Howard recruited Carly Rushford, 16, of Potomac, and Reagan Thompson, 17, of Annandale, Va., to join her. The recruiting was the easy part, Howard said, but the preparation was more difficult, and expensive.
The flights to Malawi were more than $2,000, including layovers in South Africa, according to Thompson.
Prior to leaving for the trip, the three girls held a school supplies drive at Holton-Arms to benefit the children at the orphanage. By the end of the collection they had received more than 100 backpacks and hundreds of pounds of supplies.
‘‘We got so many things we couldn’t take them all,” Howard said. ‘‘We had to unwrap everything and put it in our duffel bags.”
Eventually each girl, along with three adults — Rushford’s mother, Thompson’s father and Howard’s cousin — brought two duffel bags full of school supplies onto the plane, and stored their clothing for the three-week trip in their carry-on luggage.
Thompson said the reaction from the orphanage students for the school supplies was flooring.
‘‘One kid filled up an entire notebook with stories in one day because he never had his own notebook to write in before,” she said. ‘‘We’re all really grateful now for what we have.”
The orphanage houses more than 130 children, ranging in age from newborns to 18-year-olds. When the group was at the orphanage in July, a day-old baby was brought into the orphanage after it was found in a sugar cane field.
Howard said watching the baby — she was named Jeni T — grow during their time there was one of the most memorable experiences of the trip.
‘‘It was really interesting taking care of a week-old baby and watching it grow,” Howard said. ‘‘It was so rewarding knowing you helped.”
Rushford and Thompson lent their hands teaching English and grammar to the students, and Thompson also set up a payroll system for the orphanage.
‘‘I really discovered that my strengths are in administrative stuff,” Thompson said. ‘‘There was so much self-growth on the trip I didn’t expect.”
While the poverty in the area was worse than the group expected — Malawi has a per-capita income of less than $600 per year — one of the most difficult parts of the trip was a funeral.
The group attended a funeral for a baby, an event that challenged the girls’ emotions.
‘‘The kids [in the orphanage] were respectful, but they didn’t cry,” Rushford said. ‘‘They were immune to it. It was a culture shock to me.”
‘‘They were asking why I was crying,” Howard added.
Despite the funerals, poverty and lack of running water, all the girls were eager to sing the praises of the trip, and its lessons.
The opportunity to help the less fortunate, especially with a family member by their side, was special for each girl.
‘‘I know its cliché, but our mother-daughter relationship was lacking,” said Rushford of her mother, Susan. ‘‘To be able to share this experience was really lucky for us.”
Susan Rushford agreed.
‘‘It’s unbelievable how flexible and caring Carly and the other girls were,” she said. ‘‘Seeing how they just absorbed the children was amazing. They had kids attached at every limb.”
Each of the girls said that the weeks they spent at the orphanage were not enough, and they all hope to go back at some point. For now though, they think their families will pick up where they left off.
‘‘Each one of our younger siblings wants to go now,” Thompson said.
