MISSON TO MALAWI
Dr. Robert Hampton and his wife, Claudia Sansone spent two weeks in Malawi, Africa, last October on a humanitarian mission to provide dental care and nutritional counseling.
Message from Claudia Sansone, CCP, Co-Founder United Village Transformation (contributed to Napa Valley Register June 16, 2011)
Last October, I was one of two Napa husband-and-wife teams, when my husband, dentist Robert Hampton, and I joined retired dentist and vintner Mary Rocca and Dr. Eric Grigsby, founders of HealthRoots Foundation, on an extraordinary humanitarian adventure to Malawi, Africa.
Usually, the first question is “Where on earth is Malawi?’ It is a small, narrow, land-locked country in Africa bordered by Mozambique, Zambia and Tanzania, and it was our home for two weeks.
The next question is “Why Malawi?” Malawi is a country of 15 million people of which 50 percent are under 16 years of age. On top of that, approximately 1 million are orphans as a result of AIDS wiping out the middle generation. Only two percent of the population has electricity, and that is in the main cities. The villages consist of mud brick homes with thatched roofs, dirt floors, an outdoor cooking kitchen and no electricity or running water. Thirty-three percent of the children have chronic malnutrition and 52 percent live on less that $1 a day; 22 percent live on less that two cents a day.
With only 25 dentists to serve 15 million people, the need for dental care is great. Rob took care of patients who would otherwise have no way to relieve the pain. They waited hours in long lines for a chance to see him. For me, my work had started six years ago while doing another dental mission trip to Oaxaca, Mexico. My intention was to assist my husband with the never-ending lines of patients. When I realized that my aim with the water syringe wasn’t always on target, I relocated to the kitchen where I met Charlotte Day, the founder of Gogo Grandmothers. She and husband, Dick Day, were academics at the University of Malawi in Zomba. She had founded the Gogo Grandmothers to help grandmothers find ways to support the orphans whose parents were lost to AIDS. I wanted to be her groupie.
After Lilongwe, we headed south to Zomba, where we visited Charlotte and Dick Day. I spent time with her and the Gogo Grandmothers doing recipe development for more healthy foods for the orphans of Malawi who are grossly undernourished. Twenty percent of the children don’t reach 5 years old. I discovered the daily chores of the women consist of walking long distances to the wells, most in bare feet. They fill a large plastic container with water, place it on their heads and off they go, not spilling a drop. Then they head out to collect wood to build a fire for cooking.
Their babies go everywhere with them, wrapped in a chintenje, a piece of colorful cloth tied like a skirt or around their backs to hold their babies. No Baby Bjorns there!
Here in the Napa Valley, my culinary career has morphed into working as an art director and set designer for culinary television programs and as a cookbook producer. My latest project was Michael Chiarello’s new cookbook, “Bottega.” My time in Malawi took my culinary skills to a new and different level — survival. I saw children waiting for what might be their only meal of the day, a white corn flour porridge called nsima. Their diet lacks just about everything. We worked on recipes like Malawian Bonongwa (pumpkin leaves with ground nuts), soy utilization and snack bars with local ingredients. We also worked on ways to start micro-businesses of healthy snacks for the young children. While our mission was to set up a dental clinic in the hospital, it turned into something far greater. After seeing the dental clinic in action, Mr. Chung, a shipping magnate of South Korea and Christian benefactor of the Dae Yang Luke Hospital, realized the tremendous need for dental care. He asked Rob and Mary Rocca to research a plan to build the first dental school in Malawi. They are both fired up and meeting with the deans of several dental schools to make their plans.
It appears our work in Malawi has only just begun.
We are grateful to have the opportunity to give back. The sign inside the Daeyang Luke Hospital says it all: “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25-40. To those who would like to reach out, but wonder what you might do, the needs are great throughout the world. What pulls your heartstrings? For more information Gogograndmothers gogograndmothers.com Kumbali Country Lodge kumbalilodge.com Healthroots Foundation roccawines.com/healthroots.html
