flipflops

I went up the mountain (as said before) and on the way down my right flipflop broke. It is always the right one…I don’t know why but I think that the shoe companies need to make the right ones stronger. Everyone I talk to also breaks the right flipflop so I can’t even trade to wear mismatched ones because there are only left ones…maybe I’ll find someone who needs them…or possibly can get some of them fixed but I’m not too sure about that…so now I’ve bought another pair at the market…much cheaper than the princess shoes but not as sparkly…I took them off (as per normal) when I arrived at the Veitch’s but then I realized that they are plain black and I might not recognize them. Reinette pulled out a gold glitter paint pen and wrote Queen Jess on one and then her youngest son copied into the second. Did a good job and now I can’t lose them (I just hope they don’t break).

mtn scenes

The last couple of times I’ve started up the mountain the weather hasn’t really cooperated. Rainy season will do that. But on Wednesday the sun came out so Ute and I decided to go up in the afternoon. Of course at the time we’d picked the sun started to hide behind some clouds but that’s ok…but the humidity spiked. My goodness…just walking out of the cottage we were dripping. But on we went…out of breath by the time we reached the bottom of the mountain. We made it to picture rock and decided that was far enough…sat with our view over the valley and enjoyed.

Friday morning I decided to go up again. So off at 6 and it was cloudy but I felt confident (haha) that the sun would come out and burn off the clouds…I made it to the mountain hut at 7 in time to sit, take a picture and then it started raining…pouring…windy…cold. Lucky for me there were two Malawian women staying in the hut that night and they invited me inside. Many Malawians use the mountain and the hut for prayers—fasting and praying and getting away. This is what these two were doing and they went into their separate areas and I wasn’t in the way…got to watch the rain and clouds through the window and take some time for myself to think things through and pray. It was a special time. I’d brought my journal and 2 cards that I wanted to write but kept putting off. No more time to put them off and as I finished the rain let up…seemed a bit ordained…headed back down feeling refreshed and peaceful.

health passports

as I’ve said the patients keep their own health passport that they buy from the hospital or clinic and bring each time they come…kind of their medical history…of course when they are full, they buy another one, and sometimes they lose the first one…so you get a completely new book with no idea what the problem is…and asking can help but can also be confusing with the answers, especially when they don’t know the names of their medications that they’ve been taking—not that there are a whole lot of choices on what can be given but there are some and then there is the dosage. Just knowing that you take one pill in the morning and two at night is sometimes helpful but then some meds are stronger or the pills come in different sizes…so this is often one of the puzzles to figure out and why at least for the epilepsy patients it is helpful to have the record I’ve been helping to keep of meds prescribed (though we don’t know if they really take every day or not)
then there is the occasion when the translator calls a name in the hall and a patient comes in…and the doctor starts the examination based on the health passport in front of him only to find after 5 or 6 questions that this is a different person who just happened to answer to that name. last week one of the epilepsy patients came in and at their last visit Dr. Morton had asked if the girl went to school. She didn’t but there was no real reason why not as her epilepsy is relatively well controlled. So he offered a deal. Continued free medication for the epilepsy if she enrolls in school. So she came and brought a letter from the school saying that she was enrolled! Very good. And only then do we get told that the health passport that she had been using for the last 6months (as long as we’d had her in the program) was not hers but her cousins. Her cousin has no epilepsy but the health passport is full of notes on epilepsy…easily fixed as I had a new passport I could give her but still…all to save MK50 (about $.23).

text miscommunication

When in town there is usually a long list of things to do…for yourself and for others. So I had some grocery lists from 2 others (not long ones) and needed to stop at the gas place so that if/when the power went again dinner could still be cooked, and the market, and get photocopies made, and pick up milk, and take the youngest kid to his occupational therapy session. And then you get texts during the day with other things that if you have time and can do would be great…signing up one child for swimming after school…picking up school calendar…well I thought that meant at the school where the missionary kids go so I went in to the office to ask for one and got a strange look but she said she would copy one and I could pick it up the next day. I also thought that was strange but ok…texted willeke back that they would copy it and she could pick it up tomorrow since she was driving in…ok where? Also a strange question I thought—first door on the left (office mananger’s desk)…then she asked first when she gets into to town or what…like an office world? And that is when I realize she just wanted me to pick up some 2012 calendars for Ebenezer because we don’t have one in the office or in the class rooms…too late now for me to do it…but when I texted her back the misunderstanding it reminded me of one from the beginning of my first year here…we asked her to pick up some double cream. She didn’t know what that meant…so I told her heavy cream…still not really. But she got something and I went to pick up the shopping that evening…when I got it home Rhona and I were looking through and couldn’t figure out why we had this container of nivea day and night lotion…until we read the description that mentioned cream…that wasn’t going to be very good in the dessert recipe we’d been planning to make, but it was very good for a laugh.

town

Drove the mission kids into Lilongwe for school again. There is still very little petrol so I don’t move around much…not that I would if there were lots either—there isn’t much in Lilongwe that I want to do. But it is an early day as the kids have to be there at 7. We leave nkhoma by 6:15 and as soon as I had all the kids in the vehicle it started raining…and didn’t stop until about 10. I decided to do some internet at Linn’s house (norweigan nurse who was in nkhoma last year and is now working at the big hospital in Lilongwe-KCH) she’s got fast wireless…and a good thing as she had told me that the housekeeper would let me in but she didn’t come that day. So I sat in the truck with my computer and got to do my internet jobs with the rain pouring out of the sky. I’m sure that her watchman thinks I’m a bit crazy but where else is there to go in town at 7—none of the shops open until at least 8 and more likely 9…then to do the shopping—you have to go to at least 3 stores to get what you need…also to the market where I was excited to find plums which were very good and avocados which are now in season again! Then to pick the kids up after activities and head home. Not a bad day but any day in town I find quite exhausting…

sunday

Sunday was a combined English/Chichewa service (read there was no English service and everything was in Chichewa…). It started at 9am and at 11 the sermon finished. There were about 3 or 4 sentences in English so not much was understood…other than it was on the last 4 verses in Luke and the rising of Jesus to heaven. Nice music and choirs but after the 2 hours I left as did most of the azungu…I heard that it went on for another 2 hours as a farewell to one of the abusa (reverends) who was reposted to another church in Bunda (southwest of Lilongwe).
On Friday, the father of one of the school watchmen passed away. In Malawian culture, one must attend funerals…of everyone it seems…whether you know them or not. And I understand it is a form of support but it seems to take up at least 2 days. The teachers all went on Saturday to the mortuary to take the body to the village and were there again on Sunday for the funeral—all day for meetings and viewings and cooking and other gatherings…Willeke and Reynier Ter Haar and I took bikes and went for about an hour on Sunday before the burial. We got a little lost on the way but it wasn’t far away so we were quickly there (just past the market). We went to give our condolences to the watchman that we know and then Reynier stayed with the men while Willeke and I went back to another house where the ladies from school were cooking. Then we went with two of the school board ladies to the gathering and sat with the women and then went to listen to the preaching (from the African church). The father’s name was then given to two of his grandsons and they were told to live up to their name as their grandfather was a good man. One of the children was crying lots so I don’t know what was going on or being said. After about an hour we then left. I think it was good to make a visit but I’m also relieved that we didn’t have to stay the whole time.

charts gone wrong

Went into the hospital Friday afternoon and spent my time making charts for different wards and listening to my music…a bit mindnumbing but necessary…putting in pockets and the different papers that they need. One of the patient attendant translators came from Outpatients and asked for more Pediatric files. So I gave him a stack of 50 that still needed to be hole-punched and fastened. He came back with the hole-punch at the time that Rebecca got back from town. Some of the folders have gone missing so Rebecca is now counting and we’re trying to figure out where they are going…no one knows why someone would be taking folders…but she then went to count and double check…turns out they had put the holes in the wrong place which makes it impossible to add more papers when needed and they put the fasteners through the whole thing when they are supposed to leave the front cover free for easier writing in the chart…and I don’t know how many of these charts they see and work with every day all day…so she brought them back and redid them…this is not a hard task, just time consuming…and even more upsetting to have to do over again. She is now feeling that they can’t be trusted to do any of it…but I think we just need to have them do it again and again and again until they get it…because it isn’t a specialized job…