The Fire. Day VII.

(A new friend of mine is a guest blogger for a few days. His name is Dowa Manda and he is from the country of Malawi. I hope you enjoy his trip diary.)


Moni

Today is my seventh day in fruit county. What a week this has been. Please pardon me as I have been unable to update my trip diary. On tuesday my gracious hosts Mr. John and Mrs. Jennifer had to leave their big beautiful home because of fire. At first we stood in their backyard with buckets from their swimming pools and strung together several njoka (garden hoses) and sprayed water over the back wall of their house, several neighbors pitched in and helped. I told them them that by passing buckes of water this is how we put out fires in Malawi. There was something special about this activity of coming together to pass this symbol of life. This was the first time I had actually seen neighbors, usually they drove their cars right into their garages.

A local military man with a black and white car eventually told us we had to leave. This was very very hard for Mrs. Jennifer because she had so many belongings she called "precious things" that she cried trying to decide what things to put in her car and what to leave behind. Mr. John only took a couple days of clothes and said that after seeing that I could live with only a couple pairs of clothes maybe he could too. The flames were about 4 times higher than the house and the skies were becoming a dark gray. Today is day six of 40 days of Purpose. Today I read about how life is a temporary assignment.

Mrs. Jennifer was very upset when we finally drove out of the neighborhood. We didn't know where we were going to go and I felt like I was an extra responsibility to them. Mr. John called several hotels first, but they were all full. He tired to make a joke and said maybe we could sleep in a stable tonight. So then he called several people from his smaller group, and one couple said we could stay with them. Mrs. Jennifer kept calling her house. I didn't understand why until she said that as long as the machine that answers the phone turned on then the house would not have burned down.

Back home we also have seen many disasters like this where whole towns have had to pick up and walk somewhere else carrying only what they could. Today, while our people aren't losing their homes in Malawi, we are losing many love ones.

I have never seen so many emergency vehicles, and television trucks as here in fruit county. We watched as huge planes flew over dropping large amounts of natugoko. The smoke is getting thicker and my lungs feel like a panther is standing on them. I am very ndatopa (tired). For the last several days I have been a guest in the big big home of Mr. Larry and Mrs. Michelle, they live about 20 minutes from where the fire is. All week we have been watching the fires on tv. I was happy when I heard that Mr. John and Mrs. Jennifer had not lost their home.

But, I was also sad that the fire had been started by someone with a purpose. One of the neighbors said they think they saw the guy in a red truck. Mrs. Jennifer said that the big church had received so many full vehicles of donations of food and clothing that they have had to turn people away. This is amazing to me that America has so much that even in need they can't use it all.