Many people supported our trip to Malawi. People gave
us money and all sorts of different help we needed to get us on our
way. I have been writing all these posts for you so that you will
have some idea of what you have paid for.
Starting with possibly our weakest student; you have
helped Blessings. Lameck describes Blessings as vulnerable because he
doesn't really have a secure place or secure work. He has been to
both our previous courses but didn't do brilliantly and hasn't been
using homoeopathy. He went away from the last course without even
getting a book – I am not sure why that was; possibly he was
supposed to share but people disappear to far places where they might
get work or a better chance and the book went too. All Blessings
wanted from this course was the book. He got the book. But he also
got two weeks of food and friendship and computer training. In the
random way that chances come and go in this place that may stand to
him.
The other students are using homoeopathy in their
communities so you have helped communities spread across Malawi,
Zambia and Zimbabwe. Most of the students are treating serious cases
because the serious cases are there and no-one else can help them.
They are making a difference to the lives of people with epilepsy,
paralysis, HIV/AIDS, asthma (a crippling disease if you don't have
access to inhalers) and others. After this two weeks they understand
a little more about the people they have not yet been able to help.
You have provided them with more resources; books, repertory on
computer or phone and remedies to fill the gaps that have grown in
their remedy kits. They leave with renewed energy to learn this
difficult but so rewarding therapy and help more people thanks to
you.
Lastly you have helped Flyness and Angelina, our two
most brilliant students – secretly and quietly the most brilliant.
In a class full of loud and confident pastors these two 22 year old
women have the brains, the discipline to study and the ability to
listen. They have more knowledge but less confidence than the others
who hold positions of power in society and who are going to turn
around one of these days and find themselves far out stripped. In
every class there will be tortoises and hares but their patients, the
people no longer in pain, whose CD4 counts are going up, who have one
epileptic convulsion a month instead of 30 are not going to care if
they are treated by a tortoise or a hare. All the students share a
compassion for their patients and a desire to help.
Everyone has worked hard these two weeks. We have a
graduation ceremony and hold together for the last few hours as a
happy little band before we go our separate ways. That is what you
have given, that classroom where magic happened for two weeks, where
all of us learnt something and renewed our drive to help other
people, where we worked together before scattering, where we found
wealth in the poverty; you have held that in your hands. Thank You.
I have been home for a week and Africa has not faded
from my imagination yet as I know it will do. I feel it in the breach
when I try to explain to people I meet, people who don't get it and I
know that in another few weeks that will be my reality too. Africa is
very far away and this is my last Malawi post for now. Thank you for
reading
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