The last days and home

Hello!  I am home in San Francisco!  Here are some photos from Malawi.  Will post more later!

Me, Mus, and Buck

Clean

Kids at Kevin's

We do it right, yo!

Chitenges in the wind

Order

Beach house from above

Yey!

Sunset

Last day

It's my last day with Baylor today. I can't believe it--time flies! I am feeling a bit homesick and ready to see you all.

Last weekend was a long-weekend spent in Chinteche, where we spent 3 days and 2 nights at Lake Malawi. It was fabulous!! Everyone made awesome homecookin' grub. Janell made a Thai dinner. yum. It rained in the morning, with hard thunderstorms, but the afternoons were gorgeous and the water was warm. I will have to take my praziquantel in a few months for schisto :)

Then on Tuesday, I spent the day with Dr. Eric in the wards. The things I saw in the NRU (PICU) were crazy! You know how they talk about "stiff necks" in meningitis, and how I've never felt one? Well, here I felt 2 out 5 kids with necks as stiff as boards. The physical exam findings here are incredible and very sad. Plus, the kids are piled up on the wards and their parents, too. There aren't enough nurses, and so the kids can't be admitted unless someone can stay with them and give them their meds and change their sheets. I saw the most malnourished children I have ever seen, with big, wide-eyes that pierce. They look like they have come from concentration camps. What gets me most is that because of lack of staff and materials (sheets, etc.), kids here lay in their urine for most of the day. Their diapers are basically cloths wrapped around and so they soak their sheets pretty frequently and no one changes them. You can only imagine what it smells like. Then every few hours, a mother screams hysterically in the wards since her child has died..a shrill, bone-chilling scream. Everyone still goes about their business as if they can't hear it. And it's interesting because I have never seen any parent or guardian cry, even when we tell them their child has HIV. They seem so stoic, but are so filled with emotions.

Today was spent with Eric again in the morning, where I did another spinal tap on a kid who had convulsions and still had altered mental status. Then the afternoon was spent running errands after eating a fabulous local Malawian meal of rice, beans, greens and chicken. yum.

Tomorrow, I am off to go to Nairobi again, then Amsterdam, and finally home by Friday. I hope this trip will be smoother than the last and that I will not be held up anywhere in particular.

By the way, I have to say, Malawians have the best names. These are my favorite:
Chisomo (Grace)
Chiwewe (Happy)
Blessings
Gift

I will post pics when I get to high-speed internet!

Zikomo (thank you) Malawi, it's been fun!

Viernes!

Boy, am I glad today is Friday!  Clinic was busy today and I had the biggest headache, and it seemed like every kid I touched was screaming in my ear.  But yes, a weekend to look forward to!

Tomorrow, we are heading to Lake Malawi, another 4 hour trip from Lilongwe.  It is a long weekend here, so we will be heading back on Monday.  Beach, books, grub, R n R.  Yey!

See y'all when I get back!

xoxo

kat

Sunsets (part II) and gloom

Here is the sunset I was promising you.

It was a gray-gloomy day when I took this picture, as Janell and I were on our way back to Lilongwe, towing her car behind us.

I am in the library working on my presentation (booo). I have taken an "admin" day today. It is a nice sunny day outside.  Today, we had a meeting, and Eric, on of the doc in the hospital wards updated us that the 2 children Chris and I admitted last Monday had died (including the child I did the spinal tap on).  In Eric's 1.5 weeks in the hospital, 9 children had died, and of those 7 were our HIV+ kids.  :(

I have a few great pictures of kids I saw in clinic, but I hesitate to post them here for privacy issues.  Thus, the kids you see here are kids not from clinic visits but rather from random places I go or of friends.

Sunsets

I think Africa has the best sunsets I have ever seen.  ** 

Zomba last week was really great.  I spent one day in the Zomba Central Hospital clinic and saw tons of kids with Kevin.  People were literally knocking down the door to the clinic room.  It was so busy, we were seeing 2 kids at the same time in the same room (sigh).  I met great families, and it never ceases to amaze me what great smiles these children have despite it all.  One kid I remember lost a shoe in a fight, and so wore one shoe only the rest of the day.  Another patient's brother came in neatly dressed, nice white shirt.  I looked down and saw that he only had one sock on, the other was his bare foot in his dress shoes.  People really try to dress up to see the doctor.  It's really heartwarming and makes me feel special.  The little girls put their best dresses on, and some look like flower girls in a wedding :)

Then Kevin and Janell had training on Saturday for nurses and clinicians and I was trying to help out while taking the training myself.  It was fun and I learned a lot.  I had a pretest score of 88% and post-test of 100%. go me! go me! (doing a little dance)

Saturday night I had a nice steak dinner in Balantyre and stayed with Janell.  We drove up Sunday, and broke down during our 4 hour drive back up to Lilongwe!  Thank goodness her mechanic drove past us 1/2 hour prior, so she called him and he towed us with a teensy rope in between (she has a large Land Rover and he had a small Toyota truck) up and downs hills 200 km. Needless to say it was a crazy trip and exhausting, but made for an adventure.

Clinic in Lilongwe has been good but busy as usual.  The kids are amazing and vibrant, and I feel lucky to be here seeing them.  Tonight, Janell and I are going to make pizza and she is trying to convince me to watch Juno with her.  Unfortunately, I have a journal club to present and prepare for.  Bah! bah!  Boooo!

** i will post pictures later as the internet is acting funny again

A canal and boy with his bike

I haven't uploaded photos here in Zombe, but here are a couple from the other places I've travelled:

A canal in Amsterdam.

A boy we met on the way to Mt. Bunda.  We asked him for directions.

Zomba

Hello from Zomba!

Kevin came in last night to Lilongwe, and we drove down 4 hours to Zomba in the southeast region of Malawi.  We had the best cheesecake and meal today in a town 1 hour south of Lilongwe.  I'll be here for about 4 days going to clinic and HIV training with Kevin, which is cool because it is less developed down here, and Kevin does more outreach.  

Here is a photo of the kids we met at Mt Bunda (not Mt Blount, like I had originally thought).  We met these kids at the village where we hiked.  They loved me taking pictures of them and then showing them on the little camera screen :)