Wednesday June 9, 2010

This morning, Jasper and I went on a quick run before our first day of work. I run in long leggings with long basketball type shorts over that and a largish t-shirt. The road we went on was busy with people starting the day and the air was filled with haze from the morning fires. All of us (Jasper, Tiffany, Yiwen and myself) went to the 7:30 doctors meetings. Here they discuss the status of the patients in the various wards and interesting cases. It seemed like they were presenting in a way to Dr. Heim, who is a German doctor, who deals with surgery. After this we went to meet Sister Annie, who is filling in for Matron Kamera, our mentor while at St. Gabriels. Unfortunately Matron Kamera is out this week, so Yiwen and I will have to wait to discuss our technologies with her.

The hospital is pretty and very open air. The grounds are very well kept with even green laws, and blooming tropical looking flowers mixed with plants I recognize like shrimp plant and impatients.

We worked today in the new HIV clinic sorting pills, using the Deering scale that we bought. There are already two digital scales, but run out of batteries really quickly. The Deering was not very practical for counting the larger pills, because the maximum mass measurement is 10 g but we were weighting out 18 tablet doses of large paracetemol tablets. The Deering worked better with the smaller pills though. Yiwen would measure out 30 small pills on the Deering, and I would count them to check how accurate we were, and to correct any errors.

Before lunch we walk into the market which is a cluster of little storefronts, that don’t appear to have much of store back, and a row of stands shaded by a stick covered roof, selling tomatoes, onions, okra, eggplant and fish. Immediately upon entering the market, children ran up to us to hold our hands. In particular there were two girls of probably six, and a small boy, who knows how young. I took turns holding their hands and asked about the names of things in the market, hoping to hear the Chichewa name, and was surprised to hear the girls call them by their English names “tomato” and “fish”. They are already learning another language, much better than myself at that age.

On Thursday, Yiwen and I worked with the nurse in the peadiatric ward. We got to help spike the IV bottles, which we first have to partially empty so that the volume is appropriate for children. Pills are dispensed 3 times a day and all the mothers line up to get what is indicated on their treatment sheets for their children.

The internet doesnt really work here at all, so its lucky if I get to check my emails or post blogs, probably the most challenging part of the internship yet.

Monday June 7, 2010

Casa Velha, Round Two

Yiwen and I are in South Africa (SA) … for an extra day. It all started when the British Airways staff started a strike and our original flight from the US to London and down to SA got rebooked to earlier. So we would have to spend the night in SA at a guesthouse called Casa Velha overnight, returning to the airport the next morning to catch the flight with Tiffany and Jasper to Malawi. At the airport in Houston, we ended up having to check the bags we thought we would carry on, and carry on the bag we wanted to check, so there was some packing confusion. (I left my camera in the checked bag and Yiwen had a bunch of liquids in her carry on) The flights weren’t very smooth either, very turbulent, but we made it to SA just fine.

The Casa Velha, which means “old house” in Portuguese, is run by Janine. Janine is engaged to George, and their son Bryan, along with his friend Jared, came to pick us up at the airport. The accommodations were very comfortable and after almost two days of flight and next to no sleep, I went to bed quickly. Janine, Yiwen and I agreed that we should leave at 9:30 for the airport to catch our 10:20 to Lilongwe.

Now, most of you (especially you, Mum) are probably saying just now “what were they thinking!!!” which is pretty fair considering. Im going to blame it on my general sleepiness, and maybe an underlying assumption that “things are different in SA”.

9:45 am the next day, Yiwen and I get out of the car at the airport, but realize we have left a bag with technologies in it at Casa Velha, Jarred drives back to fetch it while Yiwen waits and I run, with bags in tow, to the check in desk only to met by a lady insisting that you must check in one hour prior to departure to be accepted onto the flight. I plead, please, we have 30 minutes, we can make it, but she says no. Then I hurry dejectedly and a little panicy to the ticket desk to rebook. I learn that there aren’t any other flights to Malawi that day, let alone to Lilongwe, so I go ahead and reschedule, call Tiffany to let her know what is up and return to Yiwen.

We headed back to Casa Velha with Jarred, and are going to stay on another night, no mess ups tomorrow! Hopefully we have expended all the travelling bad luck allocated for this trip!