Volunteer physio, Tommaso Luccarini, has written a story about his time spent volunteering with us this year in Malawi. Read his full story below.
It’s been exactly 6 weeks since I came back from Malawi, and in a way, it’s like I never completely left. A piece of me is still there. Or maybe better, a piece of Malawi is still with me here. I have been asked so many times the question: ‘How is coming back? How was it? How are you?’
I have tried to explain, or to give an idea. But I think it’s impossible to give an exact answer when you are still processing the craziest and most amazing experience of your life. And it’s still happening.
I am grateful to have had the chance to work with such amazing people. With all the incredible little patients, with their smiles, their shouting, their jokes, their hugs and their unconditional love.
Every day I was embarking on a trip with all sorts of means (by foot, riding a bike, on a motorbike, on a overcrowded-shared-taxi) to reach a different village near the shores of Lake Malawi.
The trips were not easy, with all the logistics challenges that Malawi has, and in the climatic and environmental hard conditions of the African summer. I measured myself as a healthcare professional and as a person in a completely different environment, dealing with challenging medical and social conditions.
But there is nothing I can complain about, nothing I can be annoyed about, or worried about, when I look back and see how all the amazing people I met during my stay are living and fighting every day for their community and family. How strong, proud, fierce, and resilient people they are.
Every day I was welcomed by the smile and the greetings (in Chitonga) of that wonderful human that Loveness, the local physiotherapist, is. Together with Loveness I was spending the morning going door to door to the houses of several patients and their families.
This experience has taught me so much about the local culture, the positive impact that an organisation like Ripple Africa can have on the local community. And how much I can do as a single to support other people, even with cultural, language and environmental barriers.
I have been working with children with all sorts of disabilities, which have a huge impact on them, their families and the community. We were going to the villages to deliver physiotherapy treatments, with manipulations, exercises and adjusting devices to improve the quality of life of all these patients.
We were helping with new splints for walking, adjusting wheelchairs and crafting casts to help the children to stand, walk, and move at home and outside. We sometimes had to do wound dressings for pressure sores, in patients with spine bifida, like Innocent. He was always giving us the biggest smiles and thumbs up.
In the afternoons I was then going to the health centers of each village for the group support sessions. These sessions were extremely useful (and busy) as we were teaching the parents on how to manage the disability of their children, how to do movements, and how to do exercises. This was to guarantee continuity in what we do in the clinic to their home, so they can progress steadily. The groups were on a walk-in basis, so we were seeing at least 15 patients every day at the clinics. Those moments were very dense in sounds, games, exercises, education and mutual help.
You could really feel the sense of the community there, where everyone is giving a hand to support to who need it the most. Which is something that stroked me. I also felt involved by the same contagious enthusiasm. It was impossible not getting dragged by it, seeing how much everyone was caring. Not just as a physiotherapist, but as a person, you start to be more aware of who and what is around you, so that you begin feeling part of something. There was something special in seeing the mothers and their babies recognizing me and then laughing loudly when I was trying to greet them with the ‘Timonene, Yewo mweuli, Ndeumampha, Kwali Imwe, Ndeumampha, Yewo’ mantra.
We were also going to visit patients at school in their class to see how they were integrating and adjusting in. To make sure they can participate actively during the lessons and that the devices provided (like wheelchairs) were being used correctly. What impressed me the most was how integrated our patients were within the class and how supported they were by their classmates.
Another example of integration within the community was seeing how Mike, one of our patients, was supported and welcomed by his neighbours and friends while they were playing football – see the photo at the top. Mike invited me to his village to watch a game of his football team. His happiness and pride of being the coach of the team, together with the fact that the whole village joined the event, was so beautiful and heartwarming.
I also have learned from Loveness how to build parallel bars out of bamboo and wood, with the help of a machete. This makes a huge difference for Fortune, who can now train and improve her walking in front of her house.
I was about to leave when the father looked at me straight with serious eyes, but smiling, said: ‘We are very grateful that you are here doing this and helping us. Thank you so much!’. And in that moment I replied the first thing I felt: ‘No, it’s me that has to say thanks to you’ and we laughed.
We left the house with this image of Fortune and her happiness. One of the images that will remain stuck in my mind forever. One of the hundreds of smiles that I will bring with me, and that gave me a new sense of gratefulness for what I have and do every day.
I will bring within me all the eyes full of surprise, the smiles, the faces, the warmth, the love I felt, the connections I had during this unique period of my life. I have the feeling that I have started something great, and I would like to be able to continue and come back one day.
I need to be thankful to all the people who supported me in the weeks and months before going to Malawi. Friends, family, colleagues at my clinic in London, the people close, and people far. All of those who spent a moment with some words, with a thought, with a donation, with a smile, with a hug. All the ones that checked in while I was there. A big thanks to Ripple Africa and everyone involved. And a huge thanks to the people of Malawi who let me leave with the biggest smile in my heart.
I am grateful to have had the chance to live something like this. I am also aware of my privilege. But I think that if we have a privilege, we can decide on how we are going to use it. To make something that at first might seem small, but can make a huge difference for someone else.
I arrived in Malawi thinking I would help people to heal. I returned to London feeling I was healing myself, with a new purpose, a new beginning.
Yewo, Ripple Africa and Malawi!