We had a huge agenda today: to visit three parishes, speak with their priests, look into projects at the churches and priests’ houses, and then meet with individual members of the Mothers’ Union who have started permaculture gardens on their own land. All this by 3:00 pm at which time we had an appointment with Rabs Tea, a tea packaging plant just outside town.
Our first stop was St. Andrew’s Church in Chiradzulu Parish. We were greeted by women in the Mothers’ Union, who sang and danced. One of there songs included the lyrics, in Chichewa, “Come to the Anglican Church and learn Permaculture!”
Fr. Benson Aipa is the priest-in-charge. We visited wih his wife Bertha and their three year old son Cleopas before looking at the priest’s house garden, conveniently located right next to a water pump. They’ve dug a channel so that water run off goes directly to the garden. Bertha told me that she had been childless for eleven years and then Cleopas came along. I said, ‘You’re Hannah!” and she threw her arms around me and said “I’m Hannah!” She was beaming with pride as Cleopas ran and played with the other boys.
Mrs. Kadango is the leader of the Mothers’ Union, and we moved into the church for a report on how the kitchen garden project has been going with the women in the village. The women were wearing matching chitenji, or cloth wrap skirts, as a kind of uniform. They told us of their successes, including earning extra kwacha selling vegetable to buy sugar to make tomato jam, which they then shared. They are now on their second growing. They plan to use the money they make to help their sick neighbors. One woman expressed how much our coming has encouraged the group.
This parish has a school with 740 children, and a feeding program which provides porridge for the children every day. The headmaster arrived. He travels 20 km by bike to get here.
The kitchen gardens were a long way out. We saw three, and each woman was very proud to display her work in permaculture. Mrs. Theresa Harrold opened the fence to her pumpkin garden and said, “See how well I’ve learned?”
After leaving Chiradzulu, we stopped at the monument to Joseph Chilembwe, a priest and freedom fighter who is commemorated on the 500 MK note, the main bill of currency in Malawi.
We drove on to Holy Innocents Parish to see a kitchen garden in an urban area. Beth Kaswaya, wife of Fr. Konstantine Kaswaya, has a very modern house built up on a rock. She has a thriving and extensive garden in the walled area behind her house, and she and her friend Miriam Tingwa gave us the tour. They are growing some plants we had not seen before, including rugare from Zimbabwe.
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