Mary in Malawi

Ok! Where to start... =) Ok, lets go backwards..

Today (sunday)

Farewell party for Jan and Trudy at their home.

Saturday:

I can tell you one thing.. If there is one thing I hate more than anything in this world, it is the minibuses in Malawi. I hate them, even more than I ahte the witch doctors.. (or maybe not more... I think witch doctors, minibuses and spiders are sharing my number one hate award...). Yesterday, I woke up with this aching urge for chocolate!! I have not had THAT severe need for chocolate in years, but now it was just.. suicidal! (do I have to tell you what part of the month it is...?).. anyway, I decided to take a trip to Lilongwe. By minibus. Off course, as always with minibuses, you just have to be prepared for anything. No time schedules, over full busses, Goats in your lap, children screaming, crying, peeing, shitting.. drunk people, sick people, incredible delays, fuel shortage, car collapse, doors falling of, people hanging on the outside of the bus while driving... well, pretty much anything. I have gotten used to it, so that is ok. BUT NOT ALL OF IT AT THE SAME TIME!!!!! The drive to lilongwe usually takes around 50 minutes. This day, it took.. TADA! 3 HOURS. Yepp. In the middle of nowhere, the driver realised we had no fuel. dirver walked away. Waited for 20 minutes. Then we all went out of the bus and caught another one. Moved everything over and left. We never saw "our" driver again. In the bus, maybe it is supposed to take 12 people, we were around.. 25. whereof some were children (yep, peeing, screaming etc etc..)Plus 5 goats. Plus 3 chickens. Goats were screaming (cause people were sitting on them) the chickens were screaming and shitting everywhere. AND off course all the luggage. Horrible. The door was hardly attached to the car, so one guy had to hold on to it the whole way. Radio on MAX volume on old, broken speakers. Horrible, horrible horrible!!!! Warm, sweaty, tired, uncomfortable (do I have to tell you that the seats were only consisting of metal with no support for the back...?) GAA. Well. I got to lilongwe. Stayed there for 45 minutes

(ATM -->SHOPRITE (CHOCOLATE) -->back to busstation). The last busses back to nkhoma leave lilongwe arounf 4 pm. And I reached Lilongwe at 3 pm. Soo it was a shit. But luckily, I found my taxi driving friend, who offered to take me all the way back to Nkhoma in his c ar, in exchange for a small fee and a chicken I acutally happend to have in my garden at home (a patient gave it to me as a gift the same morning). He was happy, I was happy. Then i crashed in the sofa for the rest of the night.

Friday

Went to Dedza pottery. By minibus (woohoo!!!!). I had a lot of pottery I couldnt fit in my bag, so I decided to take it back to the shop and ship it home. It was very affordable. 10 kgs of pottery shipped all the way from malawi to sweden for 500 SEK. (Ca 50 euro).  So I had my last dedza cheesecake. The best cheesecake in the wntire world. Oh my god I will miss it... But during my divine, holy, "last-dedza-cheesecake-moment", a guy came up to me. He had heard me telling someone that I was a nurse, and he asked me if he could show me something. Against better knowledge I said yes (out of un-cureable curiosity). He took off his shoe, and his sock, and liftet to my face an infected toe full of puss. "What can i do woth this??" he asked me. The smell was petrifying.. I tried to look at the foot, chew and swallow my cheesecake and holding my breath at the same time.. Not very sucessful. Anyway, I told the guy a name of an antibiotic ointment he should buy at the pharmacy, and I quickly escaped. well... I guess it was in a way a good thing. It made my "last-dedza-cheesecake-moment" very.. Memorable.

Thursday

THE OFFICIAL GOODBYE PARTY FOR ME AND LINK! And also for Jennifer, Jan and Trudy who is leaving next week aswell. It was so beautiful, and very hard to realize that it was about us.. The whole hospital staff was there, clinicians, nurses, patient attendents, receptionists, cleaners, maintanance workers..... everyone!
And Mr Ter Haar held a speach, the general secretary held several speeches to each one of us.. I held a speach in chichewa! Big success!! =) The ward attendents were dancing, the men were drumming, we got presents.. And everyone was given food, beef stew with rice. We all sat together, watched the dances and ate with our hands (you always do that here. It is considered good behavior). It was both happy and sad, but honestly, most of all I am happy. I WANT TO GO HOME!!

=D=D=D


The ladies who cleans the hospital, sing and dance.
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Women dancing, men drumming.

Speach!! Speach, Bilbo, SPEACH!!! (...)


Me, Link, and the hospital chaplain.

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TODAY it is the 3:rd of APRIL and only 11 days to go!!!! YEEEHAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I watched the terminal this morning, you know the Steven Spielberg movie with Tom Hanks... And I absolutely LOVED watching the airport!! Im longing until I am at amsterdam Airport, Schiphol... Ooo!!! I wanna go Hooooome!!!

Oh, and two new things i will MISS when going home: Guava (fresh from a tree in our garden. Sooo yummie!!) and aloe vera. We have a big bush in our garden, just to go out, cut some leaves of and smeer the fluids into your face. Perfect, heals everything!! Does wonders to your skin.