Kwathu ndi ku Malawi

There are some weeks that are hard to talk about and maybe don't make for the best blogs but they are part of my life.  On Monday I woke up around  4:30am  to the sound of wailing and crying close to my window and I knew immediately that one of my neighbors had died. I got up and dressed by  5am  and went next door. When someone dies, the word goes out fast and the entire village comes over to that persons house to sit and some women to cook. Men normally sit in one location and women in another. In my Muslim community, inside the house where the body normally is, only men go. So from about  5am to 6am  I just sat in the backyard with other women watching the sun come up and watching the endless array of neighbors come by. Even if you didn't feel a particularly strong bond to the one who died, the looks of agony on other's faces and their wails can bring anyone to tears.  I left to get breakfast and then packed some food to bring over...

The past months myself and a counterpart from the health centre, Alfred, have been working in a village about 5km from the health center with a Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) mother group of 33 lactating and pregnant women. We have been learning about nutrition using emotion-based learning, food group surveys, improved agriculture techniques, proper breast feeding and weaning practices, cooking demonstrations, and home gardens. Recently we went to visit some of the women who invited us to their homes to appreciate their backyard gardens where they are growing vegetables. These small gardens are important during this season since food gets more scarce and families sometimes start running out. As we went to one house where several mothers are working together on a garden there was an Agogo (grandmother) standing nearby. She started to tell us that she was so inspired and impressed by her neighbors starting home gardens that she built a fence on her own, prepared bed...