May 22: Farewells
“Farewell, farewell, but not forever!” the Malawians sang as the Canadians began, one by one, to vanish into Chileka airport security.
Connie Wardle
May 21: In Search of Elephants
“What do you most want to see?” asked our guide, Raphael, who looked all the world like a gun-toting Peter Pan.
“Elephants!” came the communal cry.
May 20: Livelihoods
Inside one of the classrooms of Ng’onga Primary School, about a dozen villagers meet each Monday. All of them are HIV positive, and live in an area that has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic.
May 18: A Day at Tidzalerana Club
Alex, 19, is unable to speak or walk, and he lacks motor skills. At Tidzalerana Club, a meeting for people living with disabilities, he lay with his head in his grandmother’s lap.
May 17: Meeting Poverty
Some had spent the weekend in beautiful houses behind high walls and well watched gates, with attentive maids and personal drivers. The homestay experience had been a glimpse into the world of Blantyre’s upper class. But today it jarred with another part of the same world.
May 14: Temporary Goodbyes
The morning meant departure from the beauty of Likhubula House and the ever-present vision of Mount Mulanje. It was time to return to the city, and to face a new cultural challenge.
May 13: Mountain Climbing
The climb began at 6 a.m. on May 12. It took over six hours to reach the CCAP cottage on one of Mount Mulanje’s most popular plateaus.
May 11: Discovering Discomfort
“This was the one thing on the itinerary that I felt uncomfortable doing because it’s something I’d never do back home,” admitted Sarah Smith as she sat with the other youth on a concrete floor at Mulanje Mission Hospital. “It was like I was being a tourist of sickness, almost, but I don’t feel like it did any harm so I’m not sure.”
May 10: Seeking Contentment
It was a sentiment commonly expressed by participants on short term mission trips. “The people here seem so happy, even though they have so little.”
May 9: Offerings
The dancing began at the offering. As the leader called each group up by their region–including Canada—people filed down their aisle to leave their gifts to God.
May 8: Laughter of Orphans
Today was one of songs and laughter. About two dozen children walked to Likhubula House, some coming as many as six kilometres, to attend a weekly Saturday school.
May 7: Tea and Water
The Lujeri Tea Estate sprawls across the foothills near Mount Mulanje. It was established in 1926 and today is Malawi’s second-largest tea estate.
May 6: Opening Eyes and Wallets
It was a task destined to take up part of any trip: souvenir shopping. After changing dollars into kwacha, the local currency, the group headed into downtown Blantyre to find a little something for everyone back home.
May 5: The Journey Begins
It began with an awkward meeting. The Canadians gathered their bags (at least those bags that had made the three-plane journey from Canada to Malawi) and emerged from the airport, blinking in the sudden light.
Jordan: Beginning at the End
It was our final night in Jordan. We sat in the hotel bar in the still-warm evening, reflecting back on a week spent roaming through the deserts, ruins and breathing cities of a country little-known and less understood by the inhabitants of our homelands. And as with most reminiscences, the stories twisted back on themselves, away from these final moments and toward the beginning of our journey.
Ali Abu Shakra
Our guide for the week was Ali Abu Shakra, the son of a Palestinian father who fled Israel during the occupation of Gaza. As a 12-year-old boy he boarded a bus, not knowing where he was bound. In the early morning, he stepped off on a street corner in Amman, Jordan.
Amman
Modern Amman is home to an estimated 2.5 million people, or 40 per cent of Jordan’s total population. The city has grown from its initial seven hills to sprawl across more than 40 in endless waves of sandstone houses and tentacle-like roads that have a disconcerting tendency to veer off in unexpected directions.
Interfaith Coexistence Research Centre
“I believe we have a responsibility to emphasize the role of Arab Christians,” Father Nabil Haddad tells us. “I’m a very selfish Arab Christian. I think we can do much better than we have in the past. We’re able to understand; we all share a tradition, a civilization. We shouldn’t sit back and be a disgruntled little minority. We should be a very prominent element. We’ll never stop being the witnesses and the peacemakers.”
Prince El Hassan bin Talal
His Royal Highness Prince Hassan is a keen-eyed, mustached man whose duel Oxford degrees and near-encyclopedic knowledge of European and Middle Eastern history are enough to intimidate the finest journalist. But throughout his multi-tiered arguments, the under-girding realities were clear: what matters at the end of the day is a commitment to the sanctity of human life. We suffer from little nationalisms, from polarizing fundamentalisms (with the caveat, he added, that nothing is religiously fundamental), and breakdowns of governance because of “bad bedside manner”—an inability to relate to people in psychological, linguistically meaningful ways.
Akel Biltaji
His Excellency Akel Biltaji is King Abdullah II’s advisor on Tourism Promotion, Foreign Direct Investment and Country Branding, and an appointed senator in the upper house of Jordan’s government. We expected his briefing to be over-spiced with positivity and glowing recommendations that might bring our readers—and their tourist dollars—to Jordan.