Random acts of kindness

My sister accuses me of seeing life in Malawi through rose tinted spectacles. She is wrong. I can see faults. I can see lots of ways that improvements to everyday life can be made and I do get frustrated from time to time yet every single day I am charmed by something that happens. The people here in spite of their poverty and hardships take time to care for each other in oh so many ways. Kindness abounds

The photo shows lots of fresh produce donated to me one day last week; whatever people have they share. I often feel quite humbled by these generous acts that come my way but the generosity is shown in other ways too like the man (unknown to me) who got off his bike this morning to walk alongside me and talk to me as I pushed my bike up the hill.

This consideration of others definitely rubs off on anyone who stays here for a little while. In the second photo we have Andy stopping to talk to some tinies he met on his path, he couldn’t speak Chichewa and they couldn’t speak English but it didn’t matter as they all took the time to greet each other and smile

Today I was told a story about Chris and Christian who are here at the moment. It seems that yesterday as they were on a cycle ride they come across an ‘old’ man (about my age!!!) who had got a puncture in one of his tyres, but more than that his bike was carrying a very heavy bag of maize, thus making it extremely difficult for him to push on the soft sandy road. The story continues that the two gallant ‘azungu’ (white people) got off their bikes passing them to a couple of children to push them as they relieved the gentleman of his bike and load, and took it to the bike repair shop, paying for the puncture to be mended.

During the few weeks Chris has been here we have frequently spoken about the term “making a difference” and I think we have agreed that you can make a huge difference in people’s lives just by a simple random act of kindness, it doesn’t have to be a grand gesture, it doesn’t have to cost money but it will probably take just a little amount of your time.

So, my challenge to you as we enter the second half of 2018 is to think about those acts of kindness, random or otherwise, you can make in your community and don’t delay, get working on them now – maybe one a week, two a week or even one each day because as well as improving the quality of life of those you show kindness to, it will certainly perk you up as well.