So I have settled in at Mwaya Beach and have found some sort of schedule. Having a full work schedule makes this girl very happy! Monday and Wednesday I am able to go to Chintheche Hospital where I can assist with ward rounds, admitting patients, and whatever else the nurses need help doing. They already know I am a peds nurse and seem pretty pleased about it. When they asked if I could put an IV in a two year old you better believe I said yes! It is nice to use and practice my skills again. What is not nice is putting IVs in people, with dark skin and in a dark room. I think I may be a pro by the time I return home. Fridays are usually the under five clinic, this is where we weigh the kids and do their immunizations. I like this clinic because it is busy and I feel like it accomplishes a lot. Sometimes it is too busy and things get slightly out of hand. Lots of pushing and shoving and lots of me telling everyone to back up and hold on. Tuesdays and Thursdays I have devoted to working on a community project with Mike. We are trying to go into the community to assess their needs, we are doing a survey where we ask about malaria, water, toilets, food, sexual health, and basic medical questions. The survey has given us a lot of insight to needs already and we have only surveyed five people. We have learned that mosquito nets are not easily available, they are good at purifying water, they know where to get birth control and are aware that condoms and abstinence are the only ways to prevent HIV, they do not have a large variety of food and many do not have enough food, and they think putting eggs and urinating on a wound is basic first aid. So we will continue the survey and then develop a plan of action. I am loving this project, I love being in the communities and talking to people. I feel like this is why I came to Africa. Hopefully we can get a good plan going so I can keep it up when Mike leaves in a few months.
In this past month I have been exposed to a few things that made me realize just how good we have it. Yes I knew the birthing conditions would not be ideal here. A woman lying on a trash bag, in a rusty bed, no pain medication, and no real support from the nurses was not shocking to me. What shocked me was that even her family was not with her. She had one guardian that was there to bring food when needed, but that was it. The fathers do not come because according to the nurse, "They do not like seeing their wives in labor. They will not love them after they see them that way." My response was, "I do not think women really enjoy being in labor either. And men at home still have sex with their wives after seeing them give birth, maybe it would help birthrates here go down." The nurses just laughed. I also said that I felt bad for her because it must be scary, they also thought that was funny. I pointed out that especially in Malawi many things can and do go wrong during childbirth and then the mother has to worry about how to afford to feed another child. I learned that they do not allow other people into the labor room because they believe it will bring bad luck to the birth. So it is the norm for women to deliver completely alone with no support. These women of course do not complain, I did not even hear them moan with labor pains. Because of this I assumed they were not very far along. Both women looked like they were sleeping. I really wanted to watch one of the women give birth but I figured I should go do the ward rounds and then come back. Of course one of the women just popped a baby out the moment I looked away. So I sat and waited for about three more hours. Of course no baby. I figured I should at sometime be able to see one of the many babies born every day!
I am also consistently amazed with the children. They are responsible for so many things here, collection of water, taking their siblings to get their parasite treatment, and so much more. These children also sit all day in a bus with much more patience than I have. They never complain and they work hard to help their families at a very young age. I constantly see small children walking alone with no adult, at first I would always think, "Who is watching them?" Now it just seems normal.
I have decided to go on a trip with Mike and his friend who is coming from England. We are renting a car and driving through Zambia, Namibia, and Botswana. This trip is off to a rather rocky start. First we went to Mzuzu on Friday to use the internet to do some planning. Turns out James is arriving from England six days sooner than we had thought, so yes, we had nothing planned. We went back to Mwaya on Sunday and packed and then left early on Monday morning. The trip up here was just a shit show. We found out after waiting for three hours that the big buses were broken down, so we hopped on a minibus. Oh the lovely minibus. After six minibuses and about 10 hours later we finally made it to Lilongwe. One of the most exciting times of the trip was a moment when our bus door suddenly fell off as we were trying to pull away. They managed to fix it by beating some of the parts with a rock and who knows what the hell else they did. Well apparently I missed some even that occurred during the door repair because we took off fast and then were trying to run another truck full of people off of the road. The other truck stopped, the driver grabbed a metal rod from behind his seat and came running at our driver. I honestly was never even afraid. The only part that made me nervous was the children that kept jumping in and out of the back when I was afraid the truck was going to take off. I have noticed the men here are much more talk than action. If they ever do get angry they are just usually drunk and yelling, nobody ever follows through with their threats. And there are no guns here, so when I saw the man reaching for something behind his seat I was just curious at to what he would get as his weapon. We eventually just took off very fast, which made me happy, I was just ready to start going again! With every bus change I got more annoyed. I started yelling to make sure all of my bags were shoved onto the bus somewhere and a man made an announcement to the whole bus about me that made everyone laugh. All it did was piss me off. I have realized traveling and not comfortable traveling turns me into a complete bitch. I am glad the harassment is not common or constant around Ripple, I think I would loose my mind or just start beating men with a metal rod. I would not even yell at them, I would just start swinging.
I am hoping the rest of this trip goes much better than the journey here! We have some amazing plans. Tomorrow we are going to a national park and then a couple of days later going to Victoria Falls. Of course I am most excited about seeing some animals! Last night I got a bit too excited when we saw a hedgehog, Mike says when you see a lion you will no longer give a shit about that thing. But I still think it is exciting that hedgehogs live in the wild here! They are so cute.
