For a long time, Africa was spared from the pandemic. Now it seems to have arrived in Malawi too (Der Tagesspiegel on 23 April 2020). The entry ban has been in place for some time, so our plans were also rendered obsolete. The planned lockdown is now pending in court because the population has put up massive resistance. This is because there is no continued payment of wages, no unemployment insurance, and no short-time work allowance in the country.
The workshop is outdoors and only partially covered. Sawing and drilling are done with a hand drill. There is no electricity. The only drill bit is 10 mm thick and already quite blunt. It is used for pre-drilling and then doweled with a wooden dowel. There are only a few screws, so the wood is…
02 July 2018 I’ve just returned from the 4th vaccination appointment. One important part of the preparation is now complete. And soon it will finally begin. It’s obvious why Germany couldn’t win the Football World Cup—after all, the Senior Expert Service in Bonn had already booked our flight for the day of the final… 17…
We built a water tower next to the pump house. A 5,000-liter tank stands on its plateau at a height of 6.2 meters. Above it are solar panels that supply electricity for the pump. The pump is located at a depth of 37 meters and lifts the water 45 meters to fill the tank. From…
In 2019, we collected plastic and metal scrap for the first time and ended up disposing of 50 bags filled to the brim. The campaign was exhausting, but incredibly motivating. In 2023, Malawi’s president took up this idea and launched a national Clean-Up Day, which has since taken place every third Friday of the month….
It was a big surprise when my physical therapist, whom I told about my trip to Malawi the day after next while lying on the massage table, pressed a few bills into my hand as I was leaving. In the village, it was said that Coretta could no longer work on the board because her…
Why are we doing this? A project involving schools and so on? Begging and pleading for support and putting up with the sometimes unspeakable bureaucracy of the funding institutions? We are doing this because the local people are very clear in their message: they know that they lack education, and they want their children to…