Malawi Carmel
By Sr. Vilma Juaneza, cm
Malawi is a small country in Africa. The official language is English, but Chichewa is the real language of the people. It is a very poor country with a colonial economy. A great percentage of its economic income is concentrated in Lilongwe, the capital, a very large and beautiful city with splendid gardens, tall buildings, well-paved roads and highways and a good airport. However, a few kilometers away, the specter of poverty greets the eyes: famished faces, people in tattered clothing, inhuman dwellings AIDS, cholera, malaria and malnutrition.
Mtengo Wa Nthenga
Two communities are situated close to these suffering people. Mtengo Wa Nthenga was founded in 1979. Here, six Carmelite Sisters – three Spaniards, one Filipino and an Indian – do their utmost for the inhabitants. To this mission center hundreds of patients flock daily. The poorest are the ones who usually become victims of all these epidemics.