A day in the life...

I'm making a second rapid post because I don't think the vague references I've been making to how things are here is going to work without a real example.

I got to Makhwila today and found out that cholera is in the lower shire. There's only one case confirmed so far but considering that its a pandemic a relatively short distance away that isn't much comfort. For those of you that don't know, cholera is a particularly severe and lethal kind of diarrhea. It is caused by a bacteria, and causes all liquid in your body to be expelled from your butt in what is referred to as "rice water stool." Those who have it lose liters and liters of water each day, and if you don't get as much water as you lose, you will die. The possibility of getting this disease scares the crap out of me. Anyway, I didn't eat until we left and when we did I scrubbed my hands more than Lady Macbeth to make sure I got everything off them. 

Today was a typical day, nothing extremely unusual happened. Keep that in mind.

To get away from the (possible) cholera patients nearby, we crowded into a cramped hot room. There were 12 of our 14 scheduled kids stooling, and one of the two healthy kids turned out to be malnourished, so make that 13. Plus we enrolled three new kids, so make that 16. Which is 32 stools to do. Not counting a couple others we needed so make that 36. Busy busy busy. Plus we had to buccal smear, which took more time. All in all, it ran well, busy, hot, tiring, and long. in most respects a manageable day. As always there was a few fat, very healthy babies from families that are probably fairly well off. (By Malawian standards at least)

The not-so-good things, but nonetheless not unusual things were as follows. We had one mom who didn't come for the umpteenth time, and we kicked her out of the program. We have had a lot of those. One person Victor went to fetch was found to be in mourning. One of the twins had died two days ago, and was just buried yesterday. The mom was in no condition to go. As soon as she is able, we will try to have her come for a few more visits, and then we will discharge her. This serves both to get some more data to wrap up the set, and to give the mom a little extra (in the way of incentives) to get through the mourning. We have had far too many of these kids. I'm not sure if I will recognize the remaining twin when she comes back, but the names sounded familiar. Also there were two twins on chiponde today who did terribly over the last two weeks. Both lost a quarter and a fifth of their weights, respectively, and one of them is not eating. Their heads resembled raisins in the way the skin was stretched across their heads and the veins were popping out. The worse of the two had a terrible diaper rash, and both looked like skeletons. We sent both to the Nutritional Rehabilitation Unit, or NRU, were they will be observed and made sure to eat properly. I have a fifty-fifty bet that I will never see one of them, and a twenty-five - seventy-five bet that I never see either. Its not that I don't want them to recover, but when you've seen so many you can kinda gauge how likely it is for the children to survive. 

Not meant to depress or scare anybody, I just felt like I hadn't gotten it across well yet. 

A day in the life of a volunteer in Malawi.

TTYL

---He who is tired of the cute babies dying.

Wow I can talk a lot...

Hey, it has been a while hasn’t it? I haven’t had much time to spare in a while, and the little I did I didn’t want to spend conscious. Well, I’ll try to keep it semi – short, so as to not bore any of you…assuming my long hiatus hasn’t killed everyone’s interest. It’d kill mine. Anyway, in a token effort at getting things in chronological order even though I can’t remember most of the details anymore, I will start with my trip to Mozambique.

The trip there was half of the adventure. At expensive half at that. We – Victor, Joy (Male), and I – left on Friday, after clinic was finished, heading for Victor’s home town of Tete. We left the compound at five o’clock, thinking that if we made it to the border by six; we’d be able to cross. We got there at fifteen after. Wasn’t a big deal though, apparently the border closed at nine! Sweet! (Don’t worry; the six o’clock closing will bite us in the ass later) And this is where the bribes start. Victor wasn’t given a piece of necessary paperwork for the truck we rented; to he gave someone a bribe to acquire it for him. Necessary. The next one wasn’t. Joy and L ordered a student (twelve month) Visa more than six months ago. Even now, they still don’t have them. So when we tried to cross, there was this big, fat, corrupt Malawian (with a big scar on his nose) staring at us. For you’re reference, there are three main groups in Malawi. Blacks = natives. Indians = Businessmen. Whites/Wazungus = Humanitarian aid. AKA, people with money. So when he saw us, he immediately decided that he was gonna make us bribe him. Didn’t matter why, he was just looking for his justification. And when he saw that Joy didn’t have his passport updated (because he is still waiting for his student visa) he saw his chance. Didn’t matter that we had the receipt for the pending visa, he just wanted a cut. Victor’s reaction was simply, “This is Africa.” He didn’t put up with any baseless shit though. When the border officials tried to make him pay for some rice he had in the truck he raised hell till they backed off. Soo pissed off.

And this is where the six o’clock problem hit. Turns out, the Malawi border closes at nine, but the Mozambique border closes at six! The boss there raised hell about us making him work after hours, which is weird, because someone else did all the work; all he had to do was sign. Plus we payed fifty bucks…whatever we got across.

So then we had about an hour on the road where there were huge potholes (lakes) in the road, with many, many half-destroyed buildings which we couldn’t see. I’m estimating an hour, because I fell asleep. In a total of three hours or so we were in Tete. IT WAS SOO COOL!!! I mean, they had LAMPOSTS! And GOOD ROADS!!! And CULTURE! ART! GRAFFITI!! MUSIC! It was culture shock. Victor’s sister served us chambo (Fish) and intestines with liver in it. I am proud to say that while I was not the first to try it, I did eventually eat it. (It is VERY rude not to try everything put before you) Intestines are rubbery and I wouldn’t recommend them, but its perfect food if you’re feeling adventurous. I played some playstation with one of the kids there as well and then we slept. Or actually only I did; Victor (typically) got up too early for me to call what he did “sleeping,” and Joy was too hot to sleep. Oh I forgot to mention that didn’t I? Tete is hot as HELL. Like a sauna. Or a furnace.

The next day we drove around for something close to two hours meeting Victor’s many relations. Following which, in African tradition, we fit about 6 more people than we should be able to into our truck, and drove to another town, about six hours away. I fell asleep that way too. Then we saw the dam, which was amazing. This huge cement structure obstructing a river, with such power flowing through it that you can feel the cement vibrating! I have tons of pictures from that trip. We even got to go inside, and even though we weren’t supposed to take pics Victor’s cousin took a bunch under his arm. I felt justified anyway, because the tour guide was letting his personal friend take videos, and if they are going to flaunt the rules, why not us too? (As long as we don’t get caught of course)

After that we opted to not go to home yet, because no one wanted that long of a car ride yet, and because there was a disco to go to. After waiting about three eternities for the women to get ready, we headed off, to a terrible disco with no people. We didn’t leave there nearly fast enough. The second one was packed though, and was a lot of fun, though I still felt like I was merely attempting to “dance.”

Once we woke up the next day we spent all day driving back, with a short stop in Tete to eat. We got back home really late. I don’t think Victor or Joy slept at all the whole trip and I think I consumed more than my body mass in cokes. What fun.

Christmas was good in another way. I had received a couple gifts from the ones who spawned me, namely candy and books. My dad gets most of the credit for that, because I know my mom did not pick out Dune and the new Ender’s Game book. (Both of which were GREAT by the way) Some comics were also included, but those two were the big ones. So we spent the weekend doing nothing in a “resort.” (by Malawian standards) I indulged a few pleasures there, namely video games, books, and LOTS OF MUSIC. It was fantastic. I do not kid you when I say that I did nothing for four days or so. Which was amazingly refreshing.

After that we drove to Lilongwe to pick up Joy and his sister. She stayed for two weeks, and spent many of them on trips with Joy. Not much to say about her, she didn’t talk much, but in the rare occurrences it was nice to talk to someone my age. (It was also fun to see Joy dote on her a little. He is an older brother after all.) Oh and he brought me CD’s from home. (again from the parents) To summarize, Fuel, Hinder, Nickelback, Three Doors Down, and Shinedown all kick ass. Panic at the Disco is not good live, at all…I felt my memories of the songs I liked be slowly, horribly raped as I heard what they sounded like live. Trapt is good, but they changed their style in Only through the Pain, and the jury is still out on them. If you didn’t know already, I’m a music addict, and it plays a big part in keeping me sane, hence why it gets a part in the blog.

In the past weeks I’ve been working very hard. I’ve entered all the data that we used to have piled up, which took way longer than I would have liked. But it’s done. Finally. 1200 cards divided by 20 cards an hour = 60 hours, done mostly by me. You may applaud now. We also got new buccal smears (To determine if kids are identical by DNA) which has made clinic crazy…how many kids do you think sit quietly while you stick a foreign object in their mouth?...OK except for the newborns that will suck on anything. Oh and we have 235 sets of twins enrolled now, and a typical day involves 15-30 sets (30-60 twins) and as many as 15 may need to give us stool. (Actually next month they will all need to go…stupid three month visits…) I spend a lot of time working on the flowchart for Dr Manary, and repacking the truck, and keeping track of supplies.

We have lost 16 sets of twins. I think approximately eight kids have died. And eight sets have defaulted too much, and we kicked them out. So that’s like 1-2% mortality rate in our study over six months, where all the kids aren’t even malnourished. (FYI, under five mortality in Malawi is approxmately 1% for healthy babies, 4% for moderately malnourished children, and 16% for severe. 2/3 die with kwash if untreated. It isn't that we are doing badly but that children DIE here.)

 

Also it’s HUNGRY SEASON, when the land is green and no one has food. Our sites are exploding with kids coming to be treated. I think there are upwards of 200 kids coming to some of our sites now, and it is only going to increase, Which means that the amount of cards to enter is gonna go up too. One site enrolled 30 kids (1.5 hours) not counting the other site that day. Luckily, stool study will be mostly spared an increase on our already formidable workload, except that there will be many more sick, and consequently stooling babies. In other words, we wont get huge amounts of enrollments, but we will get huge amounts of stools. Yay for the pooper scooper! (ME!)

I’ve been rambling for a while, and I’m sure I’ve lost at least half of my initial readers, but here’s my last recap. We have three new people staying right now, Dr Manary, his wife Mardi, and a photographer, Jeff. Mardi is super nice, and calls me a dear boy all the time, without saying it patronizingly, so she is good company. Dr Manary came and he has been giving me some real praise, and I feel like I’m doing my job really well. And Jeff is very idealistic, to my cynicism, and he is trying to make some media to raise money for the project. All in all it’s nice to have such a crowd, but I think I will be thankful when it’s nice and quiet again.

So that’s generally how things’ve been going. I hope some of you back home will be patient with me, and keep in some form of contact even though it’s so hard for me to get back to you.

TTYL

He who is enjoying his first relaxed day in a long while, thanks to Leslie.

A post is in the works

I haven't been had time to make any posts in a while. I'm working on an extensive post talking about my trip to Mozambique, the lake, and everything else interesting that has happened. Its still in the works, so it might be a week or so more. 

Merry Christmas. Happy New Year. 

Goodnight.

Bleh

I'm sorry I haven't posted again. Not having a computer I can use is killing my ability to post when coupled with the fact that I am getting home late most days now. And its going to get more busy when I get the database sent to me, because then data entry will start up again . . . and the editing of the database . . . and making a new one for stool study . . . it's just going to be a lot of work. Which is good, because Hannah works so much its insane, and I'm feeling like I'm slacking or something, but I guess you get to work that hard when you're a doctor. 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is that, though I don't think that any of you took it seriously, I sure haven't seen any signs that anyone did, but four posts a week is unsustainable. In fact, any amount of required posts is impossible at present. So the favor game I made up has to die. If you actually want to collect, all favors gained till now still stand, but I can't continue. Its not possible.

So anyway, there have been lots of stuff happening the last two weeks. We started enrolling newborn babies. I chased a chicken for forty minutes and it ended up stuck in a bush. Because I'm was having some trouble (very little, more like scraping by) buying enough food myself, my stipend was doubled. (I have NO FREAKING IDEA what I am going to do with that money.) Leslie left and came back from vacation. Random food buying and whatnot. The nurse for stool study who's "name" I forgot again's sister in law died, so we lost her for a day or two. I had massive abdominal pain at our overnight stay at Namandanje one week, and merely got a little sick the next week . . . Yeah I've decided that I'm in an abusive relationship with that place, I always end up sick or something when I go there, but anyway . . . I rode on top of the truck for half an hour, on Malawi roads. I met one of the people who runs the peace corps here. And lots of other random stuff that you could expect from me.

So you see, I'm alive. I'm fine. And the workload is only going to get bigger, so my posts will become less frequent. Actually this took to much time too, gotta go.

TTYL

---He who needs to pack the car for tomorrow now.

Sorry.

Well, its been quite a twelve days since I last posted. I don't have time to fill you in on everything yet, but I'll tell you why I've been absent, if only to assure you that I'm still alive. This month is approximately three months since the stool study started. Healthy babies get stool collected every three months. So EVERYONE is pooping now. And it only takes one stubborn kid with powerful sphincter muscles to keep us at the site forever. I've been sick, I think I'm finally over all of it, but I thought that a month ago too, when this freaking cold first hit me. And for some reason no matter what I do, nothing ever seems to time right so I can get to Icon cyber cafe in time to post. I'm working on it. Oh, and last week makes the fourth time I haven't posted enough, so there will be loads of favors. Yeah I think four is biting off more than I can chew. So anyways, I'm alive. I'm (Hopefully) healthy. 

TTYL

---He who now owes WAY too many people favors.

P.S. I'm desperate and this post delayed my sleep. So just this once I'm counting this little nothing of a post as one of my four this week.

Lazy day, Sick Sick Sick...

Ok this mac is giving me trouble...I'm gonna fix this post tomorrow, but now whenever I try to copy-paste my post it just goes below the page. I mean, blog entry post, little blue line, all my text. And when I publish with it there, nothing gets posted. Anyway, if you see this, sorry , but I don't have the energy to retype the whole thing.

I really need to learn how to slash through stuff no longer pertinent, anyone got a clue?

Today had been quite a lazy day. Joy (Male) and I have been up for a while, me for about 6 more hours than he, and we haven’t really done much productive work all day. Granted I’ve been trying to learn Access for the last hour, but I don’t count no progress as ‘productive work.’ Access is just confusing, and the manual she brought on the CD was junk. I mean, it has lots of great details and whatnot, but it sucks terribly as a tutorial. Thanks SO MUCH Mom for telling Hannah to NOT bring an access manual. Urgh. Anyway, the reason jay and I are stuck here instead of being out in the field is because we’re both recovering from sickness.

I got sick two weeks ago. It progressed from runny nose to sneezing to coughing to wheezing and all the way back to runny nose over two or three days. Then it stayed at runny nose, with occasional recurrences of coughing. Then Joy caught my sickness, and he’s been getting worse and worse until yesterday he broke out in a high fever, shortly after I was sent home early for having a high fever. Also, I have been having a recurrence of the dehydration type lightheadedness. If you recall, in a post about a month ago I talked about how I got so dizzy I couldn’t even stand? Well it never really went away. I have had very small bouts of dizziness every time I stand up since. I mean very small. But last Monday it started coming back heavily. So I made sure to eat and drink lots and tried to stave it off, but on Tuesday it got so bad I had to lay down, and I broke out in a fever so high even I could feel I had one. Or maybe the fever was the cause of the dizziness as well? Who knows? Who cares? All I know is that I’m running a very small fever now (.2 degrees) and I’m feeling loads better. And YES dad, I’m drinking lots of water.

Now because I’ve been kinda out of it the last few days, I cant supply any more for a normal post, so here’s a little more about MARAWI!!!

Malawians have a very interesting language. In Chichewa, all words, ALL words, end in vowels. This has caused me to be named by Malawians who can’t speak any English, Bilo. Kinda funny, at the Adventist hospital I got written in as Bilo Sharp. Hah. Also, there are very, very standardized greetings here. (Note: There are no spaces between some words because no pause is pronounced.) When you meet someone you say, “Muli Bwanji?” (Mu = You, Li = are, Bwanji = How) To which one responds, and I have suspicions that this would be the response even if your mother died, “Ndiri Bwino, Kayainu?” (Ndi = I, ri = is, Bwino = Fine, Kaya = and, Inu = You) To which one responds, you guessed it, “Ndiri Bwino.” I actually like to add Kayainu to the end of the second one, just to see if I can get a volley going. Now at this point some of the more observant ones of you are going, wait, Li and Ri are the same word, WTF? This ties in to how you pronounce Chichewa, where most L’s and R’s are interchangeable. I can’t articulate what it sounds like over the blog, but if you can try to merge an L sound with an R, that’s how most of the words here are pronounced. Malawi is an exception, the L is distinct, but Leslie likes to call it MARAWI anyway. (Yes it is caps for a reason. I can’t articulate how she sounds when she says is but it’s pretty funny, and caps is the closest I can get.) Moving on, if its early morning instead of, “Muli Bwanji,” one says “Mwadzuka Bwanji?” (Mwa = You, dzuka = rise, bwino = h…oh wait I already told you that one didn’t I?) And the response is, “Ndadzuka Bwino, Kayainu?” (Nda = We) I won’t insult your intelligence by supplying you with the second response. Now I’m sure that was shell shockingly different than the last one right? But it gets better. If it’s in the evening you say, “Mwaswela Bwanji?” (Swela = play.) Replace Mwa with Nda and I’m sure you can figure the responses out on your own; you’re big boys and girls right? So that is the entirety of the Malawian greetings. How are you, how did you rise (I think this one means did you sleep well), and how did you play (I theorize, going out on a limb here, it means did you have an enjoyable day). But should you ask a Malawian to describe Mwadzuka, they would just say, it’s the morning greeting. The meaning isn’t even important anymore. Which is why many Malawians have dropped the Bwino and Bwanji in the morning and evening greetings. “Mwadzuka?” “Ndadzuka, Kayainu?” “Ndadzuka.” In case you were wondering this equates to “You rise?” “We rise, and you?” “We rise.” Doesn’t make much sense, but I do find it REALLY amusing that if one were to go to say, a Malwian party, and greet all the guests you would (probably) use the same one every time. Isn’t that something? Thats it. Three standardized greetings. Anyone who even casually knows me knows that is EXCRUTIATING for a smartass like myself. I can't say, ARGH I'm doing terribly! Or anything else. The Malawians would just stare at you! So. Frustrating.

I don’t know much more Chichewa…both the Chichewa books are in someone else’s possession at the moment, so for now…


TTYL

---He who is glad the world has decided which way is up…again…

We Got robbed!

I woke up at 6 oclock today...three hours earlier than I should have...to the knocking of one of our guards on my window. After cursing him, his family, and all of the progeny he may ever procreate, or the progeny they may procreate, I rolled out of bed, put my pants on, and went outside. I then, half asleep, followed him to the Downhouse, our supply area, to find the bars bent.

I'll shorten the three hour ordeal into a paragraph or two for you guys. What was stolen: 200,000 kwatcha, (1250 dollars) some oil, and our printer. A guard was apparently ambushed ant tied up. The dog may or may not have been barking its head of at midnight, depending on whether you believe the landlord or his son. Right now though, we don't know exactly who stole the stuff, or where it is. Were the guards in on it? We don't know. It is strange that the robbers knew which house was empty, that the guards would not patrol, and where the servants quarters were, because they put the dog there. WHATEVER. I'll keep you posted if anything new comes up.

Oh, and because we ran out of some ingredients, we cant get the cmv for the ten percent chiponde, and we have to stop enrolling. Yay. That means all my frantic work over the last two weeks has been for NOTHING.

So anyway, heres my responces to your comments...

"Wonder if any of you noticed..."

Medium Bill - Its a pain getting UP with five hours of sleep. Not the dinner. Jeez.

Ulf - Actually the head cold refuses to leave. I still have a runny nose.

Rita - Glad you dont think I've lost my destructive touch. =)

Aggie - I would have loved to be in the states, as it was I felt really detached from it all.

"Classifying BABIEZ"

Kellye - Its ok, I knew you were slow for a long time. I'm real happy to hear that you had been reading it before though (Am I inferring that right?)

Ms Megonigal - COOL! You're reading this? AWESOME!!! You're the best btw, just so you know. Oh and Me and Billy? Do you think I'm Brian? Nonetheless, I'm not sure you're nerves would be able to take another year of "me and Billy."

Malawi Mom - Uhm...my mom taught me it was fun to decapitate small woodland creatures...is that terrible too?

Hannah is coming!"

Aunt Jo - I will never forget. In fact, I was very dissapointed when I realized it doesnt work o her anymore.

Kellye - Guess what Kellye, ITS OPPOSITE DAY! (My retort to "ay. To. Go.")

SO thats it for now, If I get more internet time I'll extend my responces.

TTYL

---He who is glad the computers WERE NOT in the downhouse.