Frontiersman

WASILLA — Jean Straatmeyer traveled to Africa to change lives. What she didn’t expect was for her life to change as well.

Along with husband, Gene, Straatmeyer visited the African nation of Malawi as part of a service trip with her church in 2001. During the next year, the couple spent time at various orphanages. She taught adolescent women how to sew while her husband gave sermons. It was a way for the girls — some as young as 10 — to find better lives, far removed from the culture of prostitution in which they were living.

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The couple, who at the time had lived and worked in Wasilla for eight years, had spent many years in service to their church in various parts of the world and called Alaska home for more than 20 years.

Jean Straatmeyer remembers packing for the trip and leaving without reservation. During the couple’s first weeks living in a humid and poverty-stricken urban area of Malawi, their home was burglarized. Famine was at an all-time high and some had resorted to stealing to survive. Chickens at local farms were kept inside for fear they’d be stolen.

“We got robbed a month after we moved there,” Straatmeyer said. “So, we felt we needed a dog. It would benefit our safety.”

Gene Straatmeyer noticed a neighbor down their street had puppies behind a gate and decided to take action.

“We knocked on the gate and asked for one,” she said. “We bought a small one for 50 Malawian kwacha, which equals about 62 cents in America. Malawi people called us the crazy Americans that had a dog in the house. Apparently they didn’t do that.”

The next day, the new dog, named Alaska Malawi, was brought to the Straatmeyers in a box.

“He was very small and howled a lot,” Jean Straatmeyer said. “We wanted to raise him to be a loyal house dog, and if you’d seen the grown-up dogs over there, they just looked miserable and sick with malnutrition.”

Feeling more secure with a dog in the house, the Straatmeyers continued their mission at the region’s orphanages and church.

“It was bad,” she said of the conditions. “Out of the 12 million people living in Malawi, 1 million of those are infected with HIV and AIDS, many of them orphans.”

According to a 2006 UNAIDS report, an estimated 550,000 children in Malawi have lost a mother, father or both parents to AIDS by the end of 2005, and 91,000 children have AIDS.

While on her mission for the Presbyterian Church, Straatmeyer said she realized how much the young children had to sacrifice just to eat. Prostitution, she said, was as common as shopping at the local market, which also accelerated the spread of AIDS.

“My job was to work with the orphans and teach them how to sew and show them something useful to do besides prostitution,” she said. “Clothes or food is hard to come by, so unfortunately, prostitution pays for it. It was very sad. I taught them how to make simple things, like quilts, and how to put fabric squares together to make skirts and blouses. It was very humbling.”

Because she didn’t speak the native language of Chichewa, Jean Straatmeyer often had to use an interpreter. Facial and hand motions, as well as singing, helped bridge the culture gap so that she could comfort and communicate with the orphans.

“In Malawi, talking about the AIDS epidemic is taboo and not brought up openly,” she said. “It’s just part of their lives and private things are kept private — with the women especially. It is almost an embarrassment, I think, with the rest of the family, if you contract it.”

Couldn’t leave him behind

On their last day of the year-long mission the Straatmeyers returned to Alaska. Until that point, they had decided to leave their dog behind. But, like any other pet owner who had grown attached to a loyal animal friend, they just couldn’t do it.

“We felt we couldn’t just leave him behind, so we made the effort to ship him to back to America,” Jean Straatmeyer said.

Alaska Malawi was put in a carrier and began his long journey to Alaska. Along the way, airport personnel walked, watered and fed him during his 48-hour trip.

“He was really tired and disoriented when he got here,” she said. “But he snapped out of it really fast.”

The dog’s journey took him from Malawi, Africa, to Johannesburg, South Africa, to London, to Seattle and finally to Wasilla.

It was during a 2006 visit to her daughter’s home in North Pole that the idea first came up that Jean Straatmeyer write a book about what it must have been like for Alaska Malawi during his travels. She then began thinking about his days as a puppy in Africa, which reminded her of the townspeople she’d encountered. Straatmeyer decided her dog’s life was interesting enough to write about, especially if his story could help others.

Within a year, Straatmeyer’s first book, “Tales of an African Dog,” was self-published, retelling Alaska Malawi’s first year growing up in Malawi, showing the Malawian lifestyle, culture and topography. His adventures include having his first bath, going to the veterinarian, slipping through the fence to play with a girl dog, eating forbidden chicken, getting dipped for fleas and visiting Lake Malawi, the third largest lake in Africa.

It was also decided that any money from any sales of “Tales of an African Dog,” and any other of Jean Straatmeyer’s books, would be donated to the orphanages in Malawi to help the children she taught to sew.

Her next book, 2007’s “Tales Of An African Dog In Alaska,” tells Alaska Malawi’s own story of adoption and the couple that arranged to have him fly 11,000 miles to Alaska to be with them.

“I’ve given book readings at elementary schools in Texas to children,” she said. “A lot of the kids want to know when the next book is coming out or what happens to our dog. It’s very comforting.”

At $12 a book, Straatmeyer was able to raise a $4,000 profit she has sent back to help the orphans living with AIDS in Africa.

Straatmeyer said she never expected her one year in Africa in 2001-2002, or a small dog bought to keep burglars at bay, would have changed her outlook on life.

“I had no real agenda,” she said. “I was just there working for the church and did what was told of me. I had no idea that this would transpire.”

Today, Straatmeyer writes letters and keeps in contact with many of the children in Malawi, glad to know she is still part of their lives.

“One of the worst things that has happened in my life was having to leave the friends and girls of this area and then realize I would never see or know what happens to them again,” she said. “At least now I know some will be OK.”

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com, or 352-2269.