Lake Malawi

Maybe the first question I get is: um, Malawi, and that’s where……? Inevitably, I say do you know where Madagascar is? Go straight west from Madagascar into the African continent, you’ll find Malawi. It is known as the ‘Warm Heart of Africa’.

This, however, is not how I found Malawi. I found Malawi as an undergraduate with work study support. A faculty member was hiring someone to clean fish tanks. I applied for the job, was hired, and spent three years cleaning tanks. Along the way, I learned about Malawi, its cichlid fish and their biological importance.

The second question I am asked (and always the first question my mother asks before I go back to Malawi) is: why do you need to go to Malawi? The answer to this question is straightforward (from a professional perspective). I am an evolutionary biologist, I study speciation. To address questions relating to speciation, there are few natural systems that are better suited than the fishes of Lake Malawi. Within the past 2-5 million years since the formation of Lake Malawi, over 1500 species of cichlid fish have diverged from a single common ancestor. That is, within 2 million years, a single cichlid species invaded Lake Malawi and speciated from one species into over 1500 species. The cichlids of Lake Malawi are the most recent and most rapid vertebrate speciation event ever identified. As such, they are the perfect natural laboratory to study how and why species are formed.

Yet my trips to Malawi serve a purpose greater than purely professional. I first came to Malawi as a young man, just after I graduated from my undergraduate studies. For the academic year of 1995-1996, I lived in Chirombo village and studied the cichlids of Lake Malawi as a Fulbright scholar. Though what I learned was much more than can be confined to cichlids.

I learned about the privilege that my place of birth provided. I saw unimaginable poverty and hardship. Mostly though, I learned about the joy of every day life, the happiness in the presence of need, the generosity of spirit, and an infinite kindness. These things were not taught, but rather experienced.

Now, 15 years later, I’ve brought students of my own to Malawi. We are here to study the speciation of the cichlid fishes. We hope to understand the genetic basis of divergent color pattern, the geographic distribution of fish courtship songs (fish sing much like birds or crickets to attract mates), and the ecological rules that allow the co-existence of so many closely related species of fish. This is what I am teaching my students. What I hope they learn while in Malawi, however, is much greater than anything I could ever hope to teach them.

From the warm heart of Africa….yindane bwino.


- Dr. Pat Danley has been with the Biology Department at University for three years, teaching Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Ecology and Population Genetics. For being a Pittsburg native, he has a pretty good grasp on the Chichewa language.

Kenya

Last year we were part of the first group to go on the Kenya medical mission trip and it was an incredibly enriching experience. Both of us were anxious to see the difference that a year had made: the improvements of the patients we had seen, the now-complete water tank for which we had spent hours building the foundation and of course the new friends we had made.

This year was everything we had hoped for and more. Planting seedlings allowed us to interact with individuals in the community and to see this beautiful country. On one particular occasion we were touched when an elder picked nuts and offered them to those of us who were planting; they were likely her meal for the day. Another new development was a clinical laboratory. We loved knowing the patients were being diagnosed correctly.

Kenya has helped us grow both individually and as a couple. We could not have possibly imagined the enthusiasm and love that met our engagement announcement on this trip; both from our fellow missionaries and from the local community. Kenya will always be part of our past and our future.

- The future Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Waller

Andrew Waller is a senior university scholar major from Katy, Texas
Christina Hughes is a senior biology major from Addison, Texas

Moments

I could tell you only of the moments I was filled with joy, but instead I will tell you that this trip has been filled with many emotions, ups and downs. I have laughed and cried. I have been overflowing with joy one moment and then filled with frustration. But, I do not regret nor curse these emotions or the moments that inspired them. These moments made me a better person and I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

I was filled with joy as I waved to the children coming to greet us and their laughter flooded into the van as we drove down a bumpy dirt road. An elderly woman, who took her bundle off her head so she could shake our hands and thank us, brought a smile to my face. Then the overwhelming sadness and helplessness felt when we saw a child at the clinic that we could not help, but could only pray over him and his mother. Wishing we could make everything better and do more than wipe away her tears. There’s the peace you feel when you take a crying baby boy into you arms and the crying ceases and he looks up at you with deep brown eyes. Only to have the peace taken away abruptly as you are told his parents are dead and he’s an orphan.

I want you to know these moments and experiences because they have changed me.
They have made me a better person and helped me to grow in my faith. They have brought me to the knowledge and comfort that God has been at every one of these moments. In the child’s laughter, the mother’s tears. He is the father to the fatherless and the ultimate healer. He has comforted me and I know that he is with all the people, young and old, that we have seen and met.

My team and I have been truly blessed with the joy of these people. They have given us more than we could ever give them. My hope and prayer is that these few moments of mine will touch you and inspire you. May God bless you and be with you!

- Sarah Lange is a senior majoring in pre-med from Wyoming. While she has studied abroad before, this is her first trip to Kenya.

I’m writing this as I sit in a small room with no air conditioner, mosquito net over the bed, and bugs flying and crawling all over the place. I am in Ahero, Kenya, and the room is at the guesthouse me and the other members of my team are staying. Every morning for the past twelve days or so, we wake up to the sound of a rooster; eat our breakfast of stale bread, jam, and hardboiled eggs with our instant coffee and hot goat’s milk. We load up the vans and head about an hour away to the Nayakach plateau outside the town of Katito to provide clinical services to the Luo people, plant fruit trees for orphans and elders, install water collection gutters and tanks so these people may have clean drinking water, and share with them the goodness and grace that God has for us.
About nine months ago, I was in contact with Dr. Lisa Baker about recently getting accepted into Boston University’s Master of Arts in Medical Science program. I was thanking her for writing me a recommendation and helping me throughout the application process, and being there for me and encouraging me to not give up on my dream of becoming a physician one day. She mentioned in an email that she is taking a group of Baylor students to Kenya to provide medical and public health services to the people and asked if I’d like to come along. Without any hesitation or thought to what I was getting myself into, I quickly responded “yes” and began inquiring about what I need to do in order for me to go.
I graduated from Baylor in May 2008, was a member of the football team for five seasons, but never thought about going on a mission trip to a country on the other side of the planet. The experience can only be summed up in one word, “amazing.” I’m in a country I never thought I would see, interacting with a people I knew nothing about, and learning about myself along the way. I feel so blessed to be here and experience all that I have so far. The resiliency these people have to wake up every morning in their huts made of mud and straw give me strength to hike up and down a plateau along steep and treacherous paths to install gutters on a house or plant seedlings in an orphan’s yard. In our makeshift clinic and lab, Dr. Baker and her team are working diligently to cure children with Malaria who would have died otherwise if we had not come. I am just a small part of the larger effort that is taking place here to help the poorest of the poor, the sickest of the sick, and those who otherwise had been forgotten. Thanks to Pastor Habil, Dr. Baker, and the people of Bethlehem home, orphans and elders have food, clean drinking water, and a chance to live long healthy lives. The people here opened their hearts and homes to us and welcomed us into their family. Towards the end of each day, I spent an hour or so just playing with the children, they like to be picked up and tossed in the air and spun around, and if anything, just hearing them laugh and seeing them smile when life for them is harder than we could ever imagine, has made this trip worth it in every sense. I love the Luo people and the people of the Nayakach plateau, they are my family and friends, and I will leave here knowing I learned more from them than they learned from me.


Ted Tanner
Baylor University c/o 2008, BS Education
Boston University School of Medicine c/o 2010, MA Medical Science Candidate

Currently living in Boston, attending Boston University School of Medicine and pursuing a degree in Medical Science. I graduated from Baylor in May 2008 with a Bachelor’s of Science in Education, major in Health Science Studies. I was member of the Baylor football team from 2003-2007.

Baylor Pre-Med in Africa

Day 15

Thirty-one pre-med students, one doctor, one anthropologist and two lab technicians add up to H-O-P-E for a rural community of elders and orphans in Western, Kenya. They’ve treated nearly 700 patients, planted fruit trees at more than 50 homes and installed gutters and cisterns to improve rainwater harvesting for fresh drinking water. One Day 15, this is what we want the world to know (in no particular order):

Two May graduates became engaged during the trip. (see post by the future Mr. and Mrs. Andrew Waller)

We danced for nearly 30 minutes with our Kenyan friends, learning their tribal dance steps.

We butchered and bar-b-cued a ram.

We are afraid to return home for fear we will not be as happy in America as we are here.

We look forward to returning home for the peace we anticipate in sharing with everyone all that’s happened.

We are grateful to have Joell (BU Spiritual Life) and Robbie Rogers (Baylor Photography) with us for the energy and support they’ve provided.

Our goal for this trip was not to fix or change anyone, but to fulfill God’s plan. We are on His time.

We are a limited people who cannot resolve every medical need. Nonetheless, God is in control and omnipotent. His agenda for a life does not always match our own. And we accept that.


- Petra Carey is a dyed-in-the-fur Baylor Bear and serves as coordinator of communications, summer programs and external relations for the Honors College at Baylor.

Poverty in Kenya

Today I was taken by Pastor Edward of the Kibera Transformation and Development Program into the Kibera Slum. The slum is home to over one million people living in poverty. They live off on average $1 per day. They live in one room homes made of mud with tin roofs. For electricity they tie into the nearest power line for water they travel to rain water collection bins distributed throughout the slum. We were able to visit the home of the receptionist and handyman if KTDP. He expressed his joy at having us visit with him, his love of the people he ministers to, and his desire to see us again. With the modest wage he earns, he supports his wife and two brothers. The joy he has and his love of the lord and desire to bring more people to Christ was inspiring. I know in my own life when I have minor set backs, problems at work, or with my car, or I am just having a bad day I can wallow in my self pity and yet this man has so little and still gives so much.

At KTDP they have opened a preschool and trade school for women. We spent about an hour with the children. We sang songs to them and they sang songs to us. We acted out the story of Daniel and the Lions Den to them and they gave us a tour of their school. These children have nothing. They live in one room buildings with many other people, they play in heaps of trash, they could walk miles to school and yet they are full of joy and love. I have everything I need and my son gets everything he wants and I don’t think either of us exhibits the joy these children showed us today. The school was crowded and yet they have recently lost fifty percent of their student body when they had to increase the school fee from $5 to $10 dollars per month. The trade school teaches women to sew, embroider, and how to style hair. They to have seen a drop in attendance due to increased fees. The women learn to sew using paper bags because they can not afford enough fabric to practice on.

I hope after today I will think twice before complaining about the thirty minutes it takes me to drive to work when these people walk up to ten miles to their jobs only to earn $1 per day. I hope that I will be able to teach my son to appreciate what he has after visiting with those that have nothing. Most of all I hope that I can find the joy in my life of advantage that these people have in their lives with so little.

- Eric Weeden, Research and Grants Coordinator for the Baylor School of Social Work. This is his first trip to Africa, part of the 13-person mission team.