thanksgiving success!

I did it! Even with the power being unreliable…it was so exciting. I woke up on Thursday and was a bit worried that the power was still on…I knew it would go at some point during the day and I thought that if it was gone early morning it would be fine for the afternoon/evening…but ok. Started with all my potato dishes—had to peel lots. Wasn’t sure about too many sides so I ended up with: potato salad, regular salad, mashed potatos, green beans, stuffing, some potatos and onions around the turkey and gravy…it was enough. The power went out at 10…at that time I was worried because there is no telling when it would come back on…I was hoping for 2 because I hadn’t cooked the turkey (many told me there was no way they would have waited, it would have been cooked the day before but I am a procrastinator for one thing and for another how would it taste nearly good enough if done the day before—and where would I keep it already cooked?) the power came back a little after 2 and as I hadn’t done much while the power was out I rushed to get the turkey ready for the oven…in it went and there it stayed until 7 when my guests arrived ( the power went out for a minute at 5 and i got scared but it was only 1 minute). I was the only American—I had 12 in total from Holland, Norway, Scotland, England, South Africa and Germany…a grand success. They brought dessert—an apple cake and tablet (a Scottish dessert made from condensed milk and sugar…I think it is supposed to be a fudgelike consistency but this was a little fluid still…looked like we hadn’t eaten any of it as it spread out again in the pan.) I hope you all had a wonderful thanksgiving!

flash cards

So I don’t know if it happens quite as much at home but as soon as you send something home here with the kids, it is as good as gone. Even if they bring it back…flashcards are destroyed almost as soon as you put them in the folders to go home…so with the first set of math ones I had the idea of getting them laminated…and it is now the bane of my existence. I still can’t really tell if it is working to extend the life of the cards but now I’ve been volunteered to laminate all of the flash cards…this is math and sight words and the double letter blending sounds and….and….and…it just goes on and on…but then I do think it is working (I hope it isn’t just positive thinking). Of course you can only laminate when there is power and you have laminating sheets…but once you’ve laminated then you have to cut them apart and keep them in sets…and if you get the cheaper laminating sheets you have to send them through a couple of times to make sure they are sealed. And I know I’m making this sound terrible and taxing and I do that when I’m talking as well but really I don’t mind. I know what I have to do and there is something there at the end…(and I’m almost out of laminating sheets—though not really almost out of flash cards)

mangos

It is mango season again…just starting really…I’m so excited. There were tons on the way to the lake. You can get them at the market in nkhoma but those are really ready yet…so on our way to the lake we stopped and bought things for ute’s house…mats of varying sizes and I got a basket that we immediately filled with mangos…and on the way home we stopped at the wood market—I got two more baskets and ute got one. We filled two with mangos and one with tomatoes and onions…also bought firewood…there wasn’t any room for anything more in the car…luckily we didn’t bring a fourth person—I don’t know where they would have sat! and now I get to eat at least 2 mangos a day and we have fresh mango juice…

lake

Time to get out. There was a spate of petrol available for about 3 days (roughly—depending on when and where you were in town) so we decided that a lake weekend was needed. We left early Saturday morning after having a relaxing barbeque next door (this was the night before I moved out of my great view). Ute, Noel, and I went to senga bay…our first choice of accommodation was full and they recommended us stay at tom’s bar and we would be able to use all of their amenities—restaurant and beach…well, we checked it out but tom’s bar wasn’t on the beach and it was quite a ways from cool runnings so we opted to just find something ourselves. Went down a bit farther and found 3 places…none of them had grass but we picked the one with the most shade…and there were rooms on the second floor and had a view from a balcony…not that we would spend much time in the room but nice.
Swim, sleep, swim, read…nice. Dinner that night I wanted fish…shouldn’t be too hard—we’re at the lake. On the menu is chambo (only found in lake Malawi) and kampango…whole, filleted, curry, etc. ok. We would like 3 kampango filleted. Well, we don’t have. Ok then the chambo. No only whole. (what is the point of a menu?) then he tells us there is only 1 kampango fillet. So I get the fillet, noel orders the whole chambo, and ute opts for chicken curry. Off to change and shower as dinner won’t be ready for at least an hour and it is time to hide from the mosquitos…then he comes to us and says that the kampango is finished…so I change to chicken curry as well. At least I thought I did because when we got served our dinner I actually got chambo fillet…it was good…we didn’t complain; we were just a little confused.
That night we had our overhead fan on and were quite comfortable in our beds. (the last time I stayed here nothing moved all night—even with the fan…it was stifling) and then about 1am the wind started up…not usually a problem to have more breeze but then we found out that the tin roof above our balcony wasn’t properly attached…and for the rest of the night every couple of minutes it sounded like a car crash was happening as the wind would pick up the panel and then drop it…ah well, I guess you can’t have it all…

eviction

So I had to move out of my house again…and just as the construction was coming to an end…ah well. They say I’m still welcome to visit anytime I like. So I packed everything up on Friday and moved it out on Saturday just before leaving for the lake…they came home on Sunday and said that they had a great trip to india…when I saw them on Tuesday…I’m back in the cottage full time, living with Natasha a South African doctor who is here for a year. But then she is moving out on Wednesday to have her own little place for a while that has water much more often than we seem to have it in the cottage…of course next week I’m moving in to house sit for the ter haar family while they go on holiday to south Africa…another big house but not with the same neighbors.

efficiency?

For a patient to be seen on a Tuesday (and I assume other days though I don’t know) they come in through the outpatients receiving room…where they get a stamp in their health passports (medical records that they keep). They are to get weighed and temperature taken…then they pay 80MK (roughly $.40) for a consult. On a regular day this will get them seen by a clinical officer (Malawian equivalent to a very junior doctor?). on clinic days this gets them to the doctor…so they come to the hallway outside the doctors rooms…and they sit. There is no order for anything. An assistant comes by and takes the passports into the first room where I have a feeling they get shuffled (I really think it should be first come first serve but the books are constantly being mixed up)…they are called in to get their blood pressures done and blood sugars if needed and then they go back out to wait in the hallway while the books go into the next room for the doctor…of course the time taken depends on the number of doctors who are there that day and whether there are complications in the patients…and of course if you are a headman of a village or area or a staff member or related to a staff member (as it feels like everyone is) you don’t have to wait—often getting bumped to the front of the stacks…even though others have been waiting for ages…and then I have to remember to take a deep breath and know that everyone will get seen…

clinic drs

I’ve really enjoyed helping with the epilepsy clinic…not being much of a medical person it is something that I feel that I can do…we only have three drugs that we can use to treat epilepsy and I feel like I’ve gotten pretty good at knowing what the doctor is going to do from the questions asked (namely how many seizures have you had since you’re last visit—continue if none and usually add if they’ve had some). And of course there have been different doctors who help with the clinic—some who have been visiting for short times and others who are filling in or helping out on particularly busy Tuesdays…easily on any given day there are 50 patients for clinic (this includes epilepsy, diabetes, and high blood pressure along with other random ailments) and it has been interesting to see the differences…some ask about whether the people are going or have gone to school, or whether they are on contraception, or if they are drinking or smoking (that is a pretty common question), if they know their HIV status…and the answers we get are sometimes sounding very unbelievable …or nonsensible (when did you run out of medication? I take it always—helpful if you have it but if you’re out…)…but you have to take the answers you get because what else do you have?

unrest

Malawi needs our prayers. There has been lots of unrest and it has started getting into the school children as well. I found out at bible study last night that the last couple of weeks in the schools around nkhoma incidents have been happening. At the government school last week a guy from one of the villages went into the hostels (where most of the students stay) with a ponga knife (machete) and was harassing students. Last weekend there was a soccer game that got out of hand and in the fight afterward a primary school student was killed. And at the private boys school William Murray all of the Form 3 and 4 students have been expelled because there was fighting over another soccer game (I think). This means they will not be able to sit exams and will have to reapply to the school. I don’t know what the underlying causes are or if these are the true stories (well whole stories).
Along with the petrol, diesel, and gas (propane) crisis…please keep Malawi in your prayers.

turkey

Just got the most expensive turkey I’m sure I will ever eat…but then thanksgiving only comes once a year…and if I screw it up it will be very very sad…which it would be anyway but especially since this one is dear…
HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!

construction

So I’ve been living (once again) on a construction site…the house that I’m sitting in (with a great view and great neighbors) is undergoing renovations…these were (of course) started when the family was here but as everything takes much much much longer than anticipated it is still going on. Well they come back on Sunday…(sadly I’ll be evicted)…and I’d have to say they are going to be surprised (pleasantly I hope) by all the work that has gone on. It does still feel that it has been all last minute—so much going on this week but it is getting somewhere! The bathroom floor was retiled—and of course they pulled up the old linoleum tiles at least a week before actually doing the new ones so I walked on the sticky stuff for the duration…the sink was leaking and they didn’t want to put the tiles in until that was fixed. Ok. But everytime the plumber came back the drip was different—and not always better…but that was done and then the tiles started…that took about three days to finish what with the power cuts so the grinder wouldn’t work to cut the tiles around all the door frames and toilets…
The front porch is getting a roof put on it…so really I haven’t been able to use the front porch much because it is a huge mess of dust and grit and I’ll admit I’m a little worried something might fall on my head as it isn’t finished yet…then it got the tresses (supports?) up and stayed like that for ages (maybe only a week and a half)…then they came and took the tiles off part of the existing roof so they could integrated it…and left it like that for 3 days…but today I came home and over half of it has been tiled…and the rest will be done tomorrow (so I’ve been told).
And the back kitchen door had a concrete patio area put in…not really a patio but a stepping place that wasn’t just mud…so they dug up the area…put in gravel and then paved half of it—and left it for 2 weeks…that was just finished yesterday with the paving…and today they put the smooth finish on it…I hope it is tilted slightly in the right direction...otherwise the water will just flow right into the kitchen. The roof for that area should also be coming tomorrow…

supplies

I’ve never had so much trouble helping out…for the last month or so while helping to make patient files at the hospital it has been one obstacle after another…and I told Rebecca I would take care of it—well, try at least which I have done. So I noticed that we were getting low on folders…and they have to be printed in Lilongwe…of course I don’t know what is involved in the actual ordering…it has to go through the accounts office and someone else has to check it and there has to be a price estimate (can’t imagine it is that different from the last time we ordered) and then you have to wait on the printer…before we actually ran out of folders though the copy machine ran out of toner (no ink=no copies) so we had none of the requisite papers to go into the folders…this includes a chart to note medication (needed and given) and observation chart (with vital signs) and the admission history sheet…we made due with what we did have and just added blank papers for the rest…but that ordering was the same rigamarole…plus the hesitancy to buy any because it is quite expensive here and there was someone coming from abroad soon who was bringing some…but he didn’t…so then we got toner…and we were out of the clasps that hold the folders together…and then out of staples that hold the half sheet pockets we put in the back for all the small papers (lab reports, xray requests, etc)…but now we are all back on track again…
Now I’m on a mission for scratch paper that I cut in half to use for those pockets…I use quite a bit from the school—copies gone wrong and such…much better than using plain white paper that would be so useful as copy paper…

rain?!

It rained last Sunday…and I mean poured! And it wounded like there was a raging river off the roof onto the porch just outside my window. I love the sound of rain…this however came with all sorts of wind that then made all the windows and doors slam around and make lots of noise because of course they were all open to get any sort of breeze…but this meant in the middle of the night I was wandering around trying to find all of the open and banging offenders…found most of them and slept oh so well.
And 2 days later the bugs arrived…after the first 3 rains the termites (or ants with wings) all start coming out of the ground…ute and I were sitting on the rock in front of my house watching the sunset colors and we looked around to this paved area and there were some beautiful birds hopping around eating something…the birds were this dark purple and when the light hit them they were iridescent..it was beautiful—one of them did a little tour right in front of us almost like he was just showing off. We couldn’t tell what they were feasting on but a few minutes later we saw these columns of bugs coming straight out of the ground and flying up…the birds were having a field day and the number of bugs just had us in awe…found out later they were termites—loses some of its appeal but it was cool. And now there are these beetles that are swarming any light that is left on…hard to walk through to get to doors but we’re managing…

arts and crafts 2

My next arts and crafts room was the preK class (4 year olds mostly)…and colleen wants something they can really get into…she said she tried fingerprinting once but the teacher had the kids come up one by one and get their finger stamped…so we had a the idea of making playdough…I wasn’t too crazy about the first recipe we found—flour and salt as that is their main food here and it just doesn’t feel right using it for arts when so many people are hungry…so we found a recipe that uses sawdust—hopefully we can teach them not to eat it…but there are 26 kids in the class and as it was a trial we didn’t have enough stuff to make the dough with everyone…so I was trying to come up with different ideas for those who would be a different tables…we ended having a table for the dough, one with beading, one with threading shapes and coloring…I think they enjoyed it and I’m looking forward to going back next week to do another round of playdough and various activities…

signs

Going through town last week there are not many people on the roads (well moving on the roads—they do park on the roads) as there is a fuel crisis going on and no petrol or diesel is coming into the country (or very little). The lines at the gas stations are absurd in length and they don’t move…so cars on both sides of the roads often 2 deep and sometimes 3 (in the road)…so even if cars aren’t moving on the roads it is sometimes hard to get through. Also at the pumps are lines of jerry cans to be filled—long snakes that are impossible to satiate. But we pulled into a station that has a shopping center behind it but we couldn’t get through…so we were trying to turn around and saw this sign in the middle of nowhere—nothing above it but the sky…where things would fall from we weren’t sure…maybe just a warning for life in general…good advice to follow?

arts and crafts

So this week’s idea from colleen as to what I could be doing is arts and crafts for all the classes. I still haven’t quite gotten my reading schedule down in the classes…I know that 3rd and 1st grade have set times but K and 2nd are still eluding me…but now she wants crafts for all the classes…that is reception (3 year olds) to third grade…so Monday I was in the 3rd grade room as that is when their art period is. We did fingerprint designs—trying to be creative with the creatures made and to write a story to go with the picture…I tried to do an example sheet that had a tree (fingerprint leaves), a lady bug, a man (when asked the kids said it was a groundnut—much better for my story) and elephant…so my groundnut man went walking through a forest where he met some friends (ladybug, fish and elephant) simple…the kids loved it…we had hyenas, dogs, butterflies…

auditions

Last Monday we held auditions for our Christmas play…when the kids are all under 8 years old and there are no speaking parts I would never have imagined having auditions but there we were with papers in our hands to rate the various “actors.” The problem was that the 3rd graders of course would do the best the first time around…they know the story and they understand more of our English directions of where to walk and what movements to portray. But I think we got it figured out and have a selection of children to play the different parts (Mary, Joseph, innkeeper, registrar, angel, king, wise men, star holder, angel choir (all the rest of the girls) and shepherds (all the rest of the boys). Rehearsals have been going on all week and will continue through the month. We did have to change out our Joseph as he didn’t want to walk with our Mary but that comes with using children in our performances Our performance will be on November 25th in the church…I hope we’ll be ready (and I do think we will be)…

sunday school

Some weeks ago I went to church (I have been since then but this is for the story). Isabelle was here and we had sat down for the service. We listened to the different choirs and at the end of that time there was an announcement for the children to leave for Sunday school. Then we bowed our heads for prayer. I put my head down and before I knew it Willeke was right next to me…and she said would you mind doing Sunday school. I’ve done it once before (I did have more warning) and was given coloring sheets and the story (Abraham sacrificing Isaac—not easy for Sunday school). Well, ok. We went out and were pointed to the top of the church under the trees where there were about 15 kids waiting for us. And that was it…no story or supplies or anything…now I’m pretty confident in my bible knowledge and being able to tell stories and keep kids busy but with no notice and no planning my mind was completely blank. Luckily the ter haar girls were there and they helped me lots. Singing songs while I rack my brains for something to do for the next hour (or so…)
I decided on the good Samaritan and who is my neighbor. Most of the kids are Malawian and many of them don’t speak much English at all…so I told the story with as many motions and movements as I could. And then we acted it out…with robbers, and a priest, levite, Samaritan, innkeeper…it looked like they were enjoying the story and understanding though really I have no idea. Then we sang more songs and played duck, duck, goose. I think it was pretty successful but I’m going to have to come up with some more ideas as I think I might get sprung upon again…

electric mower

For a country that often has power cuts and water shortages and now fuel shortages I was quite surprised when Jamie Veitch from next door (for the time I’m house sitting) came by with an electric mower to cut the grass at Ute’s house (on the other side of me). Jamie is 14 and very interested in everything horticultural and agricultural…he’s got a plot in the garden, has his own chickens and helps around with all sorts of the outdoor things. Ute was out of town and due back last Saturday when Jamie came by. He asked if she was home…not yet. Oh well can I plug this in here. Um ok. He ran extension cords all the way next door. Found out one of them didn’t work and had to switch them out. Then he disappeared for a while. Came back later and asked again if she were there. Not yet. Does it not work? No it does work. What are you waiting for? Permission…so I gave him permission to cut my neighbor’s yard…he gave me a skeptical look but I told him I would take all the blame. So he got started. And it was very nice…of course he’d waited so long that he didn’t get to finish before it got dark but he made a great start and Ute was very happy when she got home. I mean who wouldn’t be if someone else cut your lawn?
Found out later that he had sent ute a text asking if he could do it…she didn’t know the number but responded that if it was Jamie it would be ok…but then along with everything else the texts are usually still coming through but at great delay…I’ve gotten ones that were sent at 2 pm but they came through after I was asleep—so around 11…luckily I don’t usually have much trouble falling asleep again…

clinic

We’ve had lots of new epilepsy patients—not surprising as word gets out that the medication is free (paid for by Africa Burn Relief). This entails making sure that people are really having seizures and not just coming for free stuff. Most of the time it really is (or they answer the questions correctly in describing the seizures). There are only 3 medications here for epilepsy and I think that mostly they have been eclipsed in the first world by other drugs to control (or try) seizures. We’ve been having different people see the clinic patients as Dr. Morton has been out of the country. This always takes a bit longer because the doctor isn’t familiar with the patients—not that Dr Morton knows them all but still…last week we had a new patient and while trying to get some background information the translator tells us that the woman is confused. Oh, well that’s not good. So the dr asks some basic questions to find out how confused…what day is it? Where are you? What is this (holding a pen, point to a chair) the woman was able to answer (Tuesday, hospital in nkhoma, pen, chair) then he pointed to the computer on the desk and asked what it was…well, the woman looked and looked, turned her head for a different angle—she just didn’t know what it was…comes from living in the village without electricity… goes to show you how much we take for granted…she was trying…she’d just never seen a computer before. Well, turns out she wasn’t confused per say—she just wasn’t answering the translators questions…