here, there and beyond

Sunday, June 20, 2010

crisis nursery

I went into Lilongwe on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to check out the Ministry of Hope’s Crisis Nursery. Hester (from South Africa, here for 3 weeks to teach classes at the Theological Institute) and I arrived Tuesday and got a quick tour of the facility and some explanation. There were three rooms one for the really tiny infants (6), small ones (7) and the bigger babies (7-walking and eating real foods). 20 babies there. 15 caregivers with 4 on a shift at a time as well as a nurse and a clinical officer. We stayed all morning holding and feeding the little ones. Wednesday I went back and did the same and then helped to sort some medications for the mobile clinic (but sadly didn’t get any more information on the clinic than that they use ibuprofen). Thursday when we got there the power was out…not a problem as the building is pretty well lit from windows but that meant that meals were late in coming out of the kitchen…it was by far the loudest day as the babies were quite cranky that their food was late. But we did get them all fed and down for naps before we left with our ears ringing.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

baobab

up periscope

fish eagle

stampede?!

Thursday, June 17, 2010

liwonde

Great trip to Liwonde National Park with the group from WNC presbytery. Boat to the “camp” from HippoView Lodge. Of course we saw hippos on the way. Then it was a safari drive for hippos, elephants, waterbuck, impala, warthogs, sunset and then the night drive back to camp looking for nocturnal animals but we didn’t really see anything new. Other than the pink elephants…not that my pics do it justice. We had a red spotlight which is supposed to not spook the animals as much as a white one and be better for the animals’ eyes. That night surrounding our chalets were feeding elephants…and they are not quiet eaters. From one side of the chalet to the other I was watching them (no contacts and no lights, they were pretty blurry) and at one point I felt like one of them was staring right back at me…they were bending trees over almost back to the tree trunks and one of them walked right into the middle of what I would have considered a very dense stand of brush and trees but in the giant went. The next morning we went on a boat safari—more hippos and elephants, crocodile (1), and birds of many varieties. The rushing hippo and the swimming elephant were the obvious highlights of the morning.