There was a funeral so most of Mchengatuba was empty. Sam Chirwa kept apologizing for the absence of people.

"They are all at the church."

"Do all the people know the person who died?"

"No. This is just the custom. When someone dies you go to the funeral."

And then in a moment that would have made Yogi Berra proud, he added, "People are worried that if they don't go to the funerals no one will come to theirs."

He also kept apologizing for the "short cuts." The only way I can describe walking through Mchengatuba once you get off the main road is a spider web of backyards and front yards and back alleys.

Our destination was the "dambo." A dambo is low point or valley. In Malawi this is the cheapest land as it comes with the added bonus of being mosquito infested.

Halfway to the dambo we came upon a school as it was letting out. My son Ethan and I became the object of an impromptu song. All the children started a chorus of "mzungu, mzungu" and danced from side to side. "Mzungu, mzungu" means "white person, white person."

The shouts of a few children calling mzungu in remote villages is something I've grown accustomed to in Malawi. Yet, Mchengatuba is a "suburb" of a city close to a quarter million, so the idea that these children had never seen a white person is impossible.

I turned to Sam and said, "Not many white people come to the dambo."

"No. White people don't come to the dambo."

A remnant of the schoolchildren followed us until I took out the camera, took a picture and turned the digital screen so they could see their images. As soon as they saw themselves they erupted in glee and then ran back the way they came.

With the children gone and a few more steps taken we were now surrounded by old women, "gogos." These gogos were very excited to see us. They had been given iron sheets for roofing by Sam. But Sam had made it clear that the sheets had come from him.

"This is Fred Garry," he declared, "from Watertown."

The shouts of glee were again overseeing an image, but this time it was seeing someone from Watertown, the place that gave the iron sheets to widows in Mchengatuba.

Iron sheets are big in Malawi. With iron sheets for a roof, your mud hut will last longer and will not collapse during the rainy season.

The first widow, Mphiri, shook my hand repeatedly and said, "towonga chomeni," thank you very much. She lived in the smallest hut I've seen so far in Africa. It was more than small; it was more like an enclosure than a home. In this abode she kept her six grandchildren alive.

Sam then took us to another widows home.

"This house collapsed in the rainy season," he said. "Mestard lives next door and that is how we came to know of her."

Mestard, like Sam, was a member of the choir who came to the north country last July. The iron sheets, though, were not part of choir practice. The sheets come from money donated in Watertown in December 2006. Sam has made it his priority to ensure that those funds go to help the poorest of the poor.

Looking at the widow's house, the iron sheets, and the people, I thought this is much like my walk to the dambo itself. It's filled with twists and turns, moments of life and death that somehow bring people together.

As I abide in Malawi in a lovely home high on a hill (nambo in Tambuka) it is clear to me that my life is very permanent. My home and church are not in danger when the rains come. To abide in a place is to remain for a time along the way. My life is being punctuated by a time of abiding.

To abide in Mphiri's house, to be her grandchild, is to live a life that is somehow always abiding, dwelling in the impermanence and fragility.

As you read this know that Mpini is praying for you and giving thanks for the people of Watertown.