Lilongwe and a bout of [unrelated] malaria

Slight delay on the event as against the observational reporting, and am afraid not such untarnished fun.

Saturday 20th April we went to Lilongwe in Malawi for the day.

Malawi is in some respects similar to Zambia (lots of chitengis) but otherwise very visibly wealthier. Many of the roads in Zambia are atrocious and up to the border while it's OK (for Zambia) it is still a bouncy unmetalled road. The other side of the border it's tarmac all the way. Malawi is big on tobacco-growing and we saw the leaves drying on poles under thatched roofs with open sides. We passed the village from whence Madonna adopted her son- looked quite prosperous, on the main road close to the border, and certainly by Zambian standards. I have been told that the people in the eastern Province had a vote back in the 1920s as to whether they wanted to become part of Malawi, using the River Luangwa as the natural boundary- when you compare the 2 countries, I think many would rather be in Malawi today. We stopped at a small shopping neighbourhood shopping area on the way to get Malawian kwacha out of the ATM (only 270 to the pound, not 7,400). The shops were stocked to Western (probably South African, though have never been there) standards, and there was a proper cafe, where we had a civilised drink out in the sunshine. Heaven! Lilongwe's a bustling city, much bigger than Chipata but smaller than Lusaka. Couldn't claim by any stretch of the imagination to have explored it fully, but what I saw I definitely liked. We went round the fixed craft market; as the only misungus in sight we were pretty swarmed around to see each stall, but they were all pretty similar, and once you've seen one tribal mask, set of bangles and pictures of the 'big 5', think that's enough. We also went to the Indian household area and I bought a can opener (there isn't one in the convent so have been relying on my swiss army knife), but which turned out to be the most useless piece of manufactured metal created. Would be good to spend some more time there- apparently you can go round the old tobacco trading rooms which sounds quite interesting.

On the way back we had a mildly unpleasant experience coming back through the border at immigration, resulting in a whole pile of stamps in my passport and the conversion of many kwachas into US dollars which were taken and then returned to us. Will save the whole story for when I return, but suffice to say will be providing a certain amount of feedback as to the quality of our visa arrangements by various offices.

Anyway, it appears that my body has decided to go for the whole African experience and catch malaria as well.
Started having a headache the day before Lilongwe, but put it down to the fact that had had a small bottle of cider the night before, (drinking at the rate of about 1 a week), and assumed that my alcohol tolerance was plummeting. It got worse over the weekend, and by Tuesday, when Clare and I paid a visit to immigration in Chipata to start sorting out our work permits, was feeling quite grim (additionally temperature, slight shaking, light-sensitive eyes and feeling very tired). Went to the local health centre for a malaria blood test which showed negative, though I now know this is quite common even among people with the fullblown disease as it is down to a human actually seeing the parasites in the sample. I therefore then put my illness down to general dehydration headaches, the heat and 'doing too much' and thought would take the day off to sort myself. In the event I did little but sleep from 10.30 that morning until Thursday evening, interspersed by the Sisters gamely finding me strawberry icecream, rice pudding and bringing me food in a fairly vain attempt to get me to eat. I managed to eat a bit, but was a fair old struggle, as apparently loss of appetite is also a classic symptom. Had the odd period of an hour or two feeling better when got up, but didn't last long. However, by Friday was a bit better and was taken into the office to check emails (was meant to also go to the hospital but there was a communication mixup around transport and it didn't happen). Saturday I got myself to the hospital in a taxi and I persuaded the nurse that despite my negative test and my choice of antimalarial pills (they thought it might be a reaction to Lariam which had by now been taking with no probs for 6 weeks) to give me proper anti malarial treatment. I brought out the Travel Health Guide VSO gave me and was relieved when was confirmed that what they were going to give me was one of the top 2 preferred options in the book. The amazing thing was the cost for all this, even from an NHS perspective. Was 1500 kwachas ((locally referred to as 1 1/2 pin, about 20p) for the consultation, and I had to buy a school exercise book for 1/2 pin, into which the nurse wrote my symptoms and the drug and dosage, and then the actual drug was free! Even in Zambian terms thought this amazing- even the blood test had cost 5 pin.

Had a good chat with the pharmacist and gave him my exercise book to keep, then went home and took the dosage. Am attaching pictures of the box, with the clearest instructions I have ever seen. It made me feel instantly very tired and I went back to bed again (bit like the effect years ago when I took 2 antihistamine rather than one by accident). I slept about 5 hours, felt amazingly better when I awoke, and just got better and better, and went back to work properly on Monday. Quite a wonder drug. Am totally fine now and I think have put back the weight I lost over those few days.

I had to go and buy a belt as had to hold my trousers up when I walked - was quite funny as walking down to the supermarket to buy one a guy shouted at me 'where's your belt?' and I shouted back 'I don't have one', which left him visibly perplexed at the ways of the misungu without a belt yet who could obviously afford to buy one.

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