Blogs from Central, Malawi, Africa - page 18

First I'll introduce myself - Dzina langa ndi Joanna Raeside, ndimachokera ku Scotland. Ndili ndi zaka 29. Ndidabwera ku Malawi mwezi wasanu kugwira ntchito ku PointCare. Ndimakhala ku St Gabriel's Hospital ku Namitete. Ndikufuna kuphunzira kuyankhula, kuwelenga ndi kulemba Chichewa. Pang'ono pang'ono.... (My name is Joanna Raeside. I'm from Scotland. I am 29 years old. I came to Malawi in May to work for PointCare. I'm living at St Gabriel's Hospital in Namitete. I want to learn to speak, read, and write Chichewa. Slowly slowly (one step at a time)..... Getting there! There are currently no other 'azungus' (white people) in the guest house so I am finding that I am learning faster. I have also asked my colleagues to speak only Chichewa to me if they can. I do ok with that but, for example, ... read more

I awoke in the middle of the night one Sunday to the sound of rain. Yet it was only July, in the middle of the dry winter...I hadn't seen or thought of rain in months. Then I noticed it sounded more like my shower running...only I'd been asleep for well over three hours. Strangely, the sound seemed to be coming from the other side of the flat than my bathroom... I ran to the bedroom door and sure enough, there was a rainstorm, right in the middle of my living room! Water was pouring in sheets right out of the ceiling; I was kind of paralyzed from shock, and had no idea what to do. So I went to my neighbor Ann, who has been in Malawi long enough to know everything. She instructed me to ... read more

Alright. So we swore-in yesterday so I am officially a Volunteer. A few of my friends left today to move in to their sites, and I will leave tomorrow with the other 2 nurses. However, I probably will not actually get to my site until Saturday because I am the farthest volunteer to the south. Anyway, the swearing in was a little rushed, but awsome because it was at the ambassador's house, and later that night we ate dinner with Dale, the country director at his house. ... read more

Okay, so I have a lot of pictures that I really want to put on the internet, so we will see how many actually download. Otherwise I am going to try to send a few of them via email if it is faster… Anyway, for the last 5 or 6 weeks I have been living at a college in Dedza and/or in a village called Zuze not far from the college, also in the Dedza district. At the college I lived in a hostel with the other 21 Peace Corps Trainees that will be working in the health sector of Malawi for the next 2 years. There are only 3 nurses here, including myself, and a couple others that actually have a health background, the rest will be teaching proper hygiene, HIV/Aids prevention…etc depending on their ... read more

Today I am pleased to announce a new addition to our project team - our driver, Harold Chaponda. Harold is from Chileka (just down the road from the hospital), has quite a few years of experience working as a driver and maintenance guy for a car hire company, has great English (bonus!) and lists chatting with friends and taking non-alcoholic drinks amongst his hobbies. Sitting in on the interviews was an interesting experience for me! I had some questions to ask but I left a lot of it in the hospital administrator’s capable hands (the lot of it would include much of the technical driving and maintenance type questions). A scoring system was used. Marks were issued for education (completion of form 2 of secondary school was the minimum requirement with completion of secondary school being ... read more