end of october!

It’s been a good week. I spent the weekend at the lake with some other americans. Miriam I met on the plane on the way here. She works for USAID in lilongwe. She had organized a cottage that sleeps 6 and said she had an extra place if I was interested—I am always interested in going to lake…the others worked with her or with the embassy and they came for varying amounts of time. Miriam and I were there from Friday to Monday…and it still didn’t feel long enough (it never does). She had brought her 3 puppies…mutts from the SPCA here (retriever and maybe ridgeback mix). Sweet dogs but I don’t think they had ever been out of lilongwe…goats and monkeys got lots of barks and the pig just got stared at…they were excited and confused by the lake and the beach but by the end I think they were loving it.
It is getting so hot here. We are moving into summer and at night the winds seem to stop and it is just hot. Not easy for sleeping but not impossible (yet). During the days I often get the feeling I’m melting. But I haven’t actually done that yet. When I got back from the lake I moved into the Jones’ family house as they are gone for a month to visit family in india. Rob is the pharmacist at the hospital. He and Ritu have 3 little girls—2 of whom attend ebenezer. (it is funny/scary to hear them—they go from a proper english accent to malawian english very quickly and easily…they learn things at school and when they come home to share they often do it in the malawian way they learned and then mom says where did my english girls go? And they can then do it in english…) Of course there was a power cut Monday night so I explored the house in the dark and got all settled in…excited for the view in the morning…
Tuesday was epilepsy clinic and it was too hot. And there were a lot of patients…I onlyhad 10 on the list that were scheduled to come…of course there were about 8 more who came because they were either running low on medication or had run out because they were supposed to have come a previous week. And then we had no one to see the patients…and then we found someone who could see them but we had lost our translator…and while I admit to being able to understand some of the answers…I can not translate in any sense of the word or work. But we did finally make it through…I will have to find out what they are going to do with the information I’m recording and keeping…because if it is not going anywhere or going to be helpful—I think I could spend my time much better elsewhere.
Wednesday I was back at school and it was announced (I was consulted beforehand) that I would be moving out of the classroom—we don’t really know if Magrate will ever take full responsibility for her class if I’m still there—and into more of an administrative job. I will be helping with reading in all of the classes (K-3) and other adminy stuff…money taking for school fees, and I don’t really know what else. Ken and Colleen have to go back in December to South africa for Ken to have back surgery so they won’t be back for 3 months and in that time I am to move into acting principal I think. We’ll see how this shapes up.
Helping with the reading is fun…different levels and different ways that the teachers do it…some in groups and some individually…recognizing words (sight words that are just memorized) and sounding out phonically. Of course I also have to work out with teachers when they are doing their reading…as it all seems to happen in each of the classes within the same hour…and try as I might I’ve found it hard to be everywhere at once.
Power cuts have gotten more frequent—almost everyday and at varying times in the day…sometimes from 530am to sometime in the afternoon, or off at 2pm to 6pm, or 530pm to 8 or 9…not usually the same back to back but it is keeping us on our toes. The fuel crisis is getting to be very bad. Both petrol and diesel are very hard to find at the stations…and when they do have the lines are enormous with vehicles and with jerry cans…and there is no order to who gets first or how that all works…Ken was in line for about 10 hours one day and he got to the pump and they put the sign up that they had run out. Times like this I’m ok with not having a car…