Vita Meal

Napoleon Dzombe is a very well known Malawian man. He grew up in a poverty, in a small village near this Vita Meal plant. As an adult he broke out of poverty by creating his own lumber business. When he had more money than he needed, he started handing out food from his home. After only a few days of handing out food, there were thousands of people showing up in his village. It was then that Napoleon realized that he could not sustain this practice, and that his people needed much more than a hand-out.

Napoleon is often pressured to get involved in Politics. I don’t doubt that he could get elected; he is that well-known, and well-loved. But, when we asked him if he would run for President, he said he is not interested in “meetings and signing papers.” His passion is to be amongst the people of Malawi, not set himself above or apart from them.

Napoleon became connected to Nu Skin in 2003, through a series of miracles that I won’t go into. But the more I learn about the partnership between Nu Skin and Napoleon, the more I realize that Nu Skin plays the supporting role. Napoleon is a visionary man. He has the ideas and Nu Skin has the resources to make it happen.

Vita Meal was Napolean’s first project with Nu Skin. He recognized that feeding the children of Malawi would allow them to learn and grow and have a chance to escape their cycle of poverty and change the future of Malawi. In the beginning, Vita Meal was produced in the US and sent to Malawi for Napoleon to distribute. Soon after, Napoleon asked Nu Skin to give him a loan and he would develop a Vita Meal plant locally, using locally grown maize and soya. He paid back this loan within only a couple years. In another post, I will tell you about Napolean’s second project with Nu Skin. Can you even stand to wait? It is so exciting.

For now, enjoy some pictures of the Vita Meal plant & us getting to help distribute it.

Napoleon Dzombe- fifth from the left.

Maize storage at the Vita Meal plant

Ready for our tour. I was lucky enough to not be in this picture!

Quality Control

sorting maize

more sorting

This thing sucked up the maize and tumbled it, allowing the small bits and dirt to escape.

Hauling the maize and soya beans up the hill to be ground into Vita Meal.

Vita Meal is one part Soya bean (left) & three parts maize (right)
plus a mixture of vitamins, minerals and other nutrients

Instead of industrial mixers which are expensive and hard to get repaired,
the Vita Meal plant uses cement mixers. 

Emptying the ground-up meal into buckets

Here the *proprietary* vitamin and mineral mixture is added and it is all measured and bagged up.
Makes me think of the Colonel’s seven secret herbs and spices...

Weighing. Bagging.

Matt & Michael with Vita Meal, ready for distribution. Lunch-lady style.

Napoleon showing us his office. “Problem Center"

Words of Wisdom in Napoleon’s office

Adjacent to the Vita Meal plant, there is an orphanage/school called Mtendere.
This lady is a missionary (not sure which church she’s from), originally from Redlands, CA (where I was born).
She helps care for the children at Mtendere Village with her husband who is a physician.
She made us some Vita Meal. It was delicious! Maybe because she added salt and sugar...

I think it’s brilliant to get kids to go to school by providing food there. That is how Vita Meal is mostly distributed: through Orphanages, Schools and Community based Child Care Centers (CBCC’s). It is also periodically passed out to children in the original place where Napoleon used to hand out food to his village. We got to travel to this open field and see the children sitting in neat lines, awaiting the Vita Meal truck. We arrived before the truck, and had a chance to interact with the children. They especially loved giving high-fives, and having their photos taken and then shown to them. Over. and over. and over.

Man standing on the top left was keeping order.
I mostly noticed him yell when the adults who were hanging around the outskirts
 would try to get in line for food.
I wished we had food for everyone. I felt very deeply how much I LOVE to feed people.
It is a huge part of my everyday life--a responsibility that I sometimes complain about.
I want to redirect my attitude--it is such a privilege to feed the people whom I love.

Young lady with a lot of responsibility.

Cherie Brady showing kids their photo.

Loved these girls. They would strike a new pose and demand another photo. Without using words.

Sitting. Waiting.
NOT “he’s touching me” “these weeds are itching me” “I’m hungry”

The first of many shirts we would see featuring Obama.

Most babies freaked out when us white people tried to get too friendly.

After about 30 minutes we learned that the Vita Meal truck still hadn’t been able to get any diesel, and may not be coming. We were devastated. Here were hundreds, if not a thousand, hungry children patiently waiting in the dirt. I said a prayer in my heart: for them, and for the diesel. (Gas is very hard to get in Malawi, and they often run out.) I did not want to leave all these children without being able to give them their month’s supply of food.

Matt has such a soft heart. He loved being able to give these children food.
We both had to choke back tears throughout this process.

YAY! The truck is here!

Fifteen minutes later the truck pulled up. We were all cheering. Brent Goddard (Nu Skin employee in charge of Nourish the Children) quickly told us the rules: give only ONE bag per child, and be sure to take their ticket. The village chiefs are given slips of paper from the Vita Meal plant. These “tickets” are then given to children by their chief. It is very important to follow the tribal system, and show respect for the chiefs.

As soon as I saw the first wadded up piece of paper, I just melted. It looked like a kleenex that had been through the wash and then rolled in dirt. I don’t doubt that the child had kept that paper safe in their dirty little hand for a long time, looking forward to this moment. But, there were lots of bags to distribute and I had to keep moving. 

After most of the children had received their bag, the person in charge told them to place it on their head so we could see who hadn’t received one yet. Some of these children (all orphans) were there with a guardian or caretaker from their village. Not all orphans are lucky enough to go to orphanages. I say lucky, because in orphanages, they usually receive food and an education. Anyway, a few of these adults were grabbing for Vita Meal, and I did see one lady hide Vita Meal under her skirt. But mostly the people were gracious and SO patient. 

Matt and I kept those tickets that we collected that day. I have them in a jar in my kitchen. I never want to forget the faces of these hungry children. There is always more I can do to help others. This jar motivates me to stay focused on the commandment to “...feed the hungry..." (Jacob 2:19)

These packs of 10 bags of Vita Meal were loaded onto the back of a flat bed truck.
We lifted them down, opened the bag and handed out the Vita Meal. 

Taking the small paper ticket and handing out a bag of Vita Meal

I believe hunger is Malawi’s most urgent need. Take the edge off the hunger and then you can address the myriad of other ailments such as poverty and disease, famine and drought.

Children chew on bits of plastic that they find along the road. One boy had a couple inches of old spiral telephone cord in his mouth. Other children I saw chewing on torn, weathered plastic grocery bags, rocks, and frayed wire.

Vita Meal is a complete meal. It requires cooking in boiling water--this helps to kill off any water contamination, while cooking the meal into a porridge. One bag of Vita Meal contains 30 servings; enough to feed a child for a month. The money to pay for all this Vita Meal is raised by Nu Skin employees and distributors and customers “buying” bags of Vita Meal every month.