people stopped dying in droves in America from HIV/AIDs is because they got medicine.

So anyway, I am delighted to report that Partners in Health recently launched a new project in Nemo, an impoverished rural area in Malawi.

The government and Ministry of Health invited PIH based on its success and track record in rebuilding the public health infrastructure in Haiti, Peru, Cuba, Russia and Rwanda.

I'm reading the Tracy Kidder, Pulizer Prize winning book, "Mountains Beyond Mountains." It's the story of Dr. Paul Farmer, Founding Director of Partners In Health.

It talks about how he grew up a poor boy in Birmingham, Alabama -- like really poor; they lived in a bus -- and went on to kick ass at Harvard Medical School, all the time while working hands-on to provide care to the poorest of the poor in Haiti.

He was a total renegade. Steal from the rich (like meds out of the cabinet at the lab in Boston) to treat the poor. And he was smart. He has all these novel and unorthodox views about human rights (like, we all have them regardless of our social status) and just kept pushing and pushing till he got noticed. In reading this book, it's clear to me that changing the world is so damn frustrating! As Tracy Kidder explained in an interview, where most NGOs give up and ultimately blame the very people they've come to help, Paul Farmer and PIH never did that. They stayed. They asked themselves questions about what they were doing wrong. They developed relationships with the people (the public/cultures) they were treating to understand what social and cultural barriers they needed to integrate into their approach. They never wavered from their mission.

The back cover of this book says it's Paul Farmer's life calling to cure infectious diseases and to bring the lifesaving tools of modern medicine to those who need them most.

It's sorta how I articulated my own calling, "to raise (insert amount here: $101K) for the people who need it most."

I hate fundraising and I am actually pretty bad at it. But, I've been put in a very privileged situation, surrounded by positive, big-thinking and successful people. I have to think there is a reason for that. I believe that building awareness within my communities (and fundraising where I can) is what I am meant to do right now.

I know all too well that I am not the smartest, most articulate, creative, caring, thoughtful or charismatic kid on the block. But I've got a big heart, and that's my gift.

Silly to have it go to waste.

Anyway, thanks for the inspiration Paul Farmer!

You can grab for all that life offers with greed and selfishness, or you can appreciate what you receive and share a portion of it with others. Receiving for the sake of sharing creates a circuitry, a constant flow of good fortune in your life.

Find little ways to establish this circuitry in everything you do today.

Raising Malawi -- 2007 Update



Here's an update of all the great progress we're making in Malawi. It's 9:30 long. I hope you'll watch. I have a cameo appearance around six and a half minutes in.

Thank you everyone who made this goal possible! Let's not stop here!

I'm in LA this week.

I'm staying at the W in Westwood. It's very overcast, so I'm hanging out in my room. They always upgrade me when I visit. It's nice. I have a separate little living room to the bedroom.

I've already wrecked the place with my "piles" of stuff that drive David crazy at home. The room service guy didn't know where to put the tray last night. He almost fell over on some books on his way to the table across the room. Am I messy? I don't think of myself as messy. But, I dunno.

I may go out later to see if I can get a chocolate chip cookie somewhere. I'm craving one all the sudden. And a bottle of wine. And David. We're starting to figure out this dating thing and how to be loving and supportive of each other. It's so nice. I honestly miss him.

Too bad I'm moving in a couple weeks. I'm transferring to LA with the agency. They're putting me in corporate housing starting June 11th. It'll give me some time to figure out where to live. Buy a car. All that good stuff. I really love the people in the new office. I hope LA is full of more like them. They're smart, cool, creative. Real.

I'm here all week. I have to do a quick trip to Chicago tomorrow through Wed for groups, but then back to LA Thurs/Friday. I head home to NY next weekend. And then off to Ted's wedding in St. Croix the weekend after that. That should be fun. With all this going on, I need to figure out when to say goodbye to my friends.

I went to CVS last night to stock up on some of the stuff I forgot to pack -- makeup and junk. I found myself looking for a belated Mother's Day card. I couldn't find one. I guess there's not a big market for that sort of thing. I've got to get better about not letting my personal life fall apart when I get busy at work. Today is Luke's first communion! I would've loved to be there, but it's just so much travel. I'll send him cash or a gift instead.

I bought the movie, "The Break-up" at CVS to watch in my room. I really liked it! It's true Chicago and actually made me a little homesick. I didn't think I missed Chicago. But the movie reminded me of so many of my favorite things -- the Cubs vs. Sox bit in the beginning, concerts at the Riv, the Lake, the Chicago River, Vince Vaughn in those ridiculous Polish Pride T-shirts!! Go Polacks! I grew up a Sox fan btw, so while I've attended my share of games at Wrigley, I've never rooted for the Cubs a day in my life. It's sacrilege.

I haven't done much on my Raising Malawi initiative lately. My last fundraiser idea fell through because I couldn't attend my "One Woman Show" graduation in New York due to this new business pitch I'm on. Maybe I'll do a reprise. I was thinking about a fundraiser going-away party. But that limits me to my NY connections. I have a long way to go to meet my money goal this year.

I need a big idea!

Maybe I'll rent out my NY apartment for charity one week at a time? Stay a week, donate $500 to charity. You get the write-off, plus cool digs in the world's most amazing city. I want to renovate it first. But that could be a good idea provided I can still afford to pay the mortgage.

I've gotta focus my priorities. How much will I do for vulnerable children? In my head, I think everything and anything. But in my actions, I've been stopped.

Hunger and malnutrition kill nearly 6 million children in the world each year. If you have ever seen a starving child, you can't "un-see" it. But for some reason, we all try. Somehow it's not our problem. Truthfully, I'm not a big fan of taking on problems. I am, however, really inspired by participating in programs that deliver smart solutions.

Feed the Children has a cool program going on right now. They recently received a donation of 11-million pounds of rice from the government of Taiwan . Eleven million pounds! This is very exciting. So, they've got the food, but they need money to transport it from Taiwan to Kenya. $20 = 1,000 meals to starving, malnourished kids. If this inspires you, you can make a donation to Feed the Children.

A friend also turned me on to Heifer International. It's a great program to end hunger in 50 countries while providing a means for sustainable living. Buy a family a cow, the cow gives milk to a village. Buy a sheep, the sheep provides clothing for a community. Buy a chicken, you have eggs and food. You get the point.

And, of course, if you've found yourself on my blog for whatever reason, please please please send me a note to let me know that I'm not totally alone out here. You can click on this link to donate to Raising Malawi. And if you do, please RSVP on this blog or send me a private email (jsilka@yahoo.com) with how much you've donated so I can count it against my goal.

If you donated last year, please don't feel like you have to stop there ;) We're not finished yet! Be a channel for the Light. If you give, you will NOT be left without. You'll just have a bigger vessel for giving. It's like pumping weights. The more you pump the bigger your body gets. The more you give, the more capacity you have for giving. Spiritually, what I believe happens is that you expand your capacity to receive. The abundant Universe fills that void unconditionally. You have more so you can give more. You're just the vessel. Let yourself be used. If there is money in your pocket right now, it may be earmarked by some higher good as a gift.

Don't block that energy. Give it already! It'll only come back to you tenfold.

Look, so I started this "charity/tithing adventure" a year ago as a test. And I trusted the process. I gave more than I've ever given before, and my life is bigger today than ever before and only getting bigger. I'm meeting so many great people and I'm falling in love with my life. My life has purpose. I'm happy.

Buddy up with me! Write me a note. Join me on this amazing adventure of expanding yourself and being a contribution in the world.

What else is the point?

Happy birthday George Lucas!

And happy belated birthday to my neice Lauren, Age 2 on May 2nd.

Avocado Hate Crimes

My life is coming at me a thousand miles an hour. I'm transferring to our LA office and still finishing up/transitioning off business in NYC. I'm also helping on a new biz pitch re: Hass avocados.

I sent out a company-wide survey on Friday to help us with the pitch. It said, "Avocado eaters, we need your help! Please click on this link and answer a few questions about the mighty avocado. We need your insights ASAP!" sort of thing. Well....the link was attached to the wrong survey. It was attached to a survey I wrote re: NY Hate Crimes. Thankfully, the link wasn't live and we got the problem corrected pretty quickly, but I can't help but think of the consequences had that link been live.

Consider the hate crimes brief. Here's the sentiment, courtesy the brilliant Mr. Spike Lee and brilliantly delivered by Ed Norton:



So, David and I were goofing around just now about that campaign we would have to make for the Avocado commission had this survey actually been live. I present to you, the :30 spot on the Avocado. ;)

What is Raising Malawi?

Here's an overview of the program shortly after it was first conceived a year ago. I just watched the update video. I'm so excited to share that I am in it! I plan to post that as soon as it's uploaded on You Tube. Meantime, please watch this lovely overview. It's about 10 minutes.

Home of Hope Orphanage

Madonna is back in Malawi this week visiting the Home of Hope in Mchinji where she found her son David. I wrote a little about Home of Hope on an earlier blog entry -- remember the little girl in the rain? I took these pictures and video right before that storm rolled in.

The orphanage is run by Rev. Thompson Chipeta, a retired Presbyterian minister who himself grew up as an orphan. He established the orphanage with the idea of the children living in “home groups”, each group of up to 25 children being cared for by a “mother”. The mothers are usually widows who are given accommodation, food and a very small allowance, if finances permit. (Medic Malawi web site).

This is Gladys. She waddled up to me when I first arrived at the orphanage. She's a baby. She's a brick. I picked her up, a ball of expressionless dead weight in my arms. Jeffrey Sachs' wife Sonia, a pediatrician, examined Gladys a few months before I met her in February. I understand from Nathan (the director on the Madonna documentary who was with Sonia on that last visit) that Gladys has a curved spine and as evidenced by her bulging belly, other internal problems all due to malnutrition. She's not going to outgrow these problems.

I could feel her bendy spine when I held her. Even before I picked her up I knew something wasn't quite right. Her eyes remind me of my friend Ananya from grad school, so I had a special fondness for her.

I met the girl in the yellow dress when she was off by herself playing with broken glass. She was throwing rock-sized pieces of glass on a concrete sidewalk, shattering them all to bits. I took the glass out of her hands and started to pick up the pieces. The kids were running over it in their bare feet. I kept saying, "nooooooo" to teach them that broken glass was very bad. Some of the other kids decided to help me pick up the glass. They scammed me, giving me random pieces of trash pretending it was glass, saying "nooooooo" and then laughing their heads off for tricking me.

Truth be told, these are wild children! They reminded me a lot of the kids in Lord of the Flies.

They need so much. Parents would be a good start. Someone to be with them; teach them that it's not a good idea to smash glass for kicks. It'd probably help if they had a toy or two, but first things first. I mean, there are 500 kids here who are very much loved by the Reverend and his wife, but they don't have anyone really watching them and certainly no one to give them undivided attention and care.

Such is the dilemma with orphans, I guess.

Janja told me later that my little glass-breaking friend was new to the orphanage. She had arrived 8 days prior with her twin sister. The police brought them there after their mother hanged herself in their home. Sure seems like a heavy burden for a little girl to have to carry. I don't know that I could carry it....No friends. No mom and dad to love me. No one to explained to me why I was abandoned in such a horrible way. I suppose I would smash glass too.

On the upside if there is one, these kids are easily entertained. This little girl was fascinated with my toenail polish. I looked down and she was rubbing the color on each of my toes. I suppose little girls everywhere like to dress up and be pretty. They just don't have "stuff" to dream with -- no dolls, no feather boas, no fingernail polish, no nothing. I want to see that change.

I let a few of the kids take pictures with my camera. It was remarkable to witness. First, I gave my camera to this little boy here. He was grabbing it and touching the lens. Just crazy handling it. So I taught him, saying "nooooooo"... as I'd take his fingers away from the lens. I showed him to look through the viewfinder and put his finger on the top button. Then I explained, "PUSH". And I would press his finger down. A few more times of taking his fingers away from the lens and strategically placing his index finger on the button on top with the instruction, "PUSH" (an English word he had probably never heard before) and he quickly got the swing of it.

Then another little guy grabbed the camera away from him and was fumbling and being rough with it. To my delight, the first little boy taught him how to take a picture. My god it was so inspiring. He showed him the button on the top and said, "PUSH", just like I taught him.



Then I got the idea to let the girls try on my sunglasses. I would place these blingy-beauts on their eyes and say, "FABULOUS"!

There were a lot of kids, so I had to move fast from face to face. Put the glasses on their eyes and say, "FABULOUS"...then off to the next kid.

Then I noticed something that totally rocked my world. As I put my jumbo glasses on each coffee-bean-sized head, I looked at the eyes behind lenses.

The children were looking through the lenses as if they were a filter on the world. They clearly marveled at what they saw, taking it all in, looking all the way to the left and then all the way to the right before I pulled the glasses off and moved on to the next kid.

It was a such a wonderful metaphor. I wear the "rose-colored glasses" all the time. It's fun to wear, but it's just a perspective. It's not reality. Meeting these kids reminded me of that. They were teaching me as much as I was teaching them.

FABULOUS!

Here's a 3-min clip of the kids singing. Enjoy!

Happy Passover &
Plague- and Locust-free Easter!
On our way back from Lake Malawi, we meet children selling locusts by the roadside.

The Reaping starring Hilary Swank opened this weekend. I want to see it so I can better understand the old testament. I went to Catholic school growing up and heard a lot of these stories, although they never really made much sense to me. Who's afraid of a grasshopper?

There was a bad outbreak of them a few years ago in Northern Africa -- Mauritania, Niger and Sudan. A BBC report (10/03) explained that desert locusts are normally solitary insects but when climatic conditions are favorable they can rapidly increase in number.

As adult, winged insects they form swarms that can travel in tens of millions and travel great distances, crossing international borders in search of food.

They can devastate crops within minutes.

"And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt, and rested in all the coasts of Egypt; very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such."—Exodus. X: 14.

What's really whacked is that this stuff really happens. In 1987 to '89 a swarm of locust traveled from Sudan to India. I wonder if global warming had anything to do with the plague conditions. It's like we need to actually see the polar bear drowning before we consider the impact of how we live our lives. Sadly, I think I would have to see a small army of locusts in my apartment before I would bother changing out all my light bulbs to a more eco-friendly variety. Even now, I'm conveniently convinced that my little light bulb does not feed the bigger problem.

But I think that's the whole point of all those "wrath of God" stories. It *is* our individual accountability. I still didn't make that donation to pay for my carbon footprint from my trip to Africa. It's going to be about $300. I have the money....it's just not a priority yet. See. That's the consciousness I need to change within me. I'm working on it. And yes, I'll make that donation.

"And the Lord turned a mighty strong west wind, which took away the locusts, and cast them into the Red Sea; there remained not one locust in all the coasts of Egypt."—Exodus X: 19

We are still in the window of time called, Pesach (Passover). It started last Monday at noon and ends tomorrow, sundown. The name "Passover" derives from the night of the 10th plague, when the Angel of Death passed over the houses that had lamb's blood over their doorposts, thereby sparing the first born.

You know...I'm the first born. Although I'm a girl, so I don't think I would've been killed. (David, you would've surely been snuffed out, so you really should think about this kind of stuff.)

I am working on my ego, which is the spiritual point of the holiday. The work you did this past week on your ego can help to eliminate its control over you. I am doing the work, as best I understand what that means. For one, I haven't eaten any bread this week. Bread (and wheat and rice, I think) represents ego (expanding) so, you don't want to eat that. That's why everyone's eating matzo. It's unleavened (commemorating the hurriedly-baked bread the Israelites ate on their hasty departure from Egypt). Matzo is actually an important spiritual tool for making a connection to higher consciousness. Nice thing about living in New York is that it is very easy to come by. I'm getting some fresh matzo ball soup for lunch.

I'm not Jewish. But I study kabbalah. The old testament story of this holiday is the Exodus and freedom of the Israelites from ancient Egypt. In kabbalah, you decode the story. "Israelite" is anyone on a spiritual path. Egypt represents "ego". The point of this week is to gain freedom from your ego....leave Egypt so to speak, forever.

I don't want to go off and float on a mountain as a practice of my spirituality. My goal is to transform my ego and love my life and laugh at it and soak in everything. Some days are just perfect for that. My whole trip to Africa was like that.

Here's me and my new friends Delia and Megan discovering and enjoying Africa. Megan is a native Botsie (Botswana) who just took a position as head chef at the lodge where we were staying. So, Malawi was new to all of us and we were all in a mindset of discovery.

We went to a club to celebrate Megan's birthday (she's 22 I think, but a very old soul). It was the end of my and Delia's trip. We stayed out till 1 or 2 am and planned to head out to Lake Malawi the next morning.

Before the sunrise, maybe 4:30 am, the three of us spilled into the car all hung over and sleep-deprived. Our tour guides for the day were Guy Pickering (who owns/runs the Kumbali Lodge) and his friend Peter (who saved my life when I nearly drown. I'll share more on that later.)

We drove several hours and woke up to some of the most majestic sights on the planet. This is actually one of the best days of my life. The whole trip, every minute of it, we laughed ourselves out of our minds.

This clip is 3:19, and worth a watch if you're at all curious about African bug delicacies. According to Wikipedia, locusts are the only invertebrates considered to be Kosher food. So, if you keep kosher, this little recipe might help you mix things up a bit. I had no plans to try the "desert shrimp", as they're called, but I'd eat that before I would eat mice (like Guy describes) or flying ants, which Megan and Delia ate a few minutes later as we continued down the road. I'll post that video in a bit.

I think Megan is describing a recipe for cooking caterpillars here. I just love her accent. We bounced along in the car like this the entire trip. I get road sick just looking at it. Imagine driving 5-6 hours this way! Was it 5 hours? I don't even remember. But it was ridiculous and glorious, and random and perfect.

The bumps were all part of our joy.