The Koala Underground

The last days and home

2008-03-07T15:16:00.001-08:00

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

2008-03-05T07:50:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-02-29T12:34:00.001-08:00

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

2008-02-27T01:40:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-26T07:33:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-22T06:37:00.000-08:00

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

2008-02-20T09:20:00.001-08:00

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 :)

First day

2008-02-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day in clinic. I shadowed Chris, but things I witnessed were pretty crazy:

1. The first kid we saw, did NOT pass the eyeball test. This poor 13 month old girl looked like she was a skinny 4 month old at best. She was having fevers and altered mental status. If i had seen her in the states, she would need a very sterile spinal tap and picu admission. Here, we cleaned her off with alcohol and used a regular non-stylet needle. I did my very first tap on the very first patient I saw. She was so sick, she didn't even flinch when I did the tap. I dont know if she is going to make it. Crazy.

2. I was touched by this grandpa who took his grandson to clinic at least 3 times in the last week because a doc had asked him back. He had lost his slipper sometime last week, so he went walking around with one right slipper the last few times he was in clinic. Even so, he was gracious, kind, soft-spoken, and you could tell he did everything he could for his grandbaby. He rode his bicycle to and fro clinic 2 hours each was with his grandbaby on his back. I have not been able to stop thinking about it. It was really beautiful.

3. The kids were so tiny. I saw a 6 month old boy who was severely malnourished and weighed less than most of the kids weigh when they are born in the US.

4. We saw about 10-12 kids today. Each one left me in awe. And I found the mothers to be so amazing. Malawian women do so much for their families.

Here is a pic of me and Chris with a bunch of people from the mountain yesterday. We had to hide out in their hut for a bit since it was raining so hard. P.S. That's Chris making a face while "jowling."

Mountain and maize

2008-02-17T08:02:00.000-08:00

So much for my photoblog galore...the internet here is nice (wireless), though too slow to upload photos for y'all. Too bad. I have some fantastic ones to share with you already. Here is one of the giraffes in Nairobi National Park.

Anywho, I am here in Lilongwe! Just got back from a "hike" at Mt. Blount (somehow that doesnt sound right, since it rhymes). I'm pooped. I'll write a longer post later. Off to dinner....pasta....mmmmmm.

Zebras, giraffes, and the Stanley

2008-02-15T07:42:00.000-08:00

Today is my last day here, in Nairobi. In a way it is a blessing, since I get to see what Kenya is really like. And on top of that, Kenya Airlines has put me up in a swanky 5 star hotel, the Sarova Stanley . It's been a bit of ups and downs though. I am hanging out with the 4 Swedish people I met at the airport. Two are teachers in Sweden and the other 2 are their students. They are doing a project at a school near Lake Malawi where they are teaching some school children. Another guy we are hanging with is from the Netherlands. He does some tourism stuff back home and is simply on holiday, to backpack with his buddies northward.

Anyway, Kenya, as you know, is known nowadays for the civil violence due to political reasons. Because of that, I was super scared when I first got here, especially since I am alone in a country that is utterly, completely foreign to me. I am happy to report that the people I have met have been nothing but kind and gentle. In fact, people have come up to me in the streets and said "See? This is a peaceful city."

Today, we went on a safari just 20 mins from the center of the city, where we're staying. Nairobi National Park. We saw super zebras, giraffes, crocodiles (or is it alligators? i can't tell). I will post pictures of these when i reach Lilongwe. Afterwards, it was a nap by the pool, followed by lunch and a trek around the town.

The city center is bustling, busy, crowded, and polluted. Reminded me much of Manila. People warned me of the "street boys," i guess another name for pick-pocketers. We walked around and I was with the only white people I saw during my 2.5 hour walk, let alone I was the only asian person around. We went to the site of the former US embassy, which was bombed back on 1998. Pretty scary and sad. That's when my nerves got to me again and I thought it better to leave the little video they were showing before I became super freaked out. Then we went to the tallest building in the city, 27 stories up and had a bird's eye view. It was beautiful.

Then I get home to watch CNN and about all the horror stories and violence here (*sigh*). Glad not to have experienced any of it.

So it's been a whirlwind so far, and I've only been gone for 3 days! Will update more soon.

Miss you all terribly!

Happy Valentine's day from Kenya

2008-02-14T05:10:00.000-08:00

So I am here in Nairobi. Until Saturday! It's a long story, and since I am using the business center at the (very classy) Sarova Stanley Hotel, I will keep it short for now and write more later!

It's been a long journey already and I only started 2 days ago. I saw Amsterdam, and today, I missed my flight from Kenya to Malawi. I nearly lost it. But I got to call mom, Brando, and Chris Buck and hearing those nice voices helped me to fight back the tears of hearing that I will be here for 2 nights since there are no open flights for tomorrow! I did get to meet 4 nice Swedes who are in the same predicament as me, and I am going along lunching and walking around with them. I will write more later. Miss you guys.

Tired and smelly,
kat

The day before

2008-02-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

Today, I am post-call from a brutal PICU night. I have been running around (slowly! ha!) getting last minute things done. Tomorrow I will be off! 1st stop will be to Amsterdam and then to Kenya, and finally Malawi. It's going to be a long trip--arriving in Lilongwe on Valentine's day! Off to fold laundry...i'm off! Here is the image I shall leave you with (B. just called and wants me to hurry and fold the laundry).

Going

2008-02-09T17:05:00.000-08:00

Hi there.

Here is my new blog.

It smells so fresh and so clean!

Today is my last day off before i head out to Malawi on tuesday. Spent the day packing, going to get music and last minute things with brandon and colin.

I have to admit that i am quite nervous. Excited, but nervous.

Hopefully, I will be able to update from there often. I know I'll only be gone for a bit, but I will miss you guys awfully!

Here's to new adventures!!!!!!!! (Isn't that a pretty swan?)