A givers gift

Every Wednesday a bunch of kids from 7 to 11 years old, are coming to a after-school program ran by the church I attend here in oslo. I’ve been a co-worker there for two years, and this fall i joined the leader-team. Most of these kids are muslims and we don’t do active evangelization, we simply show them that God loves them by giving them a place to be, dinner, a chance to get contact with adults, and we have different activities for them. It’s a really cool place to be, but it’s not like a quiet sewing circle where we tell fairytales to the kids. This is in the field, being Jesus’ soldiers! There is often fighting, shouting, the kids can almost do anything to get a little attention. It’s sad to see, but the ones that makes the most trouble, and we want to kick out, that’s the ones we need to sit down and talk with. But it’s not easy to get them talk..

We have many nice times too!! Times where there’s almost no fighting and the kids are just having a nice time. The sad part though, is that those times, are when the trouble-makers are absent.

Tonight I was so so blessed. This spring we had a competition at the club between the boys and the girls. If there were some boys doing nice things as helping out with stuff, and following rules they got one; . If they were doing things against the rules they got one; . And the same for the girls. Or they could get both. Then, at the end of the semester, we counted, and this time the girls had most ‘s. So their reward was a over-night party! While the girls were inside having fun, me and another leader made a bonfire out in the back yard and when we were ready they came out. We wanted to scare them a little, so when they came we pretended to be fighting and they were so scared:P But when we started to talk and they recognized our voices they dared to come over. We were ready to serve them pancakes! They were so suprised and asked over and over again why we were there and why we did this. It was so nice and truly a gift to see how happy they were!!

Home in Oslo, home at Vigra.

Again I had a Sunday where I arrived on Oslo airport. It’s a week since we came home from Malawi. It’s been good to be back, but I have to say, I miss Malawi. The weather, my butterflies, the relaxed days and Nkhata Bay and many other things! It’s boring to be in my small room by my self now…

I arrived in Oslo today again. I’ve been home for the weekend. Good to be with family and see some friends. As always, good to just be home. Not many news. Or, wait a minute. You know how people have a hobby, colleting stamps, taking photo, playing soccer. My dad collects old houses. And he has a new one on their compound now, a old storehouse on pillars. He has five smaller and bigger houses on the compound, one log cabin on a mountain and one summer-house close to the Swedish border. And there is still space for more at home!

Today Jakob turned 5 years old and tomorrow Ragna turns 19! So we celebrated with family today So nice!

When I left it was nice to see Vigra from the air, the snow looking like a white carpet. Now I’m ready for eight weeks of practical studies in a home for menthally ill elderly, in a ward for people with psychosis, personality disorder and suicidal thoughts. Will be exciting and challenging! That’s for sure! 

Syringes, market and kids

We’re in our last week here in Mzuzu and Malawi. As always, the time is not going fast, but running. It’s been a very interresting time, to see and be a part of the prevention-branch of the health-system here in Malawi. How they cope with the high numbers of HIV-positive, under-nurished and malnurished adults and kids, how they do home-based care and how they do the vaccination. One day at the HIV-clinic they asked: “Do you have HIV-clinics like this?”. They were kind of suprised when we said that we don’t know if we have any clinics that cares for HIV-positives only. It’s been interresting to see the role of the nurses here, how much more status they have here than in Norway.

Yesterday was check up-day for pregnant women. We took the blood pressure, weight and the nurse thought about diseases, with talking and singing together with the women.  I took blood samples from some of them.. They were tested for HIV, blood group and Hb, among other things. It was interresting to do it the Malawian way!

 

After lunch me and Åse went to Ministry of Hope, a home for about 12 children at 0-24 months old. Some doesn’t have a mother, and then they are counted as orphaned, even if they have a father. If so, they will stay there for some time before they will be braught back to the father. Or some has a mother, but she’s unable to take care of the baby. Anyway, we’re there just to hang out and play with these little cute ones:) So much fun and so cozy!!

Me and Brandina:)

In the afternoon I went to the big market in town together with Åse. It’s like a maze of small shops where you can get all kinds of things. It’s so interresting to walk in those narrow passages and just look at the swarm og people talking and shouting to each other. When entering the area where the food were, breathing could be challenging because of the bad smell from all the fish..

What about some beans?
 
Kasava flour
 
Fixing watches

It is kind of funny when we pass some locals on our way to town, we often pass them, because they walk so slow here, and we haer them laugh and speak, and in the middle we here they say “mzungu”, and we are not left with any doubt that they are talking about us. And I think I will miss the kids that are shouting, smiling and waving when we pass by.

The buses here is my favourite. I love sitting in one, a Toyota, packed with people. Where it’s always space for one or two more. And you think it’s not very nice to stare at people? They don’t in Malawi. And when they stare and we hear “mzungu” said many times… yepp, we know they are talking about us. But but, that’s life. The more exciting part is, will the door close? Can the conductor manage to get it back on it’s hinge? He better, he’s the one that sits halfway inside and halfway outside the car when it’s packed. Or when the speed is reaching neck-breaking hights and we are driving on the wrong side of the road, because that sometimes is the better part. The driver always manages to get back on the right side when there is a car coming. Also when he’s passing the car in front, and there is a car coming towards us…It’s no point in saying “hello, there is a car coming!!” So I do what I can do, pray.

This time in Africa I have had to make my own food, so it has not been very much african..But the group agreed that we wanted to try nsima, the same as pocho in Uganda, the white sticky maize-flour-thing one more time, so on Friday Precious got it from the students’ kitchen for supper and he thought us how to eat it with beans and vegetables with our hands. It was not as bad as I remembered it. But I still look forward to having an oven again so I can have some more variation in the dinner-way and things to put on the bread than we have had here. (At least I have the opportunity to vary)

One thing I won’t miss is the shouting in the halls and banging with the doors here where we live! 6 o’clock, or earlier, someone might sleep..doesn’t matter. If they want to shout, they shout. Will be nice to sleep in my bed and enjoy the silence!

This last Sunday we played volleyball with some of the boys. I’m glad we didn’t play Norways VS Malawi.. And it was ok that they didn’t keep score. But it was so much fun!! I hope we can do it one more time before we go home. 

But.. on Friday it’s off to Lilongwe..can’t believe it’s four weeks since we left it to go here. Wondering when my next trip to Africa will be.

Life and death

What a week this has been! Tuesday me and Liliane started in the mother and child clinic. They have a very good follow-up program for expecting mothers, new-borns and upto the kids are 5 years old. This includesn vaccination, nutrition, vital signs at the expecting mothers and extra follow-up if the baby is sick. Already on Wednesday I gave new-born babies BCG vaccine and the older kids I gave DPT. BCG is kind of hard, it should be given just right underneath the skin, and that is not easy when the baby is crying and being uneasy. But I made it on most of times:) The DPT is just intramuscular into the leg, easy.

Today has been different. If there were any medically things I feared seeing, I was pretty much cured today. Four expecting mothers were scheduled for C-section (keisersnitt) and me, Liliane and Tiril were there to watch! Don’t read further if you are a sensitive person.. the rest of this blog might be a little too much for you.

The first two got spinal anesthesia, which means that they were conscious, but couldn’t feel anything from the chest and down (or something, don’t remember how far up this kind of anesthetisa goes). The doctors and the nurses were really good, made a nice vertically cut through the abdomen into the uterus where he made a small horisontal cut. And suddenly the baby is out! Crying, breathing and kicking. The most exciting part was maybe the seconds from the baby was out to we heard a sound our could see him kick.

Baby number two, a boy, came out fine, but had water in his lounges, so the nurse had to put a tube in and absorb the fluid so he could breath proper. When his brother came we could all see that there was something wrong. He didn’t cry, didn’t kick. The doctor didn’t find any pulse, and he was declared dead. He was cleaned and wrapped into a blanket and put aside his brother.

The third patient chose not to get spinal anesthesia, so she was put into full narcosis and intubation. It was so strange to see how the body lost all it’s strenght..Especially when they were finished and she was moved over from the operation table to a bed. When she was opened up there came lots and lots of water out, and the baby, a girl with a lot of hair, was crying when she came out. A good sound.

It’s amazing how the doctor can just open up, take something out and do their thing, stitch it together again, put it back into the womb and sew the skin together. Everything done in about 30 minutes!

It’s been a day with a lot of impressions. And I’m left with many “why”s on life and death.