Xylos

In Lilongwe we met Xylos -- that's Cyrus to you and me. He works as a guard at the Lilongwe Golf Club where we camped for two weeks as we bounced from Ministry of Health, National AIDS Commission and the Central Hospital to USAID, DFID, World Bank, and UNICEF to a host of international NGOs and local community and faith-based organizations. From these meetings, we learned a lot about Malawi's response to the devastation of HIV/AIDS, and how they are struugling to coordinate donors that are pouring money in to support this response. But we also learned a thing or two from Xylos.

Xylos took an interest in us and our work. He told us about his time working as an HIV/AIDS peer educator in Zomba, and about the Kukule Youth Organization in his neighborhood.

He invited us to his house and so one Saturday morning we walked with him to the outskirts of Lilongwe. We sat for long hours in his humble home, met his wife and two baby girls Mavis and Grace, took a break to visit the rambunctious and impressive youth of Kukule, made a delicious lunch of nsima and greens, and talked with Xylos about his ambitions.

High school educated, earnest as the day is long, warm and kind, and quite proficient in English, Xylos can barely make ends meet.

The table in his little living room threatens to topple over, and the walls are adorned with a few left over little plastic flags from some Lilongwe bank promotion. The single bedroom has a straw mat on the floor and a cardboard box to hold clothes, combs, a book or two and the family's important papers.

Xylos pulled at these important papers until he found his driving credential, which we merrily compared with our DC licenses, and the documentation from the time he was hospitalized after an accident at work for which he has yet to be compensated.

I hold his little baby Mavis who is burning with fever and refusing all food. Xylos shares with us her health card that shows a series of visits for flu and pneumonia and high fever. Each is registered by a different attendant, written in different, though equally undecipherable, hand.

We tried to ease our sense of hopelessness by offering $10 towards a real hospital visit. That $10 would do nothing to ensure that Mavis grows strong and tall, is well-nourished and well-educated. Nothing to help Xylos graduate from the guard job to the reception desk at the club. Nothing to prevent his wife spending the next 30 years bending over a wood fire on the ground to cook in a room so small the smoke has nowhere to go but in her eyes and through lungs.

As it turns-out, our $10 was just enough to detect and treat the malaria that plagued poor little Mavis, and takes the lives of thousands of tiny Malawians each year.

But what about the next time? Hopefully there won't be a next time because Xylos will find the $3 to get a bed net (widely available at a low price thanks to USAID-funded programs). But there will be many more problems, and while Xylos and his family bravely face them, we will be on our way to new places and new adventures, finding much less useful ways to spend another $10 . . .
-stl

---

---