"In Malawi, a child doesn't ask, "what's for dinner? The question is, "Will I eat?" I spent three weeks recently living at The Home of Hope Orphanage in Mchinji District, Malawi, Africa, where 670 children are fortunate to be fed three meals a day! For breakfast, they have a bowl of porridge fortified with Vitameal on account of protein deficiency is a problem in Malawi. For lunch and dinner, they have the Malawi staple food, nsima, which is a thick porridge made from ufa (maize meal). With nsima, there is usually a relish of nyemba (pinto beans) or maybe a variety of cichlids which are little silver fish (sometimes used in aquariums here in the U.S.). On occasion, there may be a little bit of vegetable in the form of pumpkin leaves or a piece of sweet potato and...That's All, Folks.
I never heard one complaint about the food! Nsima is hearty but could really use a little salt, pepper and butter. But hey, it is what it is and it's eaten twice a day just like that, corn maize and water. I've always liked pinto beans but I usually have them with a little piece of seasoning meat . The little silver fish....no thanks! Pumpkin leaves are pretty good but you can only use the young, soft ones so there really aren't that many when you're looking at feeding almost 700 children of all ages. Every child was so appreciative to have food!
The children ate breakfast at 6:30, lunch at noon, and dinner at about 5:30. There was a gong in a tree that someone rang at meal times and the kids grabbed their bowls and headed for their respective lines: the older boys have a nsima fire and line, the older girls have one and the little kids have one. The girls loved when I ate with them! Nsima is eaten by rolling it into a sort of lumpy ball and then dipping the lump into whatever "relish" was being served with that meal. They copied me when I went to a tap and rinsed my fingers before I ate but I don't know if they washed when I wasn't there. Their fingers are tough and the girls laughed when I squealed after burning my fingers in the hot nsima! After eating, we wiped our hands on our skirts. There are no parents to remind them to use their napkins and anyway, there are no napkins. Our bowls were rinsed under the tap and wiped dry with our skirts to be used for the next meal.
So it all sounds so nice and fun to be eating with the girls and everyone was happy but guess what. One morning I went a little late after the breakfast gong and there wasn't any porridge left. I had to think if by eating with them, had I been taking food away from someone? The Malawians are extremely hospitable and would never had said anything to me nor would they have given me any indication that I may have been taking something that belonged to them - that's because they share what little they have with each other and I'm not sure they even think that anything DOES exclusively belong to them. It was a very sobering thought and a reminder that everything we do has a consequence and everything must be done with consciousness!
In Malawi, there are one million orphan children in a population of just 13 million. Now that you know, what will you do? If you or your business or a contact can contribute to the nutrition of these children, please go to http://www.raisingmalawi.org/ and designate Home of Hope Orphanage as the recipient.
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