Mattress Success!

Monday was a big day for us in Malawi. We were able to see our project come full circle.

First thing in the morning I needed to go into town and finalize the mattress "deal". We had agreed on a price, but the shop keeper wasn't sure he could provide all 152 on Monday. I also needed to pay the bill and of course wasn't willing to until we knew exactly how many we could have delivered Monday. Linda and Susan wanted to join me and Isaac so they rode along to experience what doing business in Malawi is like. From the stories they had heard me tell they knew this could be quite an adventure. We first went to the shop I had been at the day prior and met the man I had been dealing with. As it turned out he was unable to fill the order I wanted so he was sending me up the street to make the purchase from another man who "maybe" had the 152 mattresses we needed. That shop was to open at 8am. It was 8:30 before it did, but that is also very typical here. While we waited Linda and Susan and myself wandered through a couple of shops and Susan had the pleasure of a large cockroach falling from a shelf onto her jacket. A small shriek and a few laughs from the customers and workers and a good story to tell the others. Soon the store was open we were able to go in and speak to the man who owned it. He only had 120 mattresses that could be delivered that day, but promised that the other 32 would come the following. He asked that I go to the warehouse at 11am and ride with the truck and the mattresses to Mtendere. I paid him (thats a story in itself and one I"ll save for when I have more time). We headed back to pick up the team and drive to Mtendere to start our day. We now knew that 120 beds were coming and we needed to get the children's rooms ready.

We had made a plan the day prior to have a meeting with all of the house Mothers first thing in order to sort out how the mattresses needed to be distributed once they arrived. Since the price of the mattresses was less than expected (I must be a good Malawian negotiator) we knew we had some funds to help get the houses cleaned up and also provide the Mothers with some cleaning supplies that they had been asking for. In the meeting Ellen and the team were also able to write up a list of what the Mothers "wishes" were and they were told we would look over the list and see what we were able to provide. Some of the things on the list were mops, buckets, gloves, toliet brushes, plates and cups for the children..etc...etc....more on that later...

I left the team with Tita so that I could take her to the government run clinic up the road and drop some medical donations and also speak to the head matron there about having Tita volunteer there for the day. Tita is a nurse from Australia. The matron was happy to have the supplies and started using many of them right away. I was amazed at what the clinic was lacking, but glad that Tita had brought things that were really needed. I told Tita I would be back later to drop her lunch and check in on her. The group will tour that clinic today.

Then it was back to the city for me to go to the mattress warehouse and meet the driver who would deliver our order.

Ellen and the team were back at Mtendere busy removing old mattresses and counting how many beds were being slept in so we knew which beds needed to be replaced first. ....now Ellen will take over here....

We were trying to communicate with the mothers on how we could remove all these mattresses quickly and efficiently. We talked to one of the mothers who spoke the best English and she followed us around barking out orders to the other house mothers. What we found while removing the mattresses is not something we will all soon forget. Some mattresses had holes in the sides of them where rats had burrowed in and the children were literally sleeping with rats inches from them at night. There were a few mattresses that we carried out that rats came jumping out... we of course were all screaming and the kids simply laughed at us. Some of the mattresses were so heavy because of moisture that it took 3 or 4 of us to remove them. Some of them were so badly worn that there was more than a noticeable "breaking in" if you will. The only way I can really describe it is that is was a dip... I do not know how they were any sort of comfortable to sleep on. We also would find clothes and personal belongings under the mattress and in between the bed frames. I asked Mama Kita why there were clothes there and she said they put them there to press them. We found toys, pictures, letters, and an entire assortment of other things with the removal. Once the teenage boys realized what we were doing, they jumped in to assist us as well. As the mattresses came out, they became jungle gyms for the younger children. We finished the removal and began helping the house mothers to clean their houses. We finished up this task pretty quickly because most of the chores had already been completed. We were walking across the village to go into another house to begin shucking corn and I looked up to see a truck coming into the orphanage. The mattresses had arrived! We all stood there in amazement because all 120 mattresses were stacked up in the back of the truck. Someone said... "How are they not falling over?!" I did not really have an answer to that because I was wondering the same thing. The truck pulled into the middle of the village and the children that were there gathered around the truck with eyes wide and full of excitement. The ones who could reach (the little ones were all running around as well) over the cab started feeling all the mattresses and there was much discussion in Chichewa about the new mattresses. I am by no means fluent, but I could tell they were satisfied with what they would be receiving. We started pulling the mattresses of the truck and piling them into stacks of 10 to make sure we had them all. Kids were jumping around on these as well :) Once we realized we had them all, we started refilling the bed frames we emptied earlier. We were all carrying mattresses on our heads (even the 4 and 5 year olds) and we very quickly handed out the mattresses. I followed one of the teenage girls in with her mattress and asked her to lay down on it once we had it in the frame and she broke out in a huge smile, giggled and said, "It is good!!!"

After we were sure all of the beds that needed to be filled right away were done we took a break for lunch. After eating lunch we knew we had to clean up the mess of all the old mattresses that were now stacked outside each house. The ones that could be saved had to be stored in an empty room and the ones that needed to be thrown out needed to be pilled next to one house. As Ellen said many of these old mattress were very heavy and many of them had "critters" jumping out of them as they were moved. It was quite a job, but the team did great and all the children worked along side of them. Doing the bed counts and removal we realized that a few of the children had been sharing single beds. Now that each child had their very own mattress there were some new beds that would be needed. With our additional donations we created a plan to purchase some lumber and build 8 new beds. We will get started on that today and everyone is egger to pick up a hammer and help.

All in all it was a crazy busy day. Ellen and I were running things tag team style most of the day and I was so grateful to have her with me helping. I could not have done all that needed to be done and had the mattresses paid for and delivered in the same day if she had not been here to help direct the team while I was gone.

Everyone was filthy (as you can imagine) and feeling like a hot shower was needed. So we headed out to get cleaned up eat dinner and prepare for our next day.

We ate out at a very nice place that was recently purchased by a friend of mine here in Malawi. It was wonderful food and even though there wasn't any power (welcome to Malawi) we had a lively meal together to celebrate the day.