Under the Malawian Sky

It has been a beautiful day, warm, balmy, it is hard to believe it was raining so hard yesterday. This morning was spent doing inventory on all the drugs and making sure all our stuff was removed from the church. The hired movers arrived 10 minutes early which is highly unusual for Africa. The funny part was how they loaded the truck.

"Madame, we must make another trip, the truck is full." They had all the tables and chairs upright on the truck bed. They couldn't figure out how to stack things to fit. There was Elaine out there telling them how to stack the tables and chairs. I should have taken a picture, it was pretty funny. It was only one load and we were able to send a lot of our boxed medications with the truck.

We finished the inventory, packed up the rest in a bus owned by one of the volunteers and took them to the doctor's home in Malawi. The bus driver who is the husband of one of the main volunteers drove the four of us around in this big bus, to a wood carver store and then we took him lunch at one of the hotels. He then drove us home. He solved our transportation problem so we didn't have to bother the ROS at Rafiki. Fuel has been easier to obtain, but the price increased about 50 cents a liter. I think that makes it about 8$ a gallon.

We rested and packed for the trip home. The Rafiki head quarter team arrived in the afternoon. I also met the former mayor of Malawi, who is the one who was instrumental in providing the land for the Village. It is a beautiful setting for the orphanage. The sunsets and sunrises are incredible. Tonight there is a beautiful full moon. Malawi is a very beautiful country.

We were all invited to dinner with the head quarter team and the Samartian's Purse's pilots. It was interesting to met and talk to them about the work they do in Africa.

Tomorrow we head for home. It's will be 4:57 before I know it. The sun rises and the roaster's crows.

Almost Done

Despite being short one doctor, we successfully completed the final two days of the clinic. We really did not have any sick people, only minor complaints. What I see most here is that the people need to be educated in taking care of themselves. There really is limited common sense when it comes to doing things that are harmful to their body. They don't seem to think that there may be simple things that they could do to improve the quality of their life. The older people seem to complain less and are just happy that we can give them medicine for their body aches.

Tomorrow we are going back to the church to finish the drug inventory. I don't know how we will spend the afternoon. We leave friday morning for Lilongwe to begin the long journey home.

I am tired but the clinic went well. In some ways it was the best clinic I have helped at. We were a small team and the volunteers worked hard and we didn't "sweat the small stuff." We have had a lot of laughs at the strange complaints. The translation adds to the humor.

As always the AIDS epidemic and the treatment of AIDS was represented in many of those who came to the clinic. Many were just people getting a second opinion on the care they are getting here. There is medical care here, but I think there is little focus on the education of the people of their care, no followup, no blood pressure follow up. People go on and off their blood pressure medications. They die young here, the average age is in the 40's. If they don't die of AIDS, they must die of strokes.

The fuel shortage has given me an interesting look into how it can affect a country. It just isn't waiting in line for fuel. It affects everything.

We have been having a lot of rain and the nights are cool. It was really cold last night and I got a blanket out of the closet, as I snuggled in it, I was reminded of how fortunate I was to have warmth. Being here reminds me of how blessed I am.

In all we have seen God's grace upon us. I doubt any of us would fare too well without our dependence on Him.

Thunder, Rain and No Electriciy

I think we all are getting pretty tired. Today the head doctor had to make the decision to return to the USA because of his father-in-law's health. He and his daughter leave tomorrow leaving 2 doctors and 2 nurses to finish the clinic. We are cutting the clinic by a half day, then have to inventory and pack up. Today, we saw a lot of people with minor complaints.

Our day started without electricity. It was cool and rainy most of the day. Someone borrowed the tent over the weekend and didn't return it so when we arrived at the clinic it looked like we had no patients. We were to go to a different church a little way out of Malawi, but it was decided that it logistically difficult to move and not practical in light of the fuel shortage. We thought the message hadn't got out that we were staying at the original church.

When I went with the Malawian lady that helps us run the clinic to the area everyone was waiting, I thought we were going to have a riot. The natives were restless. Everything settled out but for the life of me I couldn't understand why they acted like it was life or death to get a ticket to see the doctors. We saw pretty much everyone despite the fact we were essentially down a doctor.

The day was complicated by thunder, heavy rain, and no electricity. To add to it, no tent for shelter for the people. To start we were short of volunteers meaning not enough translators. No electricity also meant the clinic had insufficient light, the computer battery ran down. It was not a fun morning.

Only 2 more days!

If I Wasn't So Sad

A day in the life of retired nurse in an African Medical Clinic is enough to make anyone crazy. It is difficult to outsmart a Malawian, they always can come up with something you did not anticipate. My main job has been to keeping some semblance order. I get to go out and tell them that we can not see anymore patients. Today, I spent 20 minutes outside the clinic with my Malawian assistant trying to make them understand we needed to close.

Each morning we give out a certain number of tickets and leave some for add ons. We had added 7 more patients and 3 for glasses. This gave us a total of 140 people to be seen. I sent the 3 for glasses only plus 2 others to register. The next thing I see the registration people packing up and I ask them did you register 140 people. "Yes." Then I find out they were missing 5 people. Nobody asked where the other 5 were. In the confusion no one sent them in to register.

I couldn't help but think I must be losing my mind as I did preliminary intakes. They seem to all think were are going to cure them of a lifetime of problems. Sometimes they have headaches, sometimes a stomach ache, they all have pain that starts somewhere and causes a whole host of problems elsewhere. When you ask them when their symptoms started it could be months or years ago, like 1972 or when my last child was born, 4 years ago. A lot gets lost in the translation. They tell you some pretty strange things and you never know what it will turn into by the time the doctor sees them.

Most of the people here look old beyond their years. It is strange to see people the age of my children that look older than me. It is a very hard life for these people. Most of the complaints they have are a result of the environment they live in. My head and whole body would hurt too if I carried heavy things on my head. On the side of the road you see women carrying huge logs on their heads. Today we saw a lady carrying a suitcase on her head. The suit case had wheels.

The first day of the clinic we saw those who were the better off than most of the population. One of the days it seemed that a large percentage of people that came in had been seen at the hospital within hours or 2-3 days. It all seems so insane. They tell us the medicine from the hospital didn't work and we have the same stuff as the hospital. They probably go to the hospital and tell them our medicine didn't work.

Here in Malawi they are required to have a health passbook, without it they can't be seen. If they forget it they are told to buy another one. So what if their whole health history is in the one at home. The word must have gotten out that we wanted them to bring in their pass book as today the percentage of those without books went drastically down.

There is so much these people do not understand about taking care of themselves, but in all these that pass through our clinics are some of those delightful old people who beat the odds and are in their 80's and just need glasses and some medicine to help with their aches and pains.