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.