Mud splatters my white socks as my shoes land in a puddle. It’s rainy season in northern Malawi, a small African country located in the center of the Rift Valley, a geological fracture extending from Ethiopia to Mozambique. Today, I am undergoing a crash course in water and sanitation and learning about the new and improved water supply system for Livingstonia, a Presbyterian mission overlooking Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa.

As I tramp along the Khondowe Plateau toward the mission’s water source, I can’t help but long for my easel, my watercolors and my sable hair brush. The rainy season has brought out every shade of green. Strokes of olive, pine and avocado wet the rolling grasslands while rows of tobacco and maize glisten under the lemon-lime glow of the January sun. I feel like Dorothy stumbling upon the Emerald City, except my ruby-red slippers are clunky, mud-soaked shoes.

The air smells of damp earth and burning wood. Smoke billows from a cluster of thatched roof huts. A faint clucking noise drifts from a chicken coop, its rickety body resting on ostrich-like legs made of bamboo. The only other sound is the thump of footsteps. Ahead of me are three engineers, two Malawian, one Tanzanian. The latter designed the updated water works project. He is a tall, gangly man with the face of a teenager, but he speaks a sophisticated language, one of hydraulics, intakes and infiltration.

Jim, an American missionary, walks behind me and my three colleagues from North Carolina. He is tall too, but with broader shoulders. He wears a wide-rimmed hat, navy T-shirt and Wrangler jeans. Although soft-spoken, he projects a cool confidence, an “I can wrestle a crocodile to the ground” kind of air. I am glad to have him around — even though the engineers assure me there are no wild beasts within miles. “Only in the game parks,” one adds. Still, I stick close to Crocodile Jim.

Trained as a geologist, Jim oversees the installation of bore wells, irrigation systems and latrines with sanitary platforms. He also teaches villagers how to turn human waste into useful compost by mixing it with wood ash and soil. It is a push to stop open defecation, still commonplace in parts of Malawi’s rural, agricultural society.

Strokes of olive, pine and avocado wet the rolling grasslands while rows of tobacco and maize glisten under the lemon-lime glow of the January sun. I feel like Dorothy stumbling upon the Emerald City except my ruby-red slippers are clunky, mud-soaked shoes.

“How much longer?” I ask.

“Not long,” Jim says. “It’s really muddy here. Watch your step.”

The boggy footpath oozes with a thick, velvet sludge but several patches are flat and polished, slick like black ice. In these spots, I straddle the track to avoid slipping. It is hard to do this in a long skirt. It is even more difficult to jump a stream. Somehow, I manage.

Normally, I don’t hike in a skirt. But a friend who traveled to Malawi a few years ago urged me not to bring pants of any kind. “Change is slow in Malawi,” she said. “Trust me. It’s still very conservative.” She explained how the country had been locked in a time warp for almost thirty years under the authoritarian regime of Hastings Kamuza Banda, who assumed power in 1964, after the country gained independence from Britain and immediately took steps to isolate Malawi from the rest of the world — banning such things as television, books and periodicals. Banda also instituted a strict dress code for women, forbidding them to wear trousers or to show their thighs. Although Malawi became a multi-party democracy in 1994, it still maintains many old-school traditions and attitudes, particularly when it comes to women. Taking my friend’s advice, I packed four skirts, all ankle-length. The one I wear today is denim. Hopefully, it won’t show much dirt.

Timbuku tribesmen must have hiked this same trail, back in the early 1900s — some of them lugging building materials for Livingstonia’s first water supply system designed by Dr. Robert Laws, a medical missionary from Glasgow, after he had moved the mission to the plateau in 1894.

According to W.P. Livingstone, author of The Life of Robert Laws of Livingstonia: A Narrative of Missionary Adventure and Achievement, the site appealed to Laws for many reasons. Situated on top of a near vertical escarpment some 3,000 feet above the lake, the plateau enjoyed a cool climate, rich fertile soil, and a view of the Tanzanian mountains fifty miles to the east. It also offered refuge from malaria-carrying mosquitoes and the deadly tsetse flies that plagued the low-lying regions along the lake.

But it was access to clean water that proved to be the plateau’s most valuable resource. While scouting the area, Laws stumbled upon two fresh water springs on Mount Nyamkowa, several miles to the west of the mission site. The discovery of the springs, dubbed “the source,” sparked the idea for a water supply system. With the financial backing of a Scottish benefactor, Laws supervised the building of a settlement pond, an open flume and the assemblage of five-and-a-half miles of steel piping linking Livingstonia to “the source.”

Not much has changed in Livingstonia since the early 1900s. Named in honor of explorer David Livingstone, the mission still looks like a small Scottish hamlet plucked up and dropped into the middle of this lush sub-Saharan oasis. Neat brick cottages with red-tiled roofs line the muddy unpaved streets while the secondary school displays Georgian-style symmetry with rows of arched Palladian windows. The focal point, however, is the large Presbyterian Church. A tall stained glass window looms over the sanctuary. The image depicts a white man hiking above the placid waters of Lake Malawi extending his hand to a group of Timbuku natives. Supposedly, the musungo, white man, is David Livingstone, but to me he looks just like Jim.

There is a collective rhythm to their strides as they clip along the path carrying heavy bundles of firewood or large buckets of water on their heads. Their pace remains steadfast, their postures erect, their eyes resolute.

Today, Livingstonia remains a medical, educational and spiritual hub for Malawi’s rural northern region. But I doubt it would have survived had it not been for Laws’ pursuit of fresh running water, which not only protected people from disease, but also generated electricity, powering everything from the threshing and flour mills to the machinery in the carpentry and blacksmith shops.

On the trail, I stumble along in my skirt. Despite my conservative attire, I still feel awkward and out of sync next to the Malawian women, especially those wearing the traditional chitenje, the large sheets of fabric that wrap around the waist. There is a collective rhythm to their strides as they clip along the path carrying heavy bundles of firewood or large buckets of water on their heads. Their pace remains steadfast, their postures erect, their eyes resolute.

Perhaps it is the simplicity of the chitenje, its freedom from buttons, zippers and elastic that allows this fluid, unfaltering cadence. At the same time, these garments project a raw, unpredictable boldness. The crisp cotton fabrics come alive, popping with complex patterns and symbols, most in striking colors.

We pass a young mother wearing two chitenje, one used as a sling to carry her baby. The colors of Crayolas — gold, orange and deep jade — cover her hips and legs, while the child swims in a sea of turquoise and royal blue. As she glides by in her flip-flops, she seems unphased by me. Likely, she has seen plenty of musungos over the years, living so close to Livingstonia. Still, I wonder if life has been treating her kindly here in this beautiful green land.

Earlier in the week, I saw another young mother sitting on the steps at the Embangweni Mission Hospital, a hundred miles to the south. Although I have no child of my own, I sensed the woman’s despair as she clutched her listless infant close to her breast, his dry, crusty mouth opening and shutting like a baby bird. Despite the deep creases in his tiny brow, he seemed to lack the energy to cry. All I heard was a faint, lingering whimper.

The child could have been suffering from malaria or malnutrition, the two leading causes of death here for children under five. But dysentery and other water-borne infections are also prevalent. According to the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), over half the population — roughly seven million people — lack access to wash basins and flush toilets. It is a battle Jim and the engineers fight every day.

The hospital administrator at Embangweni, a bubbly woman with a broad smile, led our group on a tour of the 130-bed facility. On the outside, it resembled any other one-story brick complex but third world realities appeared around every corner. An old, mud-splattered pick-up truck sat near the front entrance. Over the back, a detachable cab covered the truck bed. Bright red letters on the side spelled “Ambulance.” In the main courtyard, wet latex gloves dried on a bush outside the operating room, dangling like ornaments on a Christmas tree. Nearby, a frail, elderly woman pumped a well lever. She stood on top of an elevated concrete disk, designed to protect against contamination. Clear, sparkling water gushed from the tap, a contrast to the stagnant, milk-colored liquid found in many hand-dug pits.

Evidently, the older woman was a guardian. According to the administrator, guardians were family members or close friends who cared and cooked for patients while they were in the hospital. The administrator led us to the dark doorway of the guardians’ cookhouse. Inside, several women stirred pots over open fires — the aroma of onions and mustard greens spicing the smoky haze. Adjacent to the cookhouse, dozens of multi-colored blankets dotted a large field, the place where many guardians had slept the night before.

Later, we met the Deputy in Charge of Nursing. Like most nurses in Malawi, she wore a traditional fitted uniform, similar to the stiff, starchy ones that nurses in the States wore back in the 1960s. Outside a medical ward, one of my colleagues accidently splattered mud on her hem. “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “I got mud on your dress.” But her concern wasn’t with the mud. She smiled as she politely corrected him. “This is not my dress. This is my uniform.”

Although nursing is one of the most coveted and respected professions in Malawi, it is in the midst of a crisis. Close to two-thirds of the nursing positions throughout the country remain unfilled due to the attraction of higher paying wages offered by non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and wealthy health foundations. In addition, Malawi loses more and more health professionals each year to developed countries such as Great Britain and the United States. The Southern Africa Documentation and Cooperation Center cites that 52% of health administrators, 64% of nurses and 85% of physicians have left the country in recent years.

This trend is especially troublesome for rural hospitals such as the one in Embangweni. It is now clear why the new nursing quarters, which our church funded, was so critical. It houses eight nurses.

“How many people do you serve here?” I asked the one and only doctor on staff.

“Our catchment population is approximately 100,000 people,” she said. “But we also serve an additional 30,000 when we count the overflow from the north and the ones that come from Zambia.”

“They come all the way from Zambia?” I asked.

“I guess the word has gotten out that our service is reliable.”

“How do they get here?”

She shrugged. “Many of them walk.”

I pictured the worried young mother slogging along the washed-out roads with her sick baby strapped to her back. How many hours or how many days had she spent walking in the mud and the rain?

That night at Embangweni we stayed in the Donald Fraser Guest House, named for another Scottish missionary. Although it was a simple, sparsely decorated building, it might as well have been a Ritz Carlton. I had access to a working toilet, a warm shower and food that was prepared with boiled water. I also slept under a mosquito net in a bed with freshly laundered sheets. While eating breakfast one morning, I asked our hosts about Reverend Donald Fraser and his wife, Agnes, a physician.

I learned the Frasers moved to Embangweni in 1902 where they established Loudon Station, a satellite post for the Livingstonia medical mission. For more than twenty years, the couple lived and worked among the Ngoni, a tribe that had migrated northward from an area south of the Zambesi River.

In Donald Fraser of Livingstonia, Agnes Fraser gives a detailed account of her husband’s missionary work in Nysaland, as Malawi was called in those days. Each year, he organized large sacramental conventions or unganos. Thousands traveled great distances for these spiritual gatherings where hundreds of adults and children were baptized and even more took communion.

Although they centered around the preaching of the Holy Gospel, the revivals also included plenty of pomp and show. Hymn singing, clapping and dancing were all part of the week-long celebrations. In his lecture on the centennial anniversary of Loudon Station, Dr. Jack Thompson, Divinity Professor of the University of Edinburgh, said Fraser based the conventions on the communion season of Scottish highland tradition, noting their similarities to the services Fraser’s own father led in Argyllshire.

But Thompson also draws parallels to the Incwala, the first fruits ceremony, a traditional African festival where a tribe comes together to celebrate the rebirth of their king and their kingdom. In many ways, Fraser’s conventions allowed the Ngoni to ease into Christianity without turning their backs on their heritage and customs.

Meanwhile, Agnes opened the area’s first medical clinic. There, she likely faced epidemics of cholera, small pox and influenza along with countless other maladies such as tropical ulcers and black water fever.

I imagine her bustling around a bamboo hut in a high-neck Victorian dress with puffy sleeves and corseted waist dispensing tablets and tonics from her medicine chest. Or perhaps she wore a simple cotton frock with a pinafore, an outfit more suitable for cleaning and dressing wounds caused by lions and leopards. Yet, I suspect none of her clothes were suitable for the heat and rain of Africa.

After Donald Fraser’s death in Scotland in 1933, Agnes traveled back to Embangweni with her husband’s ashes. She laid him to rest in the cemetery at Loudon Station next to his Malawian friend, Reverend Jonathon Chirwa. In his anniversary lecture, Professor Thompson said, “Nothing could speak more elegantly or movingly of the love and respect which Fraser and the Ngoni had for each other.”

Today, the Frasers’ devotion for the Malawian people continues to thrive. I saw it in the faces of all those I met at Embangweni – the nurse, the doctor and the administrator. I also see it in the faces of Jim and the engineers.

As we make our own pilgrimage towards “the source,” one of the engineers waves and yells, “We’re almost there.” The incline of the last hundred yards is steeper and shadier than the rest of the trail. Tall blue gum trees hover above me, their whitish-grey branches reaching out like long slender fingers. An open trench snakes along the side of the mountain. Inside, clean spring water rushes through the man-made channel just as it has for the last hundred years.

Change is slow in Malawi. It is like water moving through a low pressured pipe. It trickles. It purls. Sometimes, it chokes. But eventually it flows to where it is going, drop by drop — each one making a difference.

According to W.P. Livingstone, Dr. Robert Laws left Livingstonia in 1899 to travel to Glasgow where he solicited funds from the Free Church of Scotland for the first water works project. I picture him standing before the Foreign Missions Committee pointing to diagrams and drawings of the settlement pond, the open flume and miles of steel piping. Members nodded their heads in approval but voiced reservations over the cost, estimated at 4,000 pounds, an extravagant expense in those days. In the end, the committee voted down his request.

Lowering his head in disappointment, Laws rolled up his plans and tucked them under his arm. But before he left, one of the committee members tapped him on the shoulder. It was Lord Overtoun, an industrialist from Glasgow. Overtoun offered to bankroll the entire project.

Walking along the banks of a spring-fed stream, I listen to the engineers banter back and forth about the updated water supply system — its sedimentation traps, holding tanks and improved water pressure. The Tanzanian rattles off a series of impressive facts and figures. It all sounds good. Even I know more liters per second mean more clean water for more Malawians.

After the engineers finish their tour, Jim looks to the sky. “It’s time to head back to Livingstonia.” Lifting up my skirt, I leap over a mud puddle and head down the mucky trail towards the mission. As I emerge from the canopy of trees, the green plateau unfolds before me, radiating its Oz-like glow. But to the west, dark blue rain clouds, round and doughy, roll in our direction. Afternoon showers will soon drench the fields of tobacco and maize. Women in their bright-colored chitenje will scramble for cover. The smell of wood smoke will dissipate. The only sound will be rain pounding the bare earth.

My friend was right. Change is slow in Malawi. It is like water moving through a low pressured pipe. It trickles. It purls. Sometimes, it chokes. But eventually it flows to where it is going, drop by drop — each one making a difference.