Early this morning, we headed out to Malingunde in order to see NuSkin distribute Vitameal to the children. Children from many towns come and sit down in lines. Each child gets a decent sized bag of Vitameal mix. It consists of roasted soy pieces (roasted with a lot of heat in order to deactivate the trypsin inhibitors), and corn both ground up into a powder and bagged. There were so many lines of kids and I was able to talk to the chief of Malingunde. He was a very friendly man and told me that these children were from different towns and the kids are able to get a bag once a month for their family. Only the children are able to get the bags. If a mother comes with her child, they together get one bag. Unfortunately, my camera had died early today, so I was unable to get ANY pictures the whole day! So sad! But I was able to help distribute the bags to the children. As I walked back to the beginning of the lines after distributing, the children would wave. They are so sweet and were so happy. As they were clearing out, they would come up to us and shake our hands and say thank you. Some of them were nervous to do so, but if we put our hand out, then they would shake it. It was a great way to start the morning!
Next was to grab some lunch. We didn't know whether we were invited to the lunch part with the actual NuSkin faculty, so we went to the grocery store really fast. (NuSkin Korea and NuSkin Japan were the ones visiting.) Shoprite was my grocery store of choice today, so off I went after we got out of our minibus. I really wanted some apples, so that was a definite purchase, and then I was feeling a candy bar...so I went for it! I was checking out and the lady at the register didn't know how much the apples were, so she checked out everything else and then waited for another employee to get that for me. So I had two receipts to leave with! Yes! And then I went out the doors. Beep Beep Beep!!! I stop dead in my tracks...I knew it was me...but why!?! And then I thought...what? They have that kind of security here in Malawi!?! Haha! It was pretty funny. Then the security guard looked like he was motioning me to continue on, so I started walking but kept looking at him unsure. He shook his head no with the same motion, so I was guessing it was opposite day but only for hand motions and I went over to him. I got my two receipts out for him. Guess what caused the beeping...the CANDY BAR!!! What!?! Wow, candy bars must be pretty precious here. I don't even know!
Well, I was too full to eat the candy bar right away, so it melted in the minibus. But that's okay, it will harden up for tonight or some other time.
Next stop, Vitameal Plant! As we were headed there, we heard a lot of music coming from a minibus. Speakers were attached to the top of it and it was following a truck that was carrying a nice, new car with balloons attached to it! At first, Akim said it could be a wedding. Apparently in the city, when there is a wedding, they drive around and play music and throw money. But usually weddings are on Fridays and Sundays. Hmmm...turns out, it was a prize car from Airtel on route to deliver it to a lucky winner! AND they were throwing out free Airtel minutes! Fooled us! It was fun though, because as we were driving behind them, we would see people on the side of the road dancing to the music they were playing. It was really fun to see everyone so happy!
The Vitameal Plant was pretty cool. They have bags and bags and bags of soybeans and corn to use for the Vitameal mix. They clean the raw foods and heat the soybeans a bunch to deactivate the trypsin inhibitor. (We got to taste some.) It was great going through with NuSkin Korea and NuSkin Japan because they responded to everything with 'Oooohs' and 'Aaaaahs'. It was so fun! It made me really appreciate everything more. It kind of made me wonder if they just show their inward emotions more or are more appreciative of these little things that people do that can turn out so big! It was just overall really cool and fun to be with them and communicate with some of them. They had a roasted flavor. Yum! Then they grind up the corn and roasted soybeans and bag it! Simple! Then there was lunch, which we were aloud to have. It was amazing!! Some of the best food we've had in a while! At least, it was really similar to what we would usually eat in America, so it was a nice taste of home. We even got to try some of the Vitameal, it was actually pretty tasty (maybe it's because they added some sugar though...but it's probably still pretty good without it).
Off to the Orphanage! It is called Ntendere (I think that's how you spell it), and it means 'peace'. It was really nice! They had a whole presentation and dancing for us and NuSkin. It was really nice. They did a traditional dance that was really cool too. Then the children wanted to play a game with us. NuSkin picked soccer. So they played a soccer game while we talked to the children. It was really fun. Some of them know French. Most of the children have become orphans because their parents have died of AIDS or because their father died and their mother married again and their new father rejected them. How sad. We checked out the library, and then were off!
It was a long day full of adventure and many kids. I loved every second!
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