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Remembering My Lai | Unlikely Friendships |
Officer of the Year
Unlikely Friendships
A trip to one of Africa’s most desperate countries teaches a CV student that people aren’t so different after all.
By Tim McNellie
For her senior year
project, Chartiers Valley
student Kayla Mahalchak
wanted to find a way to
help a hospital in a needy
part of the world.Maybe
organize a fundraiser.
What Kayla got, thanks
to one of her teachers,
was a first-hand look at
the desperation – yet
remarkably indomitable
spirit – of people living in
one of the world’s most
troubled countries. It was
a learning experience
she’ll never forget.
Kayla’s story starts in her German class at
Chartiers Valley. Last year, she mentioned to
her teacher,Mary Beth Zollars, that she was
looking for a way to tie her senior project (a
graduation requirement at CV) to her interest
in medicine. Kayla was thinking of holding a
fundraiser for a hospital in Haiti.
Photo: Kayla Mahalchak in Zimbabwe with two visitors to her mission.
“I know a hospital that you can help,”
Mary Beth said. She explained that during
the last few years, she had
spent time in Zimbabwe with
members of her church,
Christ United Methodist in
Bethel Park.The church
sends volunteers to a mission
aiming to bring education
and medicine to a country
that’s often referred to as
“Hell on Earth.”
Once considered the
jewel of the African
continent, Zimbabwe
(formerly known as
Rhodesia) was for years
dubbed the “Breadbasket of
Africa.” But severe political corruption and
mismanagement under the rule of President
Robert Mugabe have turned this once
prosperous nation into an abyss of perpetual
starvation, where the annual inflation rate is
around 26,000 percent, the unemployment
rate is 80 percent, and the average life
expectancy is 37.
Almost two thirds of Zimbabweans are
Christians and are quite welcoming to
missionaries.The Nyadire Mission, where
Mary Beth stayed, includes a hospital that
treats 150,000 patients for everything from
hypertension and malnutrition to malaria and
AIDS. If Kayla was interested, she was
welcome to go on the next trip.
It didn’t take long for Kayla to say yes.
Once her parents approved, she was ready to
accompany Mary Beth, and Mary Beth’s
mom, Elsa Zollars, a retired teacher herself.
In-Country
Their plane touched down in
the capital city of Harare on a
muggy January night.The
country’s continual power
outages meant that the only
light came from backup
generators. “When we first got
there, we were going through customs and
there were no lights,” Kayla says. “They got
my name wrong on my visa because they
couldn’t see what they were doing.”
After being shuttled through the pitch-black capital and on through the countryside
for a few hours, they arrived at the mission
compound, which resembled a college campus
with its pre-school, primary school, high
school, nursing college, hospital, orphanage,
and scattered homes.The mission dates back
to the 1920s, and since then it has served the
surrounding community of 500,000 people
(though the closest town is a 30-minute car
ride away).
The next morning, the ladies split up,
taking on their various duties. Elsa, with her
extensive background in early childhood
development, ended up as a sort of de facto
consultant to the pre-school teachers. An
attempt to teach the kids to sing “The
Wheels on the Bus” fell flat because many of
the students had never seen a school bus
before and had no idea what they were
singing about. Nevertheless, the teachers and
students were grateful for assistance they get.
In Zimbabwe, a single notebook costs more
than a teacher earns in a month.
Photo: This ox-cart serves as the local ambulance.
Kayla spent a lot of time at the hospital,
observing how the staff worked with the
various patients, and comparing the
similarities and differences with Allegheny
General, where she had undertaken some
volunteer work. In Zimbabwe, she befriended
the nursing staff.They taught her how to
cook, Zimbabwe-style, and she taught them
some uniquely-American skills, like how to
do a Rockettes-style kick-line. “I never felt
scared,” she says. “Everyone was so friendly. I
couldn’t walk from point A to point B
without meeting new people and getting their
addresses to keep in touch when I get home.”
Mary Beth resumed her ongoing work
with Nyadire’s orphans, specifically trying to
find foreign sponsors for the children.Thirty
dollars a month covers all their needs, and an
additional $50 a year pays for their schooling.
One of the most striking moments for all
three ladies was the day that the children
from the orphanage walked over to the
church to have their photo taken in the hope
that someone would sponsor them. “We were
expecting a lot of kids,” Kayla says, “but when
we got there, the pews were full. I looked out
the window and saw the biggest group of
children imaginable
walking up.”
Photo: Children carry water from a well.
“To think,” says
Elsa, “that all of
these kids are
orphaned, and they
all came in hopes of
getting school
money, because
school is the best
thing in their lives
right now.”
“The shoes told
the story,”Mary
Beth says. “Some
who didn’t have
shoes that fit walked there in oversized shoes
that once belonged to their fathers.”
They photographed nearly 300 orphans
that day.
Lessons Learned
“We’re not just the bank,” says Mary Beth,
noting that while churches like hers
continually work to send money and goods to
the mission, the long-term goal is to create
self-sustenance. At one time, food wasn’t a
problem in Zimbabwe, which exported grain
throughout the continent. But because of
economic and agricultural policies that
crushed the farming business, the country
now struggles to feed itself.The mission, for
example, once had a bountiful farm, which,
like many others in the nation, was ruined.
But in recent years, they’ve begun planting
again – corn, sweet potatoes, and peanuts on
10 acres of land.
“[The mission workers] will be able to
feed themselves for six months, and this
spring they hope to build a chicken coop so
that the children will have
eggs to eat,”Mary Beth says.
“Once you get that going,
they can build on that.The
older kids in the orphanages
can learn some skills.”
Just as the farm has been
reborn, so the people of
Zimbabwe, at least those at
the mission, seem to hold out
hope for a better future. “I
really wasn’t expecting them
to be so joyous and smiling,
especially since they have so
little,” Kayla says. “They were
so gracious and generous.”
Photo: Kayla Mahalchak (left) with Mary Beth and Elsa Zollars.
After hearing of
Hurricane Katrina, the local
mission workers actually
scraped up $50 to donate to
the New Orleans homeless.
The night before they
left, the visitors from Pittsburgh and some of
the mission workers joined hands in a prayer
circle. As a small boy sang a song, tears began
streaming down Kayla’s face.
“They treated me like a sister, a
daughter, or a granddaughter,” she says.
“The student nurses became my new best
friends.We live 8,000 miles apart, but we
related so well. Judith [one of the nurses]
told me her boy problems, and I told her
mine.We just bonded.The politics and the
people are so different.”
Now at home and working on turning
her experience into a senior project, Kayla
has had her worldview perceptibly changed
by her African experience. “I learned a lot
about myself.”
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