This past week one of the little girls, in the sustainability project that Chris and I contribute to, was very ill.  In addition to Malaria she was showing signs of infection and T.B.  This little girl, Glady lives in a rural village outside of Lilongwe.  In the village people live in mud huts with thatch roofs.  They survive on corn, only if it rains and protein is non-existent.  Protein provides amino acids which fuel brain and body development.  Protein is essential to boost an immune system as the body creates anti-bodies from protein.  This village, like so many, has no electricity or running water.  The people have never been taught simple things like irrigation, clean water storage or basic hygiene to prevent disease.  Children like Glady die all the time. There is no money to buy medicine and even if there was, most clinics lack basic supplies.

A girl in Malawi is taught from an early age that she is inferior to her brothers.  Girls are expected to get up early, gather fire wood, assist with cleaning and food preparation and head to school exhausted where they cannot focus on their education.  After school the routine is the same with very little time for homework.  The boys are not expected to do chores.

In my conversation with Joyce Banda, the Vice President of Malawi and one of the most powerful women in all of Africa, she said that girls are taught to believe they are second class citizens from the beginning.  They are taught that they have no value.

Mrs. Banda was gracious with her time and invited me to do a Have It All Woman conference in Malawi when I come back.  I am deeply grateful to Joyce for another reason which I will post later.

The plight of girls continues as we find that the village chiefs are literally selling virgin girls as young as 8 and 9 to have sex with men to rid the village of HIV/AIDS.  The witch doctors in Africa are powerful.  Just look to Burundi where albinos Africans are being slain as their body parts are foretold to bring luck in fishing and finding gold.  Witch doctors tell men that sleeping with and deflowering virgins will bring them luck and good health. 

After a girl is raped she then feels worthless.  She feels betrayed and yet, because women do not have a voice, this goes on day in and day out.

We also heard stories of girls reporting rape to the police.  The women officers were the harshest because they told the girls that they were 'asking for it' if they were already menstruating.

In Malawi, girls have a terrible life.

Joyce Banda thankfully provides hope.  She is an advocate for women and children.  She is well known throughout the world and is the first woman to hold such a high position in Malawi and one of the first in Africa.  She does not have it easy though.  With the coming election many women will not vote and some are so weary that they feel nothing will change.  There is a mood of ambivalence.

I feel grateful to live in North America where women have a say.  I also feel grateful to be living life on my own terms and live in a place where Chris and I can make as much money as we choose based on our own efforts; money which can change and save lives.

We were able to help Glady.  We took her to a clinic where she got medication.  PK and Sandy also took Glady and her father to lunch. Glady literally licked the last bone of the chicken leg she was eating.

In Malawi, I have learned that people go hungry all the time and very few know the sensation of a full belly.

Jones, the social worker, who helped me find the girl to interview, was always grateful for the meals I bought him.  He never asked for anything though graciously accepted warm dinners of chicken and chips - a local favorite.

For those of you reading this know that you have the power to do more with your lives.  You do not need to play small.  Anytime you are seduced into complaining that your life is so hard or that you aren't making it in business please remember that there are so many people who are waking up this morning wondering if they will be raped, killed or watch their child starve to death.

You can make a difference.  Go out and play really big today.

I will be posting the story of "Joyce" - yes another Joyce, which is a pseudonym for my new 'daughter.'  Check back later on to read about her story.

Right now, here in Italy, decompressing a little I feel sad at how superficial our lives have become in North America.  Yes, the economy is in a rough state however we cannot lose our faith, we cannot lose our confidence.  Every day that we play small someone dies.  Could you make a difference just by setting aside one dollar per day?  Absolutely - you have no idea.

Chris and I are committed to building a new school in Glady's village.  I am going to teach the new teacher basic first aid and Jones will be checking on the kids and reporting to Chris and me.  I feel grateful that we can choose to do that and it is not because we are lucky.  It is because I had many days when people rejected me, said 'no' and laughed at my decision to be an author and entrepreneur.  I stuck with it, had faith and continued on because I knew that if I didn't I couldn't help others.

I beg of all of you not to play small.  Start now - make your life about something other than just you.

Thank you to all of my blog readers and their great emails. 

With Love,

Susan

(photo: Glady in  2008)

We arrived here last night and spent the day working with a social worker to find out what is happening with girls here in Malawi.  There are atrocities.  The new government has improved the conditions however many street kids disappear.  Genitalia from boys and breasts from girls fetch as much as $10,000 US on the black market in South Africa, to the south.

Child prostitution is on the rise and additionally witch doctors telling men that they will be cured of AIDS by having sex with a virgin are huge problems.

The government worker who oversaw the 'adoption' of Madonna's son, David Banda, has been demoted however the truth is that the boy was purchased as foreigners are not permitted to adopt children here unless they reside in Malawi for 6 years.

In a country where there are no birth certificates and children are not accounted for, the problems are many.

Brick Factories

On Tuesday we drove to the country to a World Vision development project.  It is very late here and I have an early flight so this post will be brief.

On the way to the project we passed a brick factory where we saw young children, some clothed, others naked.  We decided we would stop by on the way back.  Under the guise of foreigners interested in the brick making process we were given a tour and the intricate details of brick making.

We secretly shot video and took photos.  The factory, although clean and appearing somewhat safe, employs 30 families.  Children work the brick cutter, fire the kilns and load bricks in the sun to dry.  Small children run barefoot amidst the sharp gravel, stones and dirt on the grounds of the factory.

In Cambodia many children attend school for a half day so they can work to support their families.  These children do not attend school as they must help their parents in the factory.

This morning we went to the Trauma Recovery Centre and it was really tough.  I admit that I am emotionally bankrupt right now.  I left teary eyed and headed straight into a training event for World Vision where I was the guest speaker to over one hundred staff.  That is the true test of a speaker - to be able to motivate and dig really deep, which I did.

Tonight we shot more footage on the streets.

I pray that this book I am writing will help these girls.  When I see the Western men trolling the brothels and in the hotels with really young girls on their arms it makes me sick.  People in the West can ignore Cambodia however these men are from our countries - they are our fathers, brothers, doctors, laywers, community leaders...who come here to buy sex.  They are dressed in finely tailored clothes and they act as if this is nothing at all.

One of the girls we interviewed today said the message she would like to send the men in the West who pay for sex is this - remember we are real people and we are human beings.  What if I was your daughter?

 
We arrived on Sunday evening to the ebb and flow of Phnom Phen.  Even though it has only been a year I was quickly reminded of how much this place has impacted me.  I don't know if I come here to help or coming here serves to help me.  I do know that, for whatever reason, I am supposed to be here right now. 

Cambodian drivers are fairly slow.  There seem to be unwritten rules to the road.  Locals understand them though, as a foreigner, I cannot.  There are few traffic lights and mopeds with families, including infants, glide along beside trolleys and pick up trucks full of people.

The parks are alive with the energy of people every evening.  Badminton and pick up games of soccer are a common site.  The trees are in bloom and amidst the extreme poverty of the shanties, splashes of purple, white and yellow provide a reprieve from the sadness.

We passed a group of four and five year old boys huddled by the side of the road, appearing to be in deep conversation.  Children here are out on the streets often without an obvious adult.  Small girls and boys without shoes and in torn garments play amidst the dirt and rubbish. 

I wonder if I am somewhat desensitized.  Perhaps I see the hope in the sadness, the possibility amidst the tragedy.

We came here to serve.  I have been asked to do an 'inspirational' talk to the staff of the Trauma Centre, a World Vision rescue project for girls who have been sold into sex slavery.  The last time I was here the youngest child was four.  She ran up to our van holding her teddy bear and smiling.  Beneath the smile was years of wisdom, her innocence robbed by multiple rape. 

My question is this - what do I say to inspire these staff when they are the one's who inspire me?  How do I look into the eyes of these children and tell them that they have every opportunity in the world to create change?  The children of North America  are so blessed.  People in our society often take for granted how much we have.  To be complaining about stock portfolios, the economy and jobs when, in North America, whatever happens there is some sort of assistance.  In Cambodia, assistance is limited and in a country with NGO's working overtime to deal with sex trafficking, starvation, land mines, education and AIDS how do you even begin to compare it?

Today we are venturing out into the city to experience the sounds, the smells and the pulse of this culture.  My hope is to take some photos of the noodle houses, which by day are merely restaurants, and by night are brothels.  In Cambodia, much is not as it seems.  The pain of the people, the recent scars left by the Khmer Rouge, are bubbling beneath the happy smiles and the desire to serve tourists like myself. 

I came here to help and in the end will be helped.  That is the irony.

This is afterall...Cambodia