Imagine…
…cutting wood for the fire to prepare breakfast, then having to carry it for 1/2 to 3/4 of a mile on your head back to your home.
…walking far up the mountain to cultivate your family farm plot, while carrying a baby on your back and a heavy hoe over your shoulder.
…walking to the market, four miles away, then having to carry all of your purchases all the way home on your head.
…working in the field to cultivate, weed, and raise a bushel of tomatoes, then traveling 40 miles to the nearest market to sell your produce.
…walking deep into a ravine to obtain water, then having to carry it in a leaking bucket on your head all the way back home.
…having a bumper crop from your small family farm plot for the first time in ten years, only to find you can’t get it to market.
…being ready to deliver your first baby, only to find you have to walk 8 miles to get down from your mountain village because no car or ambulance can reach you.
These are just a few of the daily chores that must be sustained by Malawi men and women in order to survive another day. These are also some of the reasons the Malawi Project is focusing on getting basic utility vehicles into the country.
The BUV is built in Indianapolis, Indiana, and is the creation of Will Austin. It is part of his mission to help people in third world countries be able to transport people and commodities over long, hard, dangerous, and exhausting distances. The organization is the Institute for Affordable Transportation. The Malawi Project has purchased and shipped three of these vehicles. Two are in the central region of the county, and a third arrived in November at the Namikango Maternity Hospital in the southern part of the nation. More of these units are needed if life is to improve.
Pictured are the three units, one transporting people, another employed to move food, and the third is engaged in moving heavy logs. Pictures thanks to Richard Stephens, Mark Thiesen and Wilson Tembo. To learn more about the BUV go to: www.drivebuv.org