Sitting in a mud hut in Malawi, Africa, Rachel Mohler could do nothing but cry.

Inside the hut, a Malawian man — who Mohler had met just weeks earlier — was dying of AIDS. The man’s family and other women from the village sobbed as they watched the man’s health deteriorate.

‘I just sat with them and cried. I was just like, ‘I’m sorry.’ I had no idea what else to say,’ said Mohler, a freshman photojournalism major at Syracuse University.

AIDS would eventually claim the man’s life, something Mohler became familiar with during her 160-day stay in Malawi from August 2010 to January.

‘That happened over and over again. It was the people that I would meet and get to know. It would be a few weeks later, and it would be like, ‘Oh, they died,” said Mohler, adding that residents of Malawi refer to HIV as ‘being sick’ since the disease is so common there.

But Mohler has been familiar with the conditions in Malawi — a country in southeast Africa — for more than two years. She made her first trip there in August 2009 for a two-week mission trip and fell in love with the country, Mohler said.

Chris Mohler, her father, was asked by a person he met through work if he would like to travel to Malawi as part of group that made a trip to the country in 2008. Other members of the group suggested that he bring his oldest daughter.

‘How do I even approach Rachel about this?’ Chris remembers wondering. Upon asking her if she’d like to go, Chris said that Mohler quickly replied, ‘Yeah, I’ll do that.’

During the two-week stay, Chris said the team went to different villages and preached the gospel. Although they traveled together, Chris said he and Mohler were almost always in different places, as Mohler was at the medical clinic a majority of the time.

While both Mohler and Chris came to Africa the first time with no expectations, Chris said the trip to Malawi left quite an impression on Mohler.

On the plane ride home to the United States, Mohler turned to her father and said, ‘Dad, I want to go back,’ Chris recalled. She then told her dad that she wanted to defer a year of college and spend some more time in Malawi.

And that’s what she did.

Mohler, a 2010 graduate of Downingtown High School East in Pennsylvania, applied early decision to SU and was accepted in November 2009. She deferred a year, a move she knew she was going to make as soon as she applied, Mohler said.

Mohler, now 19, describes her hometown outside of Philadelphia as predominately white and one of the richest counties in the United States — a place Mohler said she was eager to leave behind for Africa.

‘I was kind of sick of the bubble I was living in, and I had fallen in love with the people, and I had seen the need,’ she said. ‘I thought even if I can’t make a huge impact, maybe they’ll make an impact on my life, and I’ll carry that with me forever.’

During her first trip, Mohler said she saw how little the children of Malawi had compared to what she grew up with.

‘You think about how you grew up as a child with all the gaming systems and the cable and all the food and everything like that,’ Mohler said. ‘Then you see how they have old tires as toys, how they don’t have things like underwear, they don’t have shoes — things like that. Yet their smiles are so much bigger than ours, and their laughter is so much more contagious.’

After graduating on June 14, 2010, Mohler celebrated her 18th birthday July 14 and landed in Africa exactly a month later.

Mohler was alone on her second trip to Malawi and knew no one except a pastor and his wife, who she stayed with over the next few months.

She lived under a tin roof, inside brick walls and slept on a wooden bed with a piece of foam on top — much different than what she was used to, but better than conditions other Malawians faced. Running water was available outside in a separate facility, a luxury not found in other places around the country.

When Mohler arrived in Malawi, she decided to start an orphanage. The pastor, one of the few people Mohler knew who spoke English well, had a small medical clinic that would be turned into the orphanage — named Compassionate Missions Orphanage — by the end of January.

Mohler said she spent a majority of her time in Malawi helping build a hospital.

The clinic was moved into the newly renovated hospital, and the orphanage opened in the clinic’s former location.

‘I spent a lot of time going out into the middle of nowhere and just learning stories of these kids and learning their backgrounds and how their parents had died, whether or not they were HIV positive,’ Mohler said.

The kids also made an impression on Mohler.

One day while sitting out on the porch where she was staying in Malawi, Mohler had nail polish with her. A bunch of little girls came over and were interested in the polish. She said she ended up painting 10 to 15 girls’ nails that day.

‘They had never seen nail polish before, and they thought it was like the greatest thing ever,’ she said.

When Mohler wasn’t working with the children or helping renovate the hospital, she faced her share of challenges.

Mohler said she spent an emotional three months missing home and her family. She struggled trying to get through the day without the comforts of home.

Joan Mohler, her mother, said her oldest daughter has always been independent, which helped her solve problems half a world away from home.

‘For Rachel, it was more like, ‘Forget it mom, if I got a problem, I got to figure it out,” Joan said. She said she put a lot of trust in Mohler’s judgment while she was in Africa, which helped to ease her concerns of her daughter staying in another country.

Another family member who was concerned about Mohler staying in Malawi was one of her two younger sisters, Amy Mohler, a junior at Downingtown East in Pennsylvania.

Amy, who said she didn’t really get along with her older sister until high school, said she was worried because Mohler didn’t know anyone.

‘She definitely was homesick for a lot of it, but that’s completely understandable being in a foreign place, but I don’t think she would ever take it back,’ Amy said.

And Mohler wouldn’t. She’s still keeping track of what’s going on with the orphanage. She still emails the pastor, and she said another person at the orphanage was hired to make sure the kids are keeping up their grades.

Groups at Pennsylvania State University and Gettysburg College are raising awareness and funds for what’s going on in Africa, Mohler said. Steve Cline, Mohler’s boyfriend of about four years, is a sophomore at Penn State and is leading efforts at the university to raise funds for the orphanage. The club raised $2,200 last year, Cline said.

Mohler is glad she made the decision to take a year off from college and stay in Malawi for 160 days.

‘I sort of saw the world, and I decided that’s what I want to be a part of when I get out of here,’ Mohler said. ‘I spent time searching for who I wanted to be before I went to college instead of during and after.’

jdharr04@syr.edu

Published on September 13, 2011 at 12:00 pm

Contact Jon: jdharr04@syr.edu