Mon, Dec 01 2008
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Published August 26, 2008 03:44 pm - Woman recalls missionary trip Poverty grips African nation, she says By Cathy Spaulding Times Staff Writer Fort Gibson native Katy Rowan recalled spending nearly two weeks in a Malawi village, living off a diet of beans, greens and occasionally, chicken. “It’s disgusting, but you ate it because you’re in their culture,” she said, showing a slide of her serving herself by ladling beans out of a bucket. Rowan, a 2002 Fort Gibson High School graduate, had all sorts of slides and stories to share with students in Teresa Minor’s seventh-grade geography class. Rowan was one of 10 members of Carter Baptist Church who did missionary work last June in Malawi, a country in southeast Africa that the CIA Web site said is one of the least developed and most densely populated countries in the world. During her slide presentation, Rowan said villagers must get their water from a common well and carry it home in buckets. “Imagine not being able to get water in their homes or having to go downtown to get water,” she said. “They have to make their own tools.” Even questions as simple as asking one’s age showed the depth of Malawi’s poverty, according to Rowan, who is majoring in education at Northeastern State University. “They ask, ‘How old are you,’ then they ask, ‘How old are you all added up,’ because they don’t even count the first two years of a person’s life,” she said. “40 percent of babies die of Malaria.” That same percentage of the population has AIDS, she said, showing a slide of an emaciated man by the side of a city street. The man in the slide died of AIDS during her trip, she said. Rowan also recalled some of the joyful exchanges she had with the villagers. “They don’t have long hair,” she said. “They just love running their fingers through your hair.” Minor said she felt Rowan could help her geography students gain insight into a foreign country. “She was a fifth-grade student of mine years and years ago, when I was at the Intermediate School,” Minor said. “She had been a speaker for Teens for Christ.” Rowan’s mother, Beverly Rowan, said church members each had to raise $3,500 for the trip. Of that, $2,500 was for travel and living expenses, and $1,000 was to help the Malawi church and community where they were serving. Reach Cathy Spaulding at 684-2928 or cspaulding@muskogeephoenix.com. 
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