A "lucky baby" who intends to pay it forward

Her name really is Hongjin Lin, but she uses Nicole, most of the time, and although she is sitting across the table from me weeping, she considers herself the "lucky" one, because, unlike the siblings that preceded her, who never lived to glimpse daylight, Hongjin Lin escaped abortion despite China's One Child policy. It is largely because of this simple fact that Nicole is driven by a sense of obligation, especially to Chinese girls who are not as fortunate as she.

Nicole posed for me to conceal the obvious: I really only wanted a photo of the Tsoka flea market.

I met her in the airline terminal in Addis Ababa, between legs of a flight connecting Toronto and Malawi's capital city, Lilongwe. You can meet a lot of interesting people at the Addis Ababa terminal. Most of the faces are black, so Westerners stand out, and it's a safe assumption that they speak English.

There's always a reason to speak up, if for only to make sure you are in the right line in unfamilair surroundings. One of the people I engaged conversation with was a doctor who was on her way to provide medical services in a remote Arican destination -- I don't remember just where. Next to her was her young shy daughter, an ingenue perhaps already far more worldly than her peers. One man I spoke with was an archeologist, heading to a dig. On the flight home, catching a nap on a chaise the Ethiopians had set out for weary travelers in Addis Abbaba's airport, I found myself next to a young Irish woman who conducted tours for students familiarizing themselves with conditions in Northern Malawi. The north is heavily forested, but the south of Malawi is nearly denuded of forests, she said; if they don't get a handle on their environment and their birth rate, this country that hosts two refugee camps for several African Nations could be in its own civil war in 10 years, she observed.

Face it, if they are between flights in Central Africa, the people you meet on the road  have a life different from the ordinary and a story to share.

Nicole was no different. The fact that she was a young Asian female traveling with a male companion, set her apart. But it wasn't until we were on the plane and she was sitting in front of me that she began to share pieces of her story. I think I had been telling her about the One World Futbol, because that's what I tend to talk about when people ask me what I'm up to. I explained that these tough balls sustains hundreds of punctures without ill effect, and that's why they are ideal for disadvantaged communities such as refugee camps.  Well, said Nicole, she was volunteering for There Is Hope, an organization serving Dzaleka, the major refugee camp in Southern Malawi. And then she mentioned Innocent Magambi, author of Refugee for Life, who had organized There Is Hope, suggesting that I should get in contact with him.

This was rather overwhelming, I had barely started the final flight to Lilongwe, and we were already making plans to connect when we landed, and what were the chances of that, and what was this organization, anyway, and who was this fellow, Innocent Magambi?

Sometimes, it's a small world. My hostess in Malawi knew a driver, Duncan Zimba, who could drive me around for the first few days when I was in Lilongwe getting adjusted to the time change. And when I mentioned There is Hope to Duncan, and Innocent Magambi, he needed no explanation. Duncan knew Innocent. They were virtually friends. Naturally. He's a taxi driver. They know everyone.

What that means was that there was not going to be any difficulty finding a home for 40 One World futols and 85 hats and assorted clothing I raised at the African Hat Dance -- my pre-birthday party at First Class Ballroom in Everett, WA, a few days before I flew out. But don't let me get sidetracked. This story is about Nicole -- whom I ran into immediately after arriving at There Is Hope's office in Lilongwe, and I'll be telling you all about that in a few days. Later, during my stay in Lilongwe, Nicole and I connected a couple times, including going on a shopping spree, and it was on those later connections that I heard the rest of her personal story.

Nicole speaks English fluently, but her home is in China. Sort of. In her early 20s, she really is a citizen of the world. She is a graduate of Occidental College, which was attended by a recent American president. ("After graduating from high school in 1979, Barack Obama moved to Los Angeles to attend Occidental College. In February 1981, Obama made his first public speech, calling for Occidental to participate in the disinvestment from South Africa in response to that nation's policy of apartheid." --Wikipedia)

She also attended college in Britain, and she was an intern at the United Nations, where she witnessed President Trump's famous "Rocket Man" comments about North Korean Leader Kim Jong-un. (Diplomats tend to be reserved when a head of state is speaking, but  Trump's remarks noticeably influenced facial expressions, she said.)

Graduation Day at Occidental was not totally a joyful experience for Nicole. She felt the weight of responsibility of being so privileged when literally millions of young Chinese women have limited opportunities to experience the same achievements. And to have come so far when only chance prevented her from being aborted gives her a sense that she has a debt to pay for the honors and privileges she has experienced.

Nicole's eyes moistened as she shared her story over lunch: Her parents were well educated, and her father was an accountant in a Chinese firm. He and her mother lived in a village at a time of China's one-child policy, when neighbors would report when a woman's pregnancy became obvious. If her family didn't have an abortion after the first child, her father could lose his job, Nicole said. And so two siblings ahead of her were aborted.

And then chance took center stage: The factory closed. The family had an excuse for being displaced, and her mother, who was not yet showing with Nicole, went to a city where she had a degree of anonymity. After Nicole's birth, sometimes her mother would hide with her in public toilets, where the odor discouraged individuals from investigating them.

Nicole, who was "undocumented" into her teen years, learned the story by bits and pieces as she grew up, only learning later in life that two siblings had to be sacrificed. And so, along with the gift of life she carries with her a sense that she has an obligation to make a difference.

Nicole shows off Kibebe products: pen holders, cards, bibs, shopping bags, colorful storage boxes.

In Lilongwe, her plan is to make a difference using a $10,000 Davis Projects grant with There is Hope  to help refugees at Dzaleka produce goods for sale via an Online Shop for Refugee Empowerment. You can also see images of their products on Facebook at Kibebe Malawi.

Showing fabrics

 Because the camp is supported by the United Nations, the refugees are prohibited from holding jobs. But they can still manufacture goods for sale. Nicole is marketing the goods via Shopify.com. I purchased a couple of the items for sale -- a purse that unzips and unfolds into a shopping bag and a picnic blanket.

Nicole's story resonated with me. It reminded me of the time 50 years ago, when President Lyndon Johnson, following the assassination of President Kennedy, persuaded Congress to create a domestic Peace Corps called Volunteers in Service to America (V.I.S.T.A.).

In 1965, one such VISTA volunteer went to Appalachia, realized that girls were living in poverty because they didn't graduate from school due to poor clothing, and wrote a grant for sewing machines so she could teach their mothers how to make clothes cheaper than they could purchase them.

A few years ago, I discovered and read that grant proposal which that young woman wrote to obtain the machines to teach those skills. I had located that remarkably well-written proposal among her effects when it came time for her memorial service following our 30-year marriage. Nicole is close to the age that Betty was when she was serving in Appalachia. So, as you might imagine, I dearly hope that Nicole -- Hongjin Lin -- stays in touch and keeps me informed about the progress of her career.

Like Yogi Berra was supposed to have said: "It's déjà vu all over again."

Love,
Robert

And Shu

In Cambodia: futbols and kazoos a big hit

In the 1984 film, Amadeus, I believe there is a scene in which the young Mozart plays the piano upside down and backwards. Well, I can see how one can do that with a piano, but a kazoo?  I always believed the kazoo was designed to be played in one direction, until I saw this image of  a young Cambodian student playing the kazoo backward!  With her hands off the control surfaces!  The kazoo is a rather straightforward instrument. But playing it in reverse? The kazoo? Sacre bleu!

Blowing on the wrong end of a kazoo, and lovin' it.

Afterward she lost it.  In the photo below, the young lady is cracking up while her classmate struggles to keep a straight face.

The smiles make a caption for this photo totally unecessary.

In the photos above, taken as grab shots from a video David Biviano forwarded, the kids are clapping their hands and blowing notes to that old Sunday School standard, "if you're happy and you know it, clap your hands" (clap, clap). It's not a song I would have expected to hear in Bosthom Village, which I can't find on Google Maps and have no idea where it is.

This, of course, is just my way of saying that my good friend David Biviano has already returned to Cambodia, and has started distributing One World Futbols. And kazoos. Especially kazoos.

I'm sure you remember David from the last blog post -- he's the philosophy professor who ran an

Vanny and mother

orphanage in Siem Reap,  called the Cambodian Children's House of Peace, until the government bowed to a suggestion from Unicef and closed down orphanages, sending the children back to villages.

However, David had the last laugh, sort of. When he returned to Cambodia this summer, he visited Bosthom Village, where a Mr. Vanny, a graduate of David's orphanage, now teaches, after completing a two-year teachers college in Siem Reap. Vanny is now attending Cambodia's Build Bright University in pursuit of a bachelor's degree, and his mother is the principal of the school where he teaches. That's a photo of the two of them at the right.



Naturally, with David's connections to Bosthom Village, there was a ceremony for distributing the balls.  In the photo below, Vanny is translating for David, gesturing to clarify that the One World Futbol will never go flat.

"This ball never goes flat," said  Mr. Vanny, translating for David.

Then they all said "thank you for the ball," like they were supposed to . . .

And then they got down to it -- the first game was "keep away."

David also visited the primary school in Bos Village to present a One World Futbol to Ms. Sohkeng, a teacher assistant and another graduate of the Cambodian Children's House of Peace. In the photo below she is sitting with her cousins at the end of the school day.

Teacher assistant Ms. Sohkeng receives One World Futbol for Bos Village primary school.

What follows tells the tale. The children turned into a blur of activity. And lest you think this is just a boy's game, follow the sequence below. He is about to give the ball a swift kick in the first photo. In the second grab shot, she's already blocked it and has gotten the ball away from him.

Looks like he's got it all under control . . .

. . . but she blocks it with her knee and hooks it with her foot before he knows what happened.

By the way, before I close this post, I should admit a little aggravation about these kazoos.  I am the man who introduced the kazoo to Hanoi, and then to Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. And I wanted to include Cambodia in my résumé of firsts, but now David has claimed that honor. But I have my revenge, because, as it turns out, he is the reason those kids play the kazoo backward.

"I am embarrassed to say I have been playing the kazoo from the wrong end, which nevertheless still works, just not as efficiently," he confessed. Well, I guess it's time to repeat the tutorial I posted back in 2016 which I introduced the kazoo to Hanoi. Here it is:

Deceptive in its simplicity, the kazoo has only one moving part--your vocal cord. (Tongues optional)

The kazoo is a musical instrument sophisticated in its simplicity. There is the blowificator, where you place your lips, the musicator, where the tune emerges, and the buzzifier on top, which yields the kazoo's unique tonal qualities. There are also the control surfaces between the buzzifier and the musicator, where you spontificate the sounds for melodious effect by pressing down or fluttering with your fingers.

Well, that should settle that. Now then, I know in the last blog I indicated I was going to profile a new individual. That was before I knew that David would report back so quickly. So he gets two shots at the spotlight. But now I really am going to return to the subject of  Malawi and some other notable characters. There's more to tell.

Love,

Robert,

And Shu

Seven futbols to Cambodia!

The Wilson campaign has finally reached a long-sought objective: One World Futbols to Cambodia.

I have a personal interest in Cambodia. A childhood friend, Jay Hastings, has created a novel program,  not just of low-interest micro loans--but of interest free micro loans--to 10 fishing villages associated with  Tonle Sap, the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Jay flies to Cambodia twice a year to help these villages manage these loans to built their own capital by re-loaning the money to their villagers. His effort, supported by the national government's fisheries department, has drawn the attention and participation of a major Japanese university. It got my attention, too. I sponsored the loan for one of the villages, Kanleng Phe, and had wanted to return to distribute One World Futbols. That trip wasn't in the cards this year, but things changed, when I met the newest member of Team Wilson during a visit to Chacala, Mexico, in February.

Biviano

David Biviano, Team Wilson's newest member, is a philosophy professor who once operated an orphanage in Siem Reap, where he now teaches Western philosophy at Paññasastra University of Cambodia (PUC). Siem Reap is the city where the World Heritage Site, Angkor Wat, is situated. PUC is the first higher learning institution in Cambodia that provides English based education in all subjects, and is officially accredited by the Royal Government of Cambodia's Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport.

World heritage site, Angkor Wat

I met David while visiting a friend in Chacala, Mexico, a tiny fishing village 90 kilometers by car north of Puerto Vallarta. Years earlier, David had  decided he was tired of Seattle weather and opted for warmer climates. He spends time each winter in Chacala. He began spending part of his year in Cambodia as a result of a Buddhism pilgrimage to Southeast Asia. The low cost of living there on Social Security, and the sale of his condominium, made it possible for him to start the Cambodian Child House of Peace, with 30 orphaned children, in 2008.  Schools like it were later closed at the recommendation of Unicef, which felt that the children were better back in their villages. David disagrees; he sees the villages as impoverished and isolating.

The "joy of his life"

The policy of closing orphanages still grates with him. For a three-year period he had overseen operation of the home and conducted fund raising. "It was the joy of my life," he said. He takes pride that, on his limited income, he was able to put two of the kids through college; one is a real estate salesman and the other, who is blind, specializes in business management. The blind student is also an English conversation teacher who speaks with an American accent, and who started the Cambodian Blind Students Association.

The cover of True Moon, David's morality tale for children at his Cambodian orphanage.

A child's morality tale

In Chacala, David shared his story about his book True Moon. It's a children's tale about the moon coming to terms with the reality that it is not the only light in the sky. The cover illustration, shown here, is based on a night photo of The Cambodian Children's House of Peace with a bicycle in the foreground and  a tiny crescent moon, with two tiny planets for eyes, seeming to smile down from the heavens. Proceeds from sales of the book, which is available through Amazon, supported the Children's House.

David with futbols & kazoos

A story like that begs for another, so I shared with David my adventures that began four years ago when I was training to climb Mount Adams and learned about this marvelous creation -- a soccer ball that never goes flat. It didn't take him long to realize he wanted to take some to Cambodia. In late July, after returning home from Malawi, I caught up with David in Centralia, Washington, while he was enroute from Mexico back to Cambodia. At that time I handed over 7 balls to take back with him, along with a whole bunch of kazoos.

I am the man who introduced Kazoos to Vietnam (or at least, Hanoi) and Malawi (or at least, its capital city, Lilongwe!), and now maybe I'm responsible for them reaching Cambodia. It's been fun watching people blow into them fruitlessly, until I showed them how to get sound out of a kazoo!

Our meeting in July was an opportunity for me to learn a little bit more about this impressive retiree. David attended Fordham, a private research university in New York City, and the oldest Catholic university in the Northeast. His career took him along a circuitous path that included being a juvenile justice consultant and an instructor in sexual harassment and diversity  for the U.S. Energy Department and Hanford Environmental Health employees at Hanford Nuclear Reservation. He also taught diversity and sexual harassment avoidance for Washington State University employees. At age 62, he served in the Peace Corps on the Caribbean island of St. Kitts.

David will remain in Cambodia until the holidays. He has promised to send photos and anecdotes as he distributes the balls. I look forward to sharing the news from the newest member of team Wilson.

Futbol supply nearly exhausted

Oh, by the way, this transfer virtually exhausts my supply of One World Futbols. As many of you know, I never ask for donations. But if you have a hankerin' to donate, the process is explained  in the upper right corner of this page, and I just had my 73rd birthday.

Next blog: Another profile of someone I've met along the way.

Love,
Robert

and Shu

Wilson mystery resolved, revealed

It's time to come clean about Wilson. Yes, all you faithful readers know that a search at his last known location -- the top of Mount Adams, Washington, revealed that he was no longer tethered to  the building constructed than a lifetime ago by a mining company. So, where was the unbreakable ball that had inspired so many to bring the power of play to children everywhere?

Well, the naked truth is that someone snatched Wilson, and that futbolknapping took place only days after Wilson was planted atop the mountain on July 4, 2015, by Julia Davis, a prosecuting attorney with Yakima County, Washington, who climbed Mount Adams with Chad Janis, a detective with the Yakima Police Department.

Do you know this man?

An unidentified member of the team that plucked Wilson from atop Mount Adams.

Wilson enjoyed less than four weeks overlooking the mountains and valleys surrounding Mount Adams before a group of hikers plucked The Unbreakable from its perch on July 29, 2018. We have attempted to track the individuals involved, but the photo of the hiker, above, is the closest we can come to be able to identify the persons who, we hope, ended Wilson's isolation and brought it back into the company of children of all ages.

And how did we discover this? Because my hiking trainer, Roger Matthews, scoured the internet and came across videos that hikers had recorded when they successfully climbed Adams after our abortive ascent. And here are some images from those videos.

Video reveals hiker beholding Wilson atop Mount Adams.

THE SMOKING GUN: Proof that Wilson was stripped of its tether and removed from its perch.

This presented a problem for Roger and me. Readers loved Wilson, just like kids love Santa Claus. When was it going to be the appropriate time to spill the beans that Wilson has been packed off? And did you really want to know that? And how do we know that the e-mails we were directing to Wilson at the summit of Mount Adams weren't somehow forwarded, or that Wilson was receiving them anyway through The Unbreakable's almost magical powers? And didn't Wilson's spirit live on regardless of where Wilson is?

As the cold truth sank in -- that Wilson wasn't atop Adams, we realized there is a broader message here, and this is best exemplified by the photo below, taken at the Dzaleka Refugee Camp in Lilongwe barely two weeks ago. Dzaleka has between 30,000 and 40,000 refugees from several African nations, and that means lots of kids. I had Jean Baptiste hanging from my backpack when I spotted a number of those children kicking around a ball made of plastic bags, just as we were told they did.

Art of the deal: Jean Baptiste swapped for a plastic bag ball at Dzaleka refugee camp.

So now you know what became of my little backpacking hiking friend, Jean Baptiste, as well. -- I practiced the Art of the Deal, and traded off my little friend for that rag ball pictured above, which I brought home, by the way. None of those kids argued with me. They wanted Jean Baptiste. The last time I saw the tiniest One World Futbol I ever packed, a passel of kids were having a great time chasing after it across hard-packed ground at the camp.

Does Wilson still "exist?"

So this confronts us with a nagging question: Does Wilson exist any more?

You'll have to ask the New York Sun. . .

Just as, 120 years ago, the New York Sun told a little girl that "Yes Virginia. There is a Santa Claus", I'm here to tell you that yes, Readers, there is a Wilson. In the words of the New York Sun, 

. . . He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Wilsons... There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Wilson! You might as well not believe in the man who saw images of children chasing rags for their entertainment and thinking there must be a better way! You might as well not believe in a famous vocalist whose inner voice called him to provide the funds to create the prototype that would lead to more than 2 million Wilsons finding their way around the world to 60 million children of all ages. 

You may as well not believe in the donors who paid for all those Wilsons, not because they were asked, but because they wanted others to discover the power of play. You may have friends who cannot see the love that this ball represents, but  even if they do not see it, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.  Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, readers, in all this world there is nothing else more real and abiding.

No Wilson? Wilson lives. He lives in the sound of  a thousand children smiling and the tromp of their feet as they race across hard-packed earth, lost in play, building friendships, and forgetting for the moment the stress of poverty and displacement . . .

OK, so maybe that adaptation is not as well crafted as the original editorial. But it's just as true. The Spirit of Wilson lives in all of us.

There's lots more to tell about what happened in Lilongwe, and there's a tale coming up about developments for Cambodia. Please stay tuned. And I'm not asking for more donations. But if you want to, the link to my donations page is in the top right margin of this page, and I've almost depleted my stock of Wilsons.

Love,
Robert

and Shu

Ras, me and Shu vs the trash

One of the last things I expected to be doing when I returned to Lilongwe was picking up the trash on a 300-meter stretch on Youth Drive just above the Lilongwe River. However, Ras Maziko Dunken exudes an enthusiasm that won me over, so here we were, Shu and me, stuffing garbage bags with broken glass, flattened plastic bottles, scraps of decomposing plastic bags and all manner of other items while the locals walked by pushing their bicycles or carrying massive loads on their heads and wondering what that mzungu (the white guy) in the big hat was doing. But how could I say no to a Rastafarian?

The neighborhood

I met Ras on my first walkabout from the Klaus Guest House, where I took up lodging after abandoning the safari. Now you have to understand that the Klaus Guest House is not the Grand Budapest Hotel, although you meet some very interesting characters there -- and I'll be telling you about them. The nameless dirt road off of Youth Drive that Duncan, my driver, navigated to find The Klaus is anything but flat and smooth.

The view of the Klaus Guest House compound from the gated driveway

The back courtyard at The Klaus

The Klaus is situated in a pretty scrappy neighborhood (you'll see photos later), which is why I love the place. This was the right place to be. The people living outside the locked wall-gate that only allows a view if you peek between the massive driveway doors confront their poverty with determination, and the beautiful children display a mouth full of smiling white teeth as they run up to say hello and I struggle to remember how to say "muli bwanji!" It was Ras that taught me that phrase.

These boys were too excited and happy to talk to the tall mzungu with the great big hat (Micah).

A 3-month old peers at me 

as her mother sits next to me

on a cement bench at the 

entrance of The Klaus

Finding my way

During my first few days at The Klaus I was trying to get my bearings. My room locked with a skeleton key which I used even when I went to the common bathroom, because I didn't know the other roomers. I had already lost my beloved Flip camcorder on my taxi drive back to Lilongwe from Zambia, and I didn't want to lose my computer or cash or passport as well. But over time I've learned that you don't have to worry a lot about the other guests. These two Nigerian men in the photo below, for example. You'll notice that one of them is wearing my Madison Street Marathon shirt, the one I wore when I was performing my publicity stunt a couple years ago to raise awareness of the One World Futbol.

Soccer player Osborn models my Madison Street Marathon shirt next to his compatriot, Oladimeji.

The shirt was one of the garments I had brought along after the African Hat Dance at First Class Ballroom in Everett WA to gather clothing to bring to this impoverished nation. It seemed right to give the shirt to a soccer player, who had never seen a One World Futbol. It was a great opportunity to get back into the practice of proselytizing. I got to talking to these guys (English is prevalent in Africa) while they were washing their duds in a plastic basin in The Klaus' courtyard. Those are their shoes in the photo below, drying on the tin roof of one of the buildings on the site.

Meanwhile, their just-washed shoes dry on a roof under the sun of a warm winter Lilongwian day.

That was just the first of the interesting guests I would meet at The Klause, but after a day or so I wanted to venture out on foot and see whether I could navigate the town alone. So I began my walkabout.

Ras Maziko Dunken

The Road Without A Name took me as far as Youth Drive, which I crossed and then paused to look at a square tent with a row of some tall vessels on display in front, and some plants. It was there that Ras snagged me.

Have some sweet potatoes, my friend!

Now Ras is a character, no doubts about that. He is a Rastafarian, with all the dreads that come with the territory, gathered up and behind his head in a loose knit Rasta cap. He also has a row of the whitest teeth in the Eastern Hemisphere, and they are always smiling and never holding still, because Ras is a hustler, and he was engaging me. For four hours he engaged me.

Ras painting pottery. On left, Edvard Jackson; center, William Mapulango. Bottom: the meal.

He talked me into sitting on a rock in his cramped tent, eating sweet potatoes and  later a mixed plate of beans, maize and greens, including pumpkin leaves. (You didn't know that pumpkin leaves can be delicious, did you? They actually are. Here's how to prepare them ) So, after the men in the tent rinsed their hands in a common water bowl, we ate the food as I calculated the odds of needing my diarrhea meds later on. (I didn't.)

I listened to Ras talk about any number of subjects, including brotherhood (he wants all people to live in peace together) to Trump (he thinks he's a good leader because he's strong, and that the corruption in Malawi's government could be cured with a benign dictator). But the passion that eventually led to my taking up arms with him against the trash was his vision for what he was doing along Youth Drive.

Ras is a former farmer turned nurseryman, and he shared with me the papers showing that the city's grant for his use of land beside the highway included the provision that he clean up the trash.  So now we literally were taking trash.

An example of the many piles of trash along Youth Drive

Now stay with me, because this story is going someplace. There's a future here, and if it turns out as hoped, it will be something I can tell my grandchildren about, if my son would only produce some for me. (Are you reading this, kiddo?)

A brief glimpse of poverty

A tree brutalized by poverty.

A woman makes gravel

Ras has dreams. He wants to beautify the area where he's set up shop. He wants the people to stop chopping down public trees and chopping down the limbs of those trees for firewood. And that's an important notion, because Malawi is being denuded of its forests because people need firewood.

What is a minor chill for me at this point of their winter is quite uncomfortable for them, and firewood is the source of cooking fuel for many as well as for heating. And if you want a quick image of how desperately poor these people are, take a look at the photo at the left. That woman is making gravel with a sledge hammer. That's her job, and she's proud to have it. She sauntered past us with her sledge hammer resting atop her head at a jaunty angle like a baseball cap turned sideways.

And she let me take her photo for 1,000 kwacha. That's about $1.40. Five co-workers gathered around to watch, and out of guilt I gave each a MK200 note -- so about 48 cents each. And they were glad to get it.

Ras' nursery. He has cleared the brush and debris and shaped the land by hand.

Ras would like to see the land behind his business turned into organic farming so that people are eating healthy food and making better use of the land. He took me on a brief walking tour that included a peek at the place along a path where people had dug up sand to use in mortar. He told me he had dug one man out of a cave-in, possibly saving his life.

Ras shows that, when people need sand for cement, they may mine it at great personal risk.

The photo below shows how the railing of the bridge over the Lilongwe River has been patched, Thieves cut off the railing, probably to use for axles, and the city welded a new railing over the remnant left against the post. Ras believes the presence of his business will discourage this kind of theft.

A new railing, welded against this post, replaces the one taken by thieves, possibly to use for axles.

Drainage canal; Lilongwe River

At right, you can see where Ras has to continue his cleanup of a drainage canal and, the Lilongwe River, from which he hopes to pump water  for his nursery. He needs capital for a pump, and bank loans come with a 10 percent interest rate-- expensive for a start-up business operator with a tent for collateral.


But Ras' enthusiasm is infectious, and so, for reasons I will explain later, I promised him a day of my time to help clean up the mess. It was a great opportunity to give Shu a field test, and Shu, The Shoe That Grows, is what I wore when I walked out into the tall grass, trash and brambles. Shu provided a surprising degree of protection and comfort, but by the end of the day, with dirt stuck between foot and sandal, I was glad to give my feet a break.

My cleanup footwear -- Shu

I had showed up with two pair of work gloves--who knows what you're going to find when you start rooting around? I could only use one pair at a time, so the other pair was divided between Ras and William. Both had blistered hands from working the problem the day earlier, and they were grateful for the gloves.



I coughed up a couple thousand kwacha for Matthew, a passer-by who is building a home nearby, to bicycle to a nearby shop for garbage bags. He returned with the bags and no change. I apparently had given him precisely the correct amount for his services and the bags. Right.

William's blistered hands were grateful for the bright red gloves.

Ras generated a cloud of dust and debris with a tool that was a blend of machete and scythe. 

At day's end, the tall grass is beat down and the trash is bagged.

Ras is a player in a serendipitous outcome that I'm going to share with you in a few days, but now it's time to sign off. Sorry but I have to go back to my old end-of-posting graphic. Micah, Jean Baptiste and Carlita are no longer traveling with me. Yes, three of my companions are gone -- at least two of them to a better place. I'll tell you more about that in a few days, but tomorrow I begin the long Odessey home, and I'm heading for bed.

Goodnight,

Love,
Robert

And Shu

A sign bordering All Race Nursery