Fuel!

I can’t believe how time is flying now! And along with that the slight anxiety level that the building work has barely started on the OPD. You may’ve heard of the fuel crisis we’ve been having in Malawi and the planned protests following on from the political unrest in North Africa. Well I had to wait about a month for any fuel to fill the truck in order to collect the materials and as soon as we managed to get the fuel the truck then disappeared down to Lilongwe on a ‘personal’ trip. However eventually the bricks arrived and at last the walls are up but each day I am having to check on the progress and I am getting grey hairs from speaking initially gently and now more forcibly ‘to get the h*ll on with it!’  ‘how hard can it be to do the job that you are being paid for?!’ More and more I am understanding the frustrations of this country.

We are also beginning to despair of the electricity company who decided to spend 2 days doing some renovations on the lines, but of course didn’t think it was sensible to inform the hospital first. We have a generator for when there are power cuts but it uses 25L of diesel for only 1 hour of power. So you can imagine the cost of running it, coupled with the fact that there is a fuel crisis - it wasn’t surprising that the generator ran out of fuel. We had no power in the hospital for 24 hours which meant no instruments being sterilised, no ventilator in theatre – an acute bowel obstruction had to be sent to another hospital, no oxygen for the little children, one died last week because of it, no lights (working by candle light at night), no laboratory tests – there were 2 meningitis suspects who we couldn’t do LP’s on, and no clean sheets as the washing machine was not working, no Xrays. And if there is no fuel then that means the vehicles don't run either so we can't transfer the patients or collect them from rural hospitals- a woman ruptured her uterus and had a still born baby after waiting more than 4 hours for a vehicle to then be told there wasn't one and spending 2 months earnings on a private car. 

On a slightly less serious note, all my meat defrosted so I had to have a bit of a meat feast and my beans that I spent ages soaking, bagging and freezing to save time in the future defrosted as well.  Unfortunately I then forgot they had defrosted and it took me some time to discover that they were the source of an awful smell emanating through the whole house!

Power cuts do give me a bit of fire lighting practise though which, I like to think I’m getting rather good at. But unfortunately after 2 boxes of matches, almost passing out from ‘providing the fire with oxygen’ and a very hungry belly I let my watchman assist me to light the baula (stove) and had a very nice curry.

Sad news for the courgette and cucumber patches- they got some kind of disease- the leaves went white and the vegetables went soggy so I’ve had to destroy them and start again. But the lettuce, rocket and coriander is doing really well. I never knew that lettuce grew upwards and almost looks like trees! Weird. I’ve also got green beans now and the peppers and tomatoes are coming through too.

My house has become dirty. This is directly related to the fact that my then heavily pregnant cleaner has now popped and is holding a baby to her breast. She only wants 1 week off work however! I’m not complaining as it’s been so long since I’ve held the mop that I’ve almost forgotten how, and I wonder how many times I can wear the same underwear?

There is a distinct lack of stairs in Rumphi and as I only have to walk 5 minutes to get to my place of work I am becoming very unfit and lazy. So I’ve been on some long exploratory walks aiming for the hills and each time the people who I meet ask the same questions ‘where are you walking?’ and ‘why are you walking?’ It seems absurd to them that I should just be going for a stroll and to climb a hill with no real purpose other than to be alone with my thoughts and to get fit. They work hard all day if not in their regular jobs then farming their maize, so why would they need to do more exercise? But it was great walking - I met lots of children; children playing in dirt, children farming in the fields, children selling tomatoes, children getting water from a saturated river bed and children just following me- at one point I felt like the pied piper!

We had another clinical meeting this weekend and despite the usual issues- lack of attendance, lack of  human resource, lack of houses, an argument about rosters where everyone was talking at cross purposes - it felt good that at least we were talking about issues and actually had a meeting 3 months since the last one, unlike the 2 year gap previously. Other important issues were discussed such as the importance that the person on night call attended the meetings in the morning to give a handover and that everyone should be on time. So first morning report for duties on the following Monday - was anyone on time? No, were all the clinicians there? No, was the night clinician there to hand over? No. Hum. We can but hope.

I’ve been doing my fair share of greenie (Carlsberg) and Malawi gin drinking too. A couple of the volunteers had a leaving party at the lake and I got to see Imogen and Dharini, 2 volunteers who started with me and are based way up north in Chitipa, so it would have been rude to have abstained. And this weekend Nick, the first person I met as I went into the departure lounge at Heathrow, came up to visit so of course I had to show him the late night haunts of Rumphi.

Well that’s all from Rumphi for now. Hope everyone is well and that you are safe from all the awful things that are happening in the world at the moment - natural disasters, protests and wars.

Love to all

xxx