Busy (a pictoral history)

This is what has been keeping us busy:

- We introduced the kids to Mr. Bean.

- Thea won the Art and Math Awards at her 4-person afternoon school. Lev won the Sports Award.

- Big bugs keep coming around.

- The fuel shortage ended (though the price is still $12/gallon), so we finally made it out to Majete Park Reserve for a mini-vacation & Thea's birthday. Seeing these animals never gets old. Honestly, I think we got most excited about seeing a baby African porcupine crossing the road (no photo). 

Matthew nabbed 88 bird species, including 25 lifers.

- At the district hospital, I finished five days on the postpartum ward, which were very boring, with the exception of a twelve-fingered baby that I discovered as we were discharging them home. This is how they take care of that:

It does hurt the baby, but eventually the extra digits on each hand will shrivel and fall off. (Photo with permission.)

- Every day when I arrive at the District Hospital, I walk in through the main entrance, though it's a slightly longer walk, just so I can check on my oldest friend there, Janky Chair. It's absolutely still in active use. I began to notice various of its chums in the hallway, each impressive in their own way. 

Original Janky Chair. For a while it was being used to store? organize? patient charts.

I call this one Phyllis Foamster.

Carol Cardboard.

Yucky Yevgeny. A different sort of chair, but one I have hovered over many times in the staff bathroom. 

USAID Ed. 

Wanda Wheelchair (for labor staff to sit on, not patients). 

As it is, patients make do with wherever they can find a spot to rest:

Especially in antenatal ward, where the women often stay for weeks at a time, awaiting labor. 

The courtyard was crowded with mattresses as they attempted to deep clean the ward (except then we had no running water so we all just lugged them back inside again).

More about work in an upcoming post, soon. 

Other things: 

- Apropro of nothing, this was the shirt my mototaxi driver was wearing one day when Rex couldn't pick me up from work. It amused me so much, he let me take a photo of it. 

- It was fun to watch our coworker, Donovan, show us the process for making beeswax candles. The Mission has a Sustainable Livelihoods department, just a stone's throw from our house, which teaches apiculture to local farmers (among other things). They sell both honey and beautiful candles from that enterprise. If you want to import 50-100 cheap handcrafted beeswax candles, straight from Malawi, let us know!

Speaking of Sustainable Livelihoods, here's an old dude who participated in the agricultural program, ended up with a good harvest of greens, and actually brought his excess to the hospital to distribute to palliative care patients in the wards. What a guy.

- One day I was working at home and heard a loudspeaker in the distance. "What are they saying?" I asked Harrison, who was meticulously transplanting grass into our yard by hand.  

"Oh! They are collecting blood for the hospital," he responded. After lunch I wandered down to the football field near our house and found a bloodmobile going on. Why not, I thought as I lined up, trying to give proper respect to my father's legacy as a Red Cross volunteer & person who donates platelets twice a month, come hell or high water. I love experiencing things like this in other countries. It was a beautiful day out and fun to chat with the Malawian staff running it. They travel all over the country and run a very efficient operation. 

I was also surprised to be handed 3000 kwacha at the end of it (about a dollar), "for travel expenses". Huh, I thought, as I walked three minutes back home. My first earned money in Malawi!

We are well. I think the funk is passing. Onward we go.