Life in a Log, or a Bucket on Your Head

    Explain it and few people can understand. After all, this is the 21st Century. No one lives in a mud hut anymore, do they? And how can someone in the fishing profession go out to sea in a carved out log? Can they?

    To explain life in African’s lower Rift Valley; mud huts, dirt paths, dug out canoes, and hand held agricultural tools is really a near impossibility to explain. After all, most people only remember these things in the distant past of 50 years ago in a time of frontier explorers, poor dirt farmers, or in imaginary Hollywood movie sets.

    But, in the heart of Africa, or more fitly, in the Warm Heart of Africa, in the country of Malawi, the past is the present. With a family income of only slightly over $100.00 it is hard for a family to gain even an extra plate, pot, or place for another family member to sit. Life is hard and it is not getting any easier.

    Each time a trailer of supplies reach Malawi from the supporters of the Malawi Project life gets easier for a large number of people for a time. Hope springs up that someone, somewhere, out there cares about them and is willing to help them. Families have a new bucket with which to carry water from the distant river. Medical supplies fill the shelves of a number of hospitals, school books flood a number of classrooms, pens and pencils touch the hands of children who can now write their lessons, and the future is a little more comfortable.

    How does one repeat "thank you" thousands of times for all of the aid that is being sent to help the poverty-stricken areas of Malawi. How does one say "thank you" for the child that is saved from dying because of a small box of medical supplies in a much larger shipment of aid. How does one say "thank you"