on top of the world

It seems that I can´t even get my posts in fast enough so much is happening these days. I enjoy every second and it feels good that I will be here in this beautiful country for a year and have so much time to do so many things.

So back to Monday where I stopped last time.. The work-week started with a trip to Chikwawa, a district about 60km south of Blantyre. I remember how I thought Blantyre is so tiny and not a big city at all but compared to what lies around it, it is huge! As soon as you leave BT you´re completely in the wilderness, open grass and bush land with red soil, dry and very hot. Along the street is where life happens it seems. Every about 1km is some sort of stall where you can buy Mangos or pots or other things. One stall made of wood sometimes with a grass roof or just some branches laid across, behind it a little hut where a family of at least 5 people lives. All living from this one stall it seems. What a hard life!

Every maybe 5-10km there is a small market, a summary of maybe 50 little stalls with a lot more goods you can buy, mostly food. Maize, tomatoes and onions. To reach Chikwawa you have to go down from Blantyre (BT), which lays about 1000m high, into the Shire valley. The Shire runs through the whole south of Malawi into the lake and surprisingly still has a lot of water. It is the end of the dry season so that is quite impressive! It is like a snake wearing a green skin, along the shores everything is still green while the rest of the country lays in dry yellow, red an orange. You have a fantastic view going down the serpentines overlooking the valley and it helps distracting your mind from the suicidal driving of the minibus. We had to catch two minibuses to get to Chikwawa from the hospital. Both times you wait about 30min to one hour for it to fill up but what else do you need in Malawi but patience! After crawling down the hills for an hour and passing about 2 police road blocks, which check that the baggage on board is secure and that there are not too many people but seem to ignore that the whole vehicle is nearly falling apart, you reach the little market where you grab a bike taxi for another 20min ride to the district hospital. This whole journey takes about 2-4 hours and costs 500 Kwacha one way which is about 2,50 €. Crazy!

Bike taxi driving is a wonderful experience! There we sit, Hilda and me in our uniforms and bags, each on the back of a bike, nice and comfortably cushioned, and ride through the heat of the valley. Down here it is about 10 degrees hotter then up in BT, so at least 40°C! No noise, no smoke just the bike, the driver (mostly a 15 year old youngster proud as a king because having a muzungu in the back) us and the nature! Beautiful! The way goes through little forests on dusty paths, along maize fields and little villages. Kids playing with sticks and eat mangos, women doing the laundry carrying their babies on the back, goats and chicken roaming in the fields. It is a peaceful atmosphere and even the hospital, compared to the big one in BT is laid back and peaceful. I first thought I was on a farm because there are dogs, goats and chicken running around everywhere. But then you see a lot of people, guardians, cooking, washing or just waiting in the shade of a tree. We went to see the matron first, to pay respect and to get the allowance to move around free on the hospital grounds. After that we went to find the 4 students we came for. Some observation and supervising is been done and a lot of talking and resting. It seems most important is the socializing and updating what´s up in BT or the family. I think the fact that Hilda used to work here for 7 years didn’t really help. I met about 20 other people from the cleaner to the secretary to the sisters on the wards. Very interesting but very tiring!

The delivery ward was quiet enough, only one lady in labour and one just delivered. Compared to Queens this ward is tiny, only 6 beds with curtains in the middle, a little admission and rest area which is also the office and another bed for special cases. A total number of 3500 deliveries a year, small haha!

The poor students are still left on their own and even they´re finished with their exams and about to qualify still there´s so much they have to catch up on. Most of them didn’t finish collecting their deliveries, especially not the high risk ones like breech or twins, or postnatal/antenatal checks. There is a big gap between what they´re expected to be able to do and what they´re actually able to do. On top of that they also need to be able to manage a whole ward on their own, writing duty planers, ordering stock, reviewing guidelines. It is crazy! To learn all about midwifery plus becoming a ward manager they only have 11 month of training. Of course that doesn’t work especially if there is no supervision, review or preceptorship. There is a lot to improve but that is really difficult as there is neither money nor human resources, it feels like the whole system is about to collapse (again)! I´ve been talking to Hilda about this, she sees the same problems but can´t find any solution.

On our way back and forth we´ve been also talking about my role in the college and what exactly I will be doing during my stay here. It seems there is a bit confusion going on as I do not have any special qualification to be a lecture which I told them already when they asked me to work in this post about 9 month ago. Everyone seemed to be happy enough that time but now things have started to be more specific. There have been control visits from the Nurses and Midwifery Council in Malawi and job qualifications have been reviewed. Two of the lecturers in the college have been degraded and are only allowed supervising but not teaching. I said I am happy with any role as long as I have anything to do but so I stopped preparing lessons for now. I don’t feel 100% comfortable with teaching 50 midwifery students in the sterile environment of a college classroom but it would have been a good experience I´m sure. Anyway if I end up being only supervising I might as well try to improve the whole preceptorship system and control of the students learning development. That could be good fun!

So I spent Monday and Tuesday and have seen again a little bit more of Malawi. 

On Wednesday then it finally rained but not talking about normal rain, what rain means here is a thunderstorm with gushes of water falling from the sky so in seconds the whole ground is under water and becks turn into rivers, rivers into streams. What is usually a garden in the back of the college was suddenly a lake, the whole world seemed to consist of water for a while. It rained – not so heavily after the first deluge was over – constantly the rest of the day and when I met Chris and Jen in the evening they told me that my flat is not waterproof and they had to mop up 3 buckets of water from the hallway. Shit! So it´s raining in, not into my room thankfully, but in theirs and in the bathroom, toilet and hallway. The problem is where the light bulb is fitted to the ceiling (this light bulb of course exploded as soon as used). Rain is coming in runs along the wire and drops on the floor. Also it seems that water is coming from along the walls, I think the problem is when it rains so heavily the water can not drain off because of all the leaves on the roof and so it overflows and runs down the walls. I called my landlady and hope she will come down some time in the week. Hope dies last!

But besides the rain also my Chichewa lessons started this week. Every day from 16:30 to 18:00 and it really helps! Chichewa is a very practical language with always one verb as a stem and then different endings, middle parts or beginnings attached to it. So the words get longer and longer if you are for example talking about something someone else did some time ago at some other place. It is funny! Also in Chichewa you find a lot of “chichewanised” English words like “nyuzipepala” for “newspaper”, “botolo” for bottle, “dokotala” for “doctor” or “oklokoloko” for “o´clock”. They use the same numbers or names for month but “eleven” would be “eleveni”, “a hundred” would be “ahundredi”. In Chichewa there is no word ending with a consonant so even when Malawians speak English they would put an “i”, “o” or “a” at the end of any word. “r” and “l” is actually the same in Chichewa so “rain” becomes “lain” and so on. It is very interesting and also very logical. It is a describing language and politeness and respect is very important. I am enjoying the lessons very much!

But last Friday I had to skip my lessons to go to Mulanje. Elleana, the Canadian midwife is now working and living in Mulanje so I went and visited her on Friday. I went there with Liora, a doctor student from Holland and 4 other Canadians (Elleana´s sister Kiara who´s volunteering as a teacher, Katherine, Kate and Stephanie who are all volunteering in HIV/AIDS projects) So we were a group of 7 girls all ready for the big hike. We rented a minibus to go to Mulanje, that’s about 100km east of BT and the 16-seater was full after everyone put their backpack, food and sleeping bags. As soon as we arrived in Mulanje we went for Pizza because Mulanje has the best Pizza in Malawi, real oven, made on stone and wood. Fantastico! With full bellies and a few more people, we met some Swedish people in the Pizza place we went on the back of a pickup truck to Elleana´s house. She lives on the missions grounds and is surrounded by tea plantages and the mountains. Just beautiful!

After a short night and oatmeal for breakfast we got picked up by an ambulance Elleana has hired to bring us to the start off point where we also met some more VSO´s, Anna (my sis, always so good to see her!), Joel and Trish and a Scottish guy who Anna met last weekend and who is looking for some mineral resources on the Zomba plateau hired by a Chinese company, he´s from Glasgow the accent is wonderful! Haha! After organizing porters, a guide and ourselves we started the 4-5 hour hike with the aim to reach the hut we had a key for before dusk. The group quickly split up into two smaller groups, it is way too complicated staying in such a big group especially on a path where you can only walk behind each other. I tell you it was steep! And we have only chosen the less steep path. But all the muscle work was so worth it! We came along waterfalls, where we went for a swim, cliffs, viewpoints where you could see over the whole country (all what light touches!) and high plateaus. I was reminded of the hike in El Escoreal, Spain, only that the whole way was like the very first bit of that hike. Exhausted but happy we reached the hut on 2800m altitude, a little timber house with two rooms. One to sleep in, one for cooking. No electricity, water from a well and the quietest and most peaceful atmosphere you can imagine. In the middle of nature! We warmed ourselves sitting on the porch in the light of the setting sun, after having a quick basin wash in one of the wooden cabins. We were so lucky with the weather, only a few drops on the way up was all, the rest of the time sunshine and a cool breathe. We cooked some Curry with rice on the fireplace and had a glass of wine with it, the guide and porters telling some Malawian fairytales and singing some Malawian songs, the Canadians singing Canadian songs and telling Canadian fairytales, over us only the stars around us the mountains. I never felt that free! This is how we went to bed.

Next morning we got up early, again porridge and packing. It was hard to say good bye to this mind opening, peaceful place but we had to leave. The way down was much quicker and I already was back in BT by 3 p.m.

In the evening I was invited to a BBQ at Maria´s house, a colleague from work, I don’t know how many hours she had spent in the kitchen but so much food! Nikki, Pauline and me were hungry but after the first round of the meal (Nsima, Rice, Potatoes, Sweet Potatoes, Chicken, Cabbage, Fish and Salad) I was already full. To find out that that wasn’t even the BBQ, soon we had tons of beef and chicken on the grill and a beer in one and a wine in the other hand. I definitely refilled my energy tanks after that dinner! We had good conversation about cultural differences, stigmas and a lot of questions were asked about how it is back in Europe. What is the minimum wage and what is the problem with snow! Nice conversation and the first time I´ve been in a locals house, of course a richer family with both adults working and being educated. They have a 12 year old son and a gorgeous 2 year old daughter. She is beautiful! Also some neighbors came over and they were all super friendly! But I was also happy when I finally fell into my bed. I think some time I would like to spend just in a village with a family who really lives rural. I would like to experience life as it is for most of the Malawians. I have to talk to Ashtin about that who´s wife is moving in with me in a week. Chris and Jen have moved out and back to Nsanje, it’s crazy how quickly these 6 weeks went by! So let the new week begin!