Malawi Blog 

I was woken up at 3am by a chicken outside my window. Although this was annoying i knew that eventually i would be eating that chicken as it was rather fat. Therfore getting my revenge.

However i dont believe that will leave a good taste in my mouth, metaphoricaly (the chicken is very tasty!). Every time we sit down for meals our table is overflowing with dishes, fizzy drinks, waters and all kinds of sauces and i feel nothing but guilt. For the boys geting any kind of meat is a special occasion but for us it is simply another meal, and i feel strongly that this food would be better served with them than us. The people at St Patrick’s give us their best accomodation complete with mosquito nets, clean runing water and comfy beds. They put on shows, sing and dance for us and we give them very little in return. Today after a 6am Mass and a 9am show we went into town the roadside was packed with venders selling fruit and other such things most of them children, we didnt really get to interact with them. On the way a dissabled man began walking with us. At first he was ahead of me and kept swaying onto the road. This conserned me as cars in malawi really stop for anything, so i speed up and began walking beside him. I wasnt sure if he could speak at all nevermind speak English so none of us said anything to eachother. Eventualy he motioned for me to give him the water bottle i was holding, a water bottle supplied to me from St Patrick’s. I gave him the bottle but it didnt realy feel like a kindness.

Later after we arrived at a supermarket, some of the girls noticed a kitten nuzzeld behind a rusty old bike and a cluster of metal rods. The cat was jet black but its most distinctive feature was its large grey eyes. Even though it was hidden away i couldnt sence fear in its piercing grey eyes, i couldnt sense anything at all. This is the same way i feel when i look at the people of malawi. I cant tell what they think when they look at me, whether they feel distain for me coming here and treating ther lives like a specticle to be observed by me or they are gratefull for me being and take my presence as a sign that ther are people in the world who care for there wellbeing. This may posibbly be because i am unsure of what me being here really means. After seing the cat i went back into the supermarket and bought a bottle of water to give. When outside i was unable to get the bottle open to which aaron then gave me his bottle that was already which i then gave to the cat. I think this moment summed up the way i have felt my time in malawi has gone. I tried to give the cat a drink and ended up a with a bottle. I try to give and end up only recieving. I take more than i give. Miss McFadden then bought us a meal a resuraunt in town. Me and Aaron both got the smoked beef which tasted nice but took several minutes to chew. After a while my jaw began to hurt so me and aaron desided to take a valient gamble with our lives and swollow the chunks of beef whole. Later on the walk back a man with an atrophed arm wrapped up in a crudley put toghether sling began asking us for help getting to a hospital. He said he needed to get their in the next few days. It seemed that there was nothing we could to to help him which seemed ood as i thought helping people is why we came here. In fairness i couldnt think of what to do either so i tried to give all the money i had left in hopes he could pay for a lift. I gave him 350 kwatcha, a water bottle cost 400. Even still he said god bless you. Later after checking my pockets i discorverd i had another 1500 kwatch still left. This made question alot of thing but most of all it just made me angry. Later on we played basketball with some of the boys allthough my shooting embarresed me this still lifted my mood.

Aidan