Security wall complete!

Some of my readers helped with this wall, so I want to share some of the photos I got from Malawi this week. Here’s the first one, from the spring, when they were digging the foundation.

And here it is, pretty much complete, starting with the guard house, inside the wall. More buildings are coming, when financing is available. Hamilton thought he might get some money from friends he has in US. Hamilton also raises money with his woodworking. If you were visiting Blantyre with the Presbyterian Church, you’d probably have an opportunity to see his work. We have a couple of things from him, but with our hasty exit, we didn’t collect as much as we might have.

Here’s the whole compound, viewed from the hillside. Nora and I hiked along this hillside with Hamilton and his wife Violet early in the year and saw maize and bananas growing here. Ndirende is just beyond the top of the photograph, maybe to the right a little.

A closer shot of a completed section of the wall and you can see a big chunk of the Ndirende community. It seems to me that Nora and I lived in the hazy section of the photo, in the rightmost third of the shot.

If you go to Malawi and visit the club, this will be the front gate greeting you. It will surely be decorated by then.

Finally, a look at the workmen. Notice the safety equipment. Ok, no safety glasses, steel toed boots, or gloves. I need to go into the attic at our church to replace some lights and our ladder is no safer than this one.

I haven’t had much news about Malawi for a while. We have kept in touch with a couple of people, mostly Hamilton at the Ndirende club, Lyca of the Friends of Prisons, and Prince, a guard at the prison. According to the internet, there have been about 5,800 Covid cases and 180 deaths to date. There appears to be an increase in suicide due to the economic downturn. The Ndirende club works with disadvantaged people in the poor community, so they continue to work with many vulnerable people.