2 Fun Weekends in Malawi

While the challenges of here life are never-ending, I always manage to carve out some memorable weekends. Since a picture is worth a thousand words, I'll let them do most of the talking...

Two weekends ago, I was a "tourist" in Lilongwe. My friend Emma came into town and we took a tour of the nearby Wildlife Nature Sanctuary. It was surprisingly beautiful and a lot of fun! (And I think our tour guide secretly liked us...) 

This is how our tour started (the guide slammed a gun - yes it's
real - on the table)...

They are being serious.

A hyenas' den. Thank goodness they were fast asleep!

Blood wood tree. It has medicinal value, and really looked like blood! 

We kind of saw a crocodile swimming here!

The beauties of nature.

Me and Emma on a huge rock!
(Does anyone know which type of rock it may be?)

A really cool seed.

Our tour guide really liked us.

I learned that a fig tree is a parasite!

Bamboo in Malawi

Loved the birds nests (right side).

That weekend, I also attended my first Malawian wedding (and I actually knew the bride)! We went for the reception, which we thought would start around 12 pm (so we showed up 30 minutes after). Instead, we were the first ones there! Lesson learned! The receptions here aren't like in the U.S. or even other African countries I've been to, where there's lots of food, dancing, and sometimes drinking. Instead, it's almost more like a show where we're part of the audience, and we get up frequently to dance and donate. Sometimes they provide a snack like a piece of chicken or a donut, but you should definitely come with a full stomach and a full wallet!

My friends (Eric and Emma) and I are the first guests to arrive.
And they told us 10 am...

Here comes the bride...

Bridal party.

Me and Emma. They moved us to the front row on account of
our tall azungu friend. 

The bridal/groom party dance to some Naija tunes!

The bride, Aggie, gets down with her new hubby!

It's not a wedding reception if you don't get up, dance, and give
money...several times...(The secret, I'm told, is to carry small bills).

They asked people from the groom's side to give a special
donation. 

The beautiful bride!!

They asked people from the bride's side to give a special
donation, which I did (left). 

The receptions here are more like a show (with lots of donations!).

Groom and Bride.

More dancing and "making it rain."

This past weekend was Malawi's Mother's Day Weekend, which is actually a national holiday here! With the long weekend, I decided to have one good night out at Harry's before joining some friends on the gorgeous lakeside in Cape Maclear. We spent the first day lounging around by the lake, and I attempted to use the traditional canoe (only fell in once!). We went on a boat ride to an island, bought fresh fish from a fisherman while on the water, and had the most delicious grilled chambo I've had in a long time! And, although travel wouldn't be complete without a few hiccups, we had great tunes, great company, and great fun! This was one of the best weekend's here, and definitely the most breathtaking!

Gecko Lodge, Cape Maclear

Ready to go swimming!

Our attempt to canoe. Our boat was a little off balance so I
gave my inner thighs a good workout while Renee used the
only one-sided paddle we were given to propel us.

My friends Joyce and Renee lounging on the beach.

Gecko.

Sunset. Look at those kids showing us up on the canoe...

It was a good night. 

We visited the island on our boat ride.

A Week (or 3) in the Life of Field Work

The challenge – or perhaps the beauty – of working “in the field” is that no two days are like. Some days are filled with activity, as we travel around to different to different health facilities to interact with community health workers at the site level. Some days are, well, uneventful (unless you count all the social media that I’m able to catch up on). The last few weeks have been no exception.

Two weeks ago, I assisted with a community health worker (CHW) training for 25 new CHWs. Although my Chichewa is still lagging, I was able to supervise the monitoring and evaluation components of the training. One workshop that proved challenging for many of the CHWs was the transfer of information from a case study into the logbooks that data is to be recorded in. This activity is crucial because it will impact the quality of information collected and later used to measure programmatic success.

Last week, I attended Malawi’s 2010/2011 National AIDS Commission (NAC) Annual Review Meeting, which was an enlightening two day conference on Malawi’s national HIV achievements and challenges. Through this interaction, I learned so much about Malawi’s national HIV/AIDS strategy from the major players themselves. I met several interesting individuals involved in the fight against HIV, from NAC officials to consultants, human rights specialists to public health professionals, doctors and business people alike. Having worked with Senegal’s National AIDS agency a few years ago, it was interesting to gain a first-hand perspective of another country’s national response to HIV.

NAC Meeting Day 1

NAC Meeting Display

A skit is performed by a local theatre troop, describing the importance of multisectoral collaboration (a not-so-discrete message to leaders)

Minister of Information Patricia Kaliati receives a donated Land Rover from NAC to use in community HIV sensitization campaign

This week’s excitement involved one day in the field, where I visited three different health facilities to observe and evaluate current data collection and quality. One site had superb data in all six tools that we evaluated; another site revealed a need for more constant supervision and support. CHWs also expressed different challenges they faced, including partnership with the health facility, client volume, and HIV test kit and drug shortages (two serious problems in the response to HIV in Malawi).

The other challenge – or beauty – of this line of work is that schedules are often unpredictable. My attempts over the last 19 years of school to follow a schedule have been put aside, as instead I aspire to learn the art of patience and flexibility. One has to be prepared to attend a meeting with 10 minutes notice, or to spend three days waiting to hear what task is next. I'm not sure what's planned for next week, but it is sure to be another adventure.


Also posted at: http://scoutbanana.org/health-in-africa/from-the-field-a-week-in-the-life/

Lake of Stars: "This is Africa" - Part 2

Although the amazing festival and beautiful lake made for an exciting weekend, the most exciting part was our failed attempt to return to Lilongwe on Sunday morning. While the two other Lilongwe residents intelligently left at the crack of dawn, the rest of us attempted to soak in as much sun and fun as possible, hoping to fill up on positive vibes until the next reunion. So around 11:30 am, as we attempted to depart, the fun – and the reminder of what it means to say T.I.A.: “this is Africa” began…

After checking out of our lodge, we rode to the festival site in the back of our friends’ pickup truck one last time, thinking this would get a quick transfer to the bus station from there. The “quick” transfer translated to a bicycle taxi (manual, not motor) to the main road – encouraged by our friend Dezio – and an one hour ride we hitched in the back of a pick-up truck with 17 Malawians (one of whom essentially straddled me the entire trip), two canisters of fuel, and a rope strung with several fish.

Once we arrived in Mangochi boma, we were guided to the bus stop where expected to easily catch a coach bus to Lilongwe. Two hours later, there was only one minibus whose destination was Liwonde, a town one hour south of Mangochi (and in the opposite direction we were intending to travel). Time was ticking, the sun was waning, and we had no hope of getting to Lilongwe. I desperately tried calling co-workers and my few friends here, and the suggestion was what Leah and I had deduced from our travel guidebook: to give up going to work on Monday and stay the night in Liwonde, home to hippos and lots of wildlife. We agreed we’d salvage the day and make our extended trip into a mini-vacation; the catch was just getting there.

As the two-and-a-half hour mark came around, the bus continued waiting for more passengers. So when our friends, who’d spent the whole day enjoying the festival and the lake, offered us a ride to Liwonde, we decided to take that. We attempted to get our money back from the bus driver, which was an epic failure! The driver couldn’t understand me at first, and then gave me a resounding “no refund” when he did understand, proceeding to raise his voice enough to get the attention of other drivers at the almost abandoned bus station. Two drivers began heckling me (to which I started yelling obscenities and telling them not to touch me), and when Leah tried to descend from the bus, they wouldn’t let her. One grabbed her hand and tried to close the minibus door on her, which resulted in her punching him, and the driver proceeded to enter the driver’s seat and try to drive off. And in the midst of our yelling, I realized that Leah’s bag was in the trunk. My tone completely switched to those congregating around the bus – “please, sir, just help us get her bag” – and thankfully, someone unlocked the trunk so we could grab it before the driver recklessly drove off. We walked as quickly and purposefully as we could to the main road, attempting to hitch a ride to Lilongwe but eventually settling for our free ride to Liwonde with our friends.

And although this would have been a nice end to the adventure, our arrival in Liwonde kept the sense of adventure alive. We decided to splurge for the only hotel whose listed number was in order, a spread known for its view of hippos with its cheapest rooms at US$80 per night (a huge jump from the typical $20 accommodation and a substantial portion of our monthly stipends). But when we saw how dumpty the least expensive rooms were, all we could is laugh. We decided to pay a little more for an upgrade, but the $90 room was covered in cockroaches and ants. We decided to enjoy a yummy Indian dinner at the hotel before heading to a nearby bed and breakfast, where we ended our long day on the riverside drinking Carlsberg and listening to the hippos snoring before retiring to our single twin bed.

The next morning, we hoped to finish our journey with as little adventure as possible, but as luck would have it, the “T.I.A.” weekend was not complete! We enjoyed breakfast on the riverside while watching hippos before attempting our journey back. After 10 minutes, we caught what we were told was the only coach bus to Lilongwe for the morning, along with the 80 or so people already on the bus (half of which were standing in the aisle). We set our backpacks on the floor, created makeshift seats, and tried to ignore the few cockroaches that scuttled by. There was a kind woman who adopted us throughout the journey, ensuring that newcomers didn’t steal our standing space. And eventually, I was promoted from sitting on my backpack sitting on a fuel canister for the remainder of trip.

The day – and the Lake of Stars extended weekend – ended with a fantastic lunch of nsima and beef stew, some fun discussions with the Rastas selling curious in town, an important purchase of Prozyquantil (to treat the Schisto worms I could have contracted from swimming), and – of course – a burger and free beer from, you guessed it, Harry’s bar! All-in-all, it was the best weekend in Malawi thus far. Indeed, “this is Africa.”

Lake of Stars: "This is Africa" - Part 1

There’s a saying that some genius invented to descrie the “African experience,” to make sense of the extended effort it takes to accomplish what we once thought were “the simple things” in life, to replace the frustration and disappointment we may normally feel during our time here with laughter and understanding…"This is Africa."

I’ve never been a big fan of the saying – in fact, I remember chastising some fellow travelers who used the phrase to explain our almost life-threatening vehicle accident in Kenya last year – but this past weekend is best described by those three words.

The weekend started on Thursday when Leah, a friend of mine, flew in from Burundi. We had a wonderful dinner with a handful of friends, enjoying the best bacon cheese burgers that Malawi has to offer. Everything went according to plan, and so we thought it was only smooth sailing ahead…

Dinner at my favorite burger joint

Vegas? Nope, it's Lilongwe!

But Friday was the beginning of our real adventure: the first day of Lake of Stars. In true “diva” fashion, our group of six joined nine others on what was advertised as the “Booze Bus” (and later the “Star Bus”) to journey to the annual Malawi-based international music festival of more than 75 acts from around the world. For 4000 Malawian kwacha (a whopping US$25, three times the cost of public transportation), we had a private transportation direct to the lake with

• “all you can drink booze” (translation: two boiling hot beers and two crates of tonic water that we weren't allowed to drink that took up the space of at least one person)
• “music to listen to” (translation: you better like the six songs we play on repeat for the duration of the four hours)
• “snacks to eat” (translation: a bag of potato chips and a, for the lucky few, a bag of yummy Malawi nuts)
• “seats to sit on” (translation: we did not say “all the seats you can sit on” and so expect quality bonding with your neighbors as you sit on top of one another with your legs at awkward angles)

After an unauthorized fuel stop and a few trips to the bathroom on the side of the road, we eventually made it to our lodge on the lakeside and enjoyed an evening of great company and amazing music, especially the beats of the killer group “The Very Best.”

The "Star Bus" sign (which they taped to the
outside of the vehicle for the four hour journey)

Me and Leah

Booze for the "Booze Bus"

Me, Leah, and Jenn

Fuel stop

Best picture ever! (i.e., traffic police hard at work next to a sign
for Malawi's beer)

Early Saturday morning we went swimming in the beautiful Lake Malawi, enjoying the most picturesque views of the country I’ve seen. We watched a few friends perform at the festival before returning to the lodge to lounge around and swim some more. 

Our lodge for the weekend

Lake Malawi

Happiness!

God Bless America...

From the Boadzulu Beach

The nine of us sang danced along to tunes like J Boog’s “Let's Do It Again” (a new favorite) and enjoyed two yummy cartons of the local Chibuku. We spent most of the night at the music festival loving the tunes of Namibian artist Shishani, Malwaian ladies’ man Maskal, South Africa’s Freshly Ground, and the controversial tunes of musician-turned-politician Lucious Banda.

You know it!

Good times on the way to the show.

In the back of the pick-up

The beachfront festival venue

I know the drummer! 

Chillin...

And this amazing spoken word artist

Ice cream!! 

Me, Emma, and Leah at the festival

Trying to work my way toward the front...

The Very Best

Maskal

Freshly Ground

Overall, the experience – colored with great company and plenty of adventures (including a stolen bag, phone, and “undercover police scam”) that just couldn't have happened in the same way back in the U.S.– was an amazing reminder of how amazing being in “Africa” can be.