More Pictures from Malawi

African Landscape

Boa Tree
This is an interesting tree. As you can see from this picture - it is all beat up near the bottom. That is from elephants. Eventually they will tip it over.

Jim at Boa Tree

Interesting Tree

Jungle - interesting trees and vines
Just a note about the Boa tree -- I think that must be the kind of tree they used in the "Lord of the Rings" movie where the tree come alive and go to battle.

Sunset - Malawi

Sunset - Malawi - near river with palm trees, mountains, etc.

These weird vines wrap around the trees - go up and then come back down

We drove across this bridge!

Pointsetta

Can you see the Papaya?

Pictures we took when we visited the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Blantyre, Malawi. We are looking at doing an initiative here to give them some much needed equipment. It will only be a small portion of what they need, but every little bit helps. Each patient has their own caregiver who must be there to assist and take care of them. There is 1 nurse for two units. When you look at the hospital pictures - don't just look at the people - look at the equipment and the beds, etc. Not very good stuff. I hope I don't ever have to go there.

area for caregivers to wait when not helping

broke both legs in a fall - he was crying a lot until we came along

children's ward

I think they could use some wheelchairs

Kids wanted their pictures taken - it made them smile!

over crowded women's ward

These people are sitting beside a box (crib) where sick child is

women's ward

Women's ward - each patient in hospital must have their own caregiver with them

Love, Nancy

Pictures from Malawi

Zebra & Girraffe @ Nyala Game farm

Impalas & Wildebeest @ Nyala Park

It is amazing to see all they can carry

This is a pigpen where COPRED (the organization that we may partnerwith if we do this project) has a pig that has 9 piglets. Pretty rustic pen but it seems to work.

Houses near COPRED in Malawi

Borehole water pump at COPRED

Making Dinner

COPRED helps train people with skills of sewing and shoe making

The backyard at Bouwhuis' in Balantyre, Malawi. They have done a nice job on this garden. There is also a river just behind the fence at the bottom that we could hear all night! Nice spot.

E & S Bouwhuis with Sisters and Elders in Blantyre, Malawi

Bullocks & Bouwhuis'

Malawi jungle - up a hillside

He lost his load! On our way down Zomba Mountain we came across this guy and so we
stopped to help him.

Helping him reload

Amazing - they push this load for miles down to the town

Hauling wood down mountain - we counted 24

View from top of Zomba Mountain - we were up pretty high!

View coming down Zomba Mountain

Stream on Zomba Mountain

Waterfalls on Zomba Mountain

Ouch! It is just unbelievable what they can carry on their heads.

How do you like this footbridge? We crossed it on our way to see some pigs.

Love, Elder & Sister Bullock

Hello from Malawi

We fly back to Harare tomorrow. We have had a busy week here - checking out projects as well as having some fun sight-seeing trips with the Bouwhuis. They have been great hosts and have treated us royally and fed us too well!

We have seen some beautiful scenery - from the very top of a mountain to down at a couple of game farms. WE have lots of pictures that I will send later. We saw girraffes, elephants, warthogs, impalas, waterbucks, zebras, wildebeests, bushbuck, red hartebeest. The first elephant we saw was off in the trees so we waited as he wandered closer to us so we could get a picture. When he got to the edge of the trees he didn't seem to like us much - or perhaps he was just feeling fiesty but whatever the reason he suddenly trumpetted and started to charge at us. Elder Bouwhuis quickly gunned the engine and got us out of there. We did get some pictures though. It was a little scary! We saw him again on our way back and he was in the middle of the road so we stayed back and waited for him to leave. We saw a total of 12 elephants.

At a game park we visited a couple of days before that we saw 16 girraffe and got some good pictures of them. They didn't bother with us.
We visited Queen Elizabeth Hospital this morning and the matron took us on a tour of some wards. Wow! I hope I don't need to go there! We are looking at doing an initiative there - donating some items that they REALLY need: patient trolleys, dressing trolleys, blood pressure machines (manual), kidney dishes, thermometers, and a couple of other things. They could use some wheelchairs too. The conditions were pretty sad compared to our standards. There are not enough nurses - people must have their own caregiver to help them. They are over crowded with some mattresses on the floor and not enough bedding, gowns, etc. etc. etc.

We looked at another couple of possible projects here in Malawi as well - the pig project where a bred sow is loaned to a family and they care for it and must give back 2 piglets (1st litter) and 1 piglet (2nd litter) and they can learn to use the project to become self sufficient. The organization that we would partner with seems really good. They want us to pay for 6 or possibly 12 pigs to get some people started. Bouwhuis' did already buy 1 sow for them and it has had 9 piglets (1 male, 8 female). So - that is a good start and people who see this lady that is taking care of the pig are now interested (they thought she was crazy to begin with - but now they can see results). They have to be able to feed the pigs and build a proper pen etc. etc.

Our other project here that we looked at was a place that is building wheelchairs. Handicapped people do the work so it would be helping them as well. Their methods are rather archaic but the chairs look pretty good - using bicycle parts for easier repair. They are 3 wheelers and are driven by the hands with pedals in front of them. They are good for rough terrain or hilly areas (as is the case in Malawi). They also make regular wheelchairs.

We have to decide which projects we should do and which ones would be good partner organizations that we can trust and also we look for a 'champion' (person who drives the organization). It has been interesting.

Malawi seems to have much better roads overall than Zimbabwe. We were in a grocery store that actually looked like a regular grocery store with more modern things on the shelves. There are areas that are high density with the street merchants/markets and I wouldn't want to go there to shop. Also areas and children that have very little. We didn't really go out to any villages but there are lots of them throughout - same as Zimbabwe. Overall, I think Malawi seems a little better - maybe!

The Bouwhuis' leave to go home in 3 weeks (to Clearfield, UT). They have been here for a 23 month mission. There 11 children and 49 grandchildren will be happy to see them and vise versa.

Must run. Will try and send more on the weekend. Love, Elder/Sister Bullock

Thursday, May 7th

We just finished our training with the South Africa people, Bro. Elks and Elder and Sister Godfrey. They are very nice people and we had some good discussions and training. Now we have some work to do to close some files that need closing - we will have to do our best as they are not projects that we worked on but need to have the final paperwork done so SLC can close them. (There are probably about 10 or 12 of them).

We learned a lot about how we should be doing things. In ways it makes things harder for us. We need to do a lot of networking with other organizations to find suitable partners that we can work with and that we can trust. We identify a need (initiative) and find partners and have to research and write up our proposal and hope that it will be accepted. Elder Elks prefers the big initiatives (wheelchairs, boreholes, etc.) but we can also do area initiatives (under $15,000). Our budget allows for $80,000 for area initiatives and the amount for the big ones really depends on what it is - they can be $100,000's of dollars. YIKES!! We will put on our thinking caps and pray a lot for inspiration to determine what the Lord would have us do here for these people.

When it comes right down to it we are not to just give away things like we have been doing - and couples before us. We partner with organizations that do the distribution - that is why we need partners that we can trust. We could bring in a lot of something but it goes straight to the partner and we never even see it. They talked about how it is fun to give to individuals (grandparent syndrome) but that is not what we as country directors are to do. Of course we do have our container coming and it will need distribution but we will gradually get out of doing that. Also the gardens that we have been working with - need to go to the ward/branch priesthood leaders to oversee. That will also take a little time to change but we will begin the process. If they don't want to do it or don't see the need then they can be planted back into grass. (I think the members still need them.)

I made some egg salad sandwiches for our guests for lunch today. Tonight we are meeting them for supper. We really enjoy their company so that will be fun. They fly out tomorrow about noon.

We fly out to Malawi Saturday about noon and look forward to our trip up there. The missionary couple there have a full week planned for us. We will stay with them - apparently they have a 3 or 4 bdrm. house that they stay in.

It was nice to talk to Chris and Kimberley (and Brianne) on video Skype yesterday and with Scott and Tara on the skype phone. Thanks for getting that dvd for us Tara - we will be glad to have it when we get home. We and the Taylors have been watching the other ones (Love Comes Softly dvd's) on Sunday evenings. We did #4 this past week. (Good missionary appropriate movies).

Must run. Love to all, The Bullocks