I found it so fitting to have read this excerpt from Morality for Beautiful Girls, the third book in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, a collection of which was a perfect read for the trip home.

“M Ramotswe saw the cart and the family retreating in the rearview mirror, as if they were going back into the past, getting smaller and smaller.  One day, people would no longer do this; they would no longer go out to the lands for the planting, and they would buy their food in stores, as people did in town.  But what a loss for the country that would be; what friendship, and solidarity, and feeling for the land would be sacrificed if that were to happen.”

M Ramotswe, though descriping the farm land in Botswana, gushes with a pride for Africa, a love of what’s beautiful and simple, one, which I’ve acquired for the similar fields in Malawi.  Having spent this time in the developing world fully immersed in the culture that exists, I no longer truly know how to define progress.

I think about our long drives and the workers we’d see constructing buildings, not with cranes and machines, but with ropes and the power of their own hands.  How much easier and more efficient it would be to use the technology we’ve built and yet how sad it would be to replace the way Malawians live with their environment, so naturally and simply.  We have grown to think of dirt as disgusting, but nothing about village life is actually dirty.  The dirt is natural.  How unsettling it would be to see pollution in the midst of the endless green.  But, how necessary it is, I know, to help this country “advance,” to help them overcome hunger and poverty, to help them prevent and cure disease, and advise them on how to establish an educational system and promise this to all of their children.  But, what then, should we, the developed world, actually do?  I will continue to ask myself this question, continue to research and explore the best way to empower people to become self-sufficient and simultaneously preserve what is most beautiful about their way of life.

Tiyambe Nawo, in particular, is made up of a group of warm and well-intentioned people who want to fix the problems plaguing their village and will, I am convinced, forever welcome anyone who has suggestions to offer. The organization is vulnerable, but the problems they face are not insurmountable with consistent support and determination to empower the villagers to improve.  For me, this trip was about the nursery school.  If I could go back or advise future volunteers, I would focus on the politics of the organization.  I would want to devise systems to hold students accountable for attending school and implement strategies to build a village-wide understanding of the importance of education, beginning with their early childhood program.  And, I would want to help the CBO work together more efficiently.  It was only at the end of our trip that we learned about some of the politics impeding their progress, an example of which is the way 5 families were given cows to raise under the stipulation that 20% of the profits go to the CBO.  Only one family, the Benesi’s, fulfill their end of the agreement and because no other family has been paying their dues, Mr. Benesi covers it all.  Matters are complicated by the fact that it’s the Chief’s family who doesn’t pay, and in the village, no one questions the chief.

So where do I go from here?  There is so much more I want to do and so much more to think about and consider as I adjust to being back home, surrounded by convenience, comforts, crowds and everything that’s familiar, holding on to everything simple, natural and joyful in world I left behind.