Hi everyone – I am delighted to announce that we have secured our date for this years golf tournament and want to let you know so that you can mark it in your calendars. The 13th Annual Tournament will be held again at Old South Country Club on September 10th, all of the details are up on the Galway Bay web site at www.galwaybaymd.com.
We have been busy this year following the last tournament and have helped Father Angels with some major repair work on the Teachers Houses at the Girls and the Boys Primary Schools. We have also begun to map out the locations for the bore holes for 2013. Malawi will be become a Rotary Future Vision district in 2013 and this will allow us to apply for additional funding to do a much larger project than we would have originally taken on. With the seed money form this tournament we have planned to approach other community clubs and Rotary International to achieve our goal of 15 bore hole wells throughout the 20 mile radius of the Nhekamenya community. This is an adventurous goal and one that with your help at this tournament we can get on the road to achieving. Please mark your calendars and watch out for more details coming via email. If you are already considering a donation for a prize or indeed becoming one of our main sponsors for the tournament please contact me directly at any time
thanks for the support – already looking forward to a great tournament in September – Will keep you all posted
Anthony

Thank you to also to all of  the volunteers who helped to make this tough year successfull

Anthony

We left Blantyre on time and got a good start to the journey. We had discussed taking a different route back in order to go by Lake Malawi but decided against it as we were unsure of how long it would take and also were still not confident about the car. We were about two hours into the trip when the car started to act up again slowing to a stop. We continued after it started up however it continued to get progressively worse until we were stopping every five minutes as we got closer to Lilongwe. We called Avis and they were getting another car ready but we weren’t even sure if we would be able to make it to the Hotel to change it. We stopped and started for another half hour through Lilongwe and eventually made coasting into the entrance of the hotel. Avis were apologetic about it and had another car, a newer version ready for us shortly after we got there so we did not lose too much time and continued on to Nhkamenya.

We arrived back at the Parish at about 2pm and were welcomed with lunch and smiling faces. We relaxed a little and then went to help with the preparations for the Big Sunday Mass to follow the Ordination that was to take place the next day. We assisted in the painting of the bases of all the trees surrounding where the Mass would be held and lacking any real paint brushes we used a fibrous branch of a tree that had been shredded into a brush like end – I have to say it was even better than some new brushes I have bought at home. I painted and Rick took the pictures.

Following this we took Father Angelo back down to the town and bought him a few cases of Green Beer to replace some of the ones we had tasted for him. We had to hold many tastings as it was difficult to gauge the true flavor on just one or two sips – Father Angelo was happy to receive them.

We returned for dinner and ate together at the Parish house where another guest had joined on his way to Mzuzu for the Ordination. I was resting after dinner and we were chatting, when Father Mkandawire, the Pastor formally thanked us sincerely for our visit and what our Club had done already for the Parish and the community here. He expressed extreme gratitude for all of the kindness that had been shown to their community as a result of the growing relationship that had begun with Father Alphie and had now solidified itself with this new relationship with Father Angelo. The members of the community were overjoyed at the visit by the two of the Americans (Irish) and it was hard to explain just how much it meant to them to have a “Mzungu” (white man) visit out that far in the villages – just to shake our hands was a treat and a rare occasion. I expressed our thanks for their generous hospitality and appreciation for having moved them around in order to accommodate each of us with a room while we stayed there. It had been a great visit with some very productive meetings and enlightening tours of the various communities within the parish – I had a lot to share when I returned home.

Following our conversation Father Angelo asked me to join him for a meeting with the Youth (young teenagers). I said sure – It was about 8.45pm and we walked over to the hall where there were about 30 young girls and boys and they were holding a meeting to discuss issues and various topics. Father Angelo is head of the youth organization for the Parish which includes over 5,000 youths. There are a number of different youth clubs throughout the parish which are made up of a committee and have an elected President that runs their meetings. The youth meet at each club on a bi monthly basis and the President meets with Father Angelo at the headquarters in Mzuzu on a Bi monthly basis also.

Father Angelo always seems to have something going on that connects with them – he introduced me and spoke a little to the group in their language and then they all laughed – he had made a comment on my shorts as it was quite cool and nobody was wearing shorts – just the” Irishman from America of course”.

Father put me on the spot a little and asked me to say a few words of introduction and reasons for our visit and then I answered a few questions from the group that were all on issues that they were experiencing – Getting married rather than finishing school, looking for jobs, learning a trade. I found it difficult to give them good answers as all of the political and economic reasons for their futures were so much in evidence but what do you say! I commended them on their respect for education, each other and their community and encouraged them to make sure and vote when they become old enough to do so. We talked a little about the internet and the changes it is bringing to other countries around the world – cell phones are only getting started here so there is a bit of a ways to go. It was an interesting meeting and just another glimpse of what Father Angelo had scheduled for me to witness while I was here. We said our goodbyes so they could continue with their meeting and I thanked the President of the Club for allowing me to join them.

We retired after this to bed at 10pm – 5am start the next morning to travel to Mzuzu for the Ordination

We rose at 5am and packed the car for the last time, had a cup of tea (Barry’s that I had brought with me) and a slice of “Thank You” cake that had been overlooked at dinner the evening before.

We left the Parish at 6am and headed North up the M1 toward Mzuzu. We arrived at 8am and as promised got a full tank of gas at the station in front of the Bishop’s house – it is handy to know some people when there is no gas in the country, men of the cloth have a bit of influence here.

We took a tour of Father Angelo’s office in Mzuzu which served as the meeting place for the Youth Club Presidents and was established and funded by the church to provide a resource center for them. It had a computer that worked off XP and Word2003 and a photocopier that did not work. Father talked about the need to incentivize the youth to use the center office more often and learn from it – It needed books and a computer for Internet access.
We continued on to the main church where the Ordination was to be held – it was busy there with over a thousand people attending. Wonderful colors of blue, white and red with the name of the hosting Parish of St Augustine’s being displayed everywhere on banners and on the clothing of the dancers and the choir. Singing was already underway. We were introduced to the Bishop and then found our seats to witness the ordination of three Priests including Deacon Edmund from the Parish. We took a lot of pictures and video.

To stay on our schedule we left shortly after the main event and hit the road again at 11.15am. We drove to Nhkamenya first to drop off Father Angelo and say our final goodbyes and then we continued on the journey back to the hotel at Lilongwe. The road was good and the car behaved well. We arrived at just after 3.30pm and settled up Avis, checked in and got ready for our meeting with Stallard Mpata who as the past District Governor for the District that included Malawi, Zambia, Mozambique. It was a good meeting where we discovered that Stallard had spent time in the US studying at the University of Tallahassee and making bi annual trips to the United States – We encouraged him to visit our Club at a future time. We discussed what we had been doing, the future plans – reconfirmed some of the contacts at all of the different clubs of Malawi. We talked about the future of the country and the difficulties that it was experiencing with its current leadership as well as the recent K8million that the UK had pulled back in aid due to its dissatisfaction over the government’s policies on the economy. We thanked Stallard for taking the time to meet with us and finished our evening with a burger at the restaurant retiring at 10pm. Tomorrow we head to the airport for our flight home – We are ready – it has been a long ten days and we look forward to seeing our family and friends when we get back

When I get back I will have a lot of pictures and video to be uploaded to the blog so keep an eye out for updates in the near future when I have larger megabyte upload capabilities

Thank you for following our trip and please tell as many people as you can about our golf tournament in aid of Malawi that will be held on Sept 12th 2011 – check the website at www.galwaybaymd.com

Signing off – Anthony

Rick had originally canceled this morning’s meeting with Martin and the Meteorological department and did not think he would be able to make the Rotary Lunch that was set for 12 noon but he pulled it out of the hat and arrived just before the Rotary meeting started.

We got to present our power point to the club and show them what we had been up to at the Holy Cross Parish in Nkhamenya and we were very well received – in fact one of the members and childhood friend of Martins actually grew up in one of the villages nearby – he is a Doctor now. There were a lot of guests at this meeting nearly outnumbering members and even included a visitor from Ireland who was there on a Fair Trade Project with KPMG. Rick was able to pay compliment to Martin who had come as a guest and we both paid tribute to the welcome we had received from everyone up and down Malawi. We received good comments during the meeting and following its conclusion were able to speak with the Project coordinator and the President of the club and exchange email contacts.

One of the Rotarians commented on how great it was to see a Malawian (Martin) be complimented on doing a good job from within the country rather than someone from outside having to do it for them – made a great point.
Rick then left to go for his meeting with the Meteorological Department with Martin and I stayed to have a chat with the Sergeant at Arms who ran a paint business, originally from Holland but had lived in North Carolina for a bit returning to Malawi for most of the last 45 years

It was a great discussion on the politics of the country, the population, education, demographics and what the potentials for the country were. There are a lot of common themes in Malawi with other countries it is just so poor that it seems to create a vicious circle that can keep going around in circles – did you know that 60% of the population of Malawi was under the age of 16? We met a few others that had some influence – the CEO of one of the local banks, the owner of one of the country’s largest food producing companies and the CEO of the BP operation in Blantyre – (kept his number handy for the gas problem)

I took a walk later in the afternoon and visited the flea market where you could buy clothing, shoes, phones, chargers, bags and food all laid out in make shift stalls, there were throngs of people and it took me a little bit to get comfortable and move through the crowd – would have made a great Market House with all the activity but I guess it just wouldn’t be the same as our famous Market House in Annapolis!!!!!

I could see the parking lot where all of the small little Toyota Hi Ace Vans assembled getting ready to bring the people back to their respective villages after working in the town for the day. There were about 50 of them all ready to go.
We still had not heard from Avis and were unsure of what we were going to do the next morning.

I met back up with Rick at the hotel at about 4.30pm and we waited for Martin and his family to come and meet with us as he wanted to introduce them to us. He arrived shortly before 5 with his wife, two sons and daughter who were all in college or finishing school. We had a good conversation and he presented us both with a gift each of a wooden sculpture, there was a lion for Rick and an elephant for me, they were great.

We shared a beer together and then they departed, in the meantime the Avis guy returned with the car and a full tank – we were ready to go the next day. One thing for sure I was glad we went with Avis and not some of the other cheaper choices that we could have made.

We had some dinner and then headed to bed early for a 6am start

We left for Lilongwe at 8.10am after breakfast with the Father’s. The road was good and we arrived at Lilongwe just after 11am, however having stopped at a gas station just before getting to the hotel we discovered, having driven by a number of them, that there was a shortage of gas everywhere. This would be a problem for us to continue or journey tomorrow. We checked in with the Avis guy at the hotel and he said he would try and take care of it. The gas situation is a result of the countries lack of dollars to buy gas, the economy is not very positive at the moment here and there is displeasure with how the present President is treating the issues.

We got ourselves ready for the Rotary Lunch meeting and made our way to the room where it was being held. We met with a few members as they arrived and conversed about where we were from and why we were here in Malawi. The meeting itself had a tight schedule, even though they did not have a presenter, they had a lot of business to attend to and guests were asked to leave about three quarters of the way through the meeting hour. Initially disappointed we waited outside until their meeting broke and were able to make arrangements to meet for a drink with the Sargant at Arms who had been a previous President of the club and the Projects Director later that evening. Prior to the trip I had arranged to meet with the Past District Governor, Stallard Mpata, unfortunately he had a death in the family and was unable to attend the meeting. We met with one other member after the meeting broke who was an American, his name is Christopher Nyce and he was in Malawi as the Economic and Commercial Officer for the US government. Christopher had been a Rotary Member for just over 10 months and was enjoying being involved with Rotary and wanted to get more involved with some area (we think good timing). It was also good for my colleague Rick and the business of his non – profit, IEDRO.

We met later in the hotel with Sophie and Hatch and we were able to show them our presentation and the recent pictures that we had taken in Nhkamenya. We had a great 2 hour conversation about ourselves, themselves, Rotary and the potential partnerships that could be established between our clubs while working toward Future Vision 2013 in Malawi. Lilongwe has a lot of International matching grants and have tapped their limit of 5 at this time with more backed up in the line behind them, however we also discussed other ways of potentially being able to avail of local district grants by funding part of a project with “community contribution” The conversation was good and established a good basis and introduction for us with this club. In addition to this great meeting I got a call later from Stallard Mpata and we have arranged to meet on Saturday evening in Lilongwe prior to our departure on Sunday.

Following that I had a few green beers while Rick stayed on the red wine – we then retired for the evening not knowing whether we would have gas or not the next morning to continue our journey.

Day 6 – Wednesday

We rose at 7am and met for a great breakfast of sausages, rashers, baked beans, toast and marmalade, – yum they even made a great cup of tea. After breakfast we went to the Avis office to see what we would be doing for the day. Luckily our Avis rep was able to get petrol, unfortunately he had to come from the Black Market so it cost a little more (about $90 to fill ¾ of a tank in a Toyota Corrolla – I know, maybe we got ripped off but what can you do – need the gas). Either way it was worth it as neither of us had to wait in line or scour the town looking for petrol. We paid the man and left the hotel for Blantyre at 9.24am. We had estimated the trip to take us about 4 hours.

Along the way we had a few issues with the car where it would just cut out while passing or speeding up on a few occasions forcing us to pull off to the side and just roll to a stop. After stopping it would start up again and allow us to continue. This only happened once during the first half of the trip but became more frequent as we got into the second half of the trip. Fortunately it got us to Blantyre and we arrived at the hotel by 2.30pm. First order of business was to hand the car back to Avis and ask them to get us a new car or fix it and at the same time locate some petrol, as there were shortages in Blantyre also. The Avis representatives were very helpful so we hope to be ready to go when we leave early on Friday morning.

Upon arrival we met with Ricks IEDRO representative here in Blantrye, Martin. After we checked in they met for business and I joined them later for conversation at about 6.30pm. It was interesting to learn about some of the work that is going on all around Africa in rescuing the weather data and how the meteorological departments of each country are contributing to the effort. It was clear how valuable the volunteer time that Martin had been spending on the work was to IEDRO and the progression that had been made because of his contributions. The gift for Rick was a box of old micro fish slide with old data that Martin had found at a local auction having been discarded. The gift for Martin was a brand new American video camera.

Two friends of Martin’s, one of which was a member of the Rotary Club of Blantyre, joined us for a half hour where we had some conversation of what we were doing here in Africa in addition to Rick’s work.

Rick did not feel too good after the meeting and even passed up on dinner to retire – he had a few early morning meetings scheduled that he wanted to be ready for in the morning and then we would meet up for the Rotary Lunch meeting at 12 noon.

We had an early night – no green beer for me