Goodbyes......

So, hello again everyone. Welcome to our last blog…… We are now officially on our way home!

The last 2 weeks have gone pretty quickly all things considered. I’ve been rushing around trying to get everything done in time and eventually, we’ve both managed to hand over all our little projects to the new volunteers. The health centre remains water-less, but at least I have started a new project with the new nurse volunteer Bev to get some proposals for the future. At the moment we are weighing up the idea of digging a new bore hole, pumping water for the lake (1.5kms away) or trying a gravity feed water source from the river in the mountains (about 11kms away). All are far too expensive, but once we have all the costs, then at least there is potential for fundraising in the future. Other than that, Irene and I saw a record 114 patients last Monday morning - all before 12am. My new job in Australia was asking if I can see 4 patients an hour so I’m sure they’ll laugh when I tell them this! Cholera has continued to spread slowly, but thankfully, unlike in Zimbabwe, it’s all under control at the moment and I haven’t had to go and help. The rest of my time has been helping the local lads in the Mazembe Environmental Club get their trees planted, and keeping the rugby club that Henry started going strong.


So we left Mwaya Beach for the last time on Friday and are now staying with friends in Mzuzu for a few days. It really has been incredibly traumatic to leave so many good friends behind and there have been plenty of tears in the last 24hours or so. The staff have been like our family for the last 6 months and we’ll miss them hugely along with so many of the locals from the surrounding villages. That’s not to say we weren’t ready to go. Living in a communal volunteer camp has been fun, but we’d definitely had enough and are looking forward to some normal life again with a bit of civilisation. We’ve also managed to help a few people while we’ve been here, particularly to reward those that work hard. People like Ruben with 3 wives and 27 children (that’s not an exaggeration!) who work every hour of every day, Catherine and Overton trying to put their daughter through nursing school, lads like Wyman who survives with his family on a total of £5 month and Jimmy, or ‘Super-Jimmy’ as Rach likes to call him, who enjoys his job managing the pre-schools “so-much” and thinks the bicycle my folks bought him is the greatest thing in the history of the world!


Tomorrow we’re up at 5am and will catch the bus up to the border with Tanzania, about 5h away all going well. We’re then walking over the border and getting a couple more buses as far as we can get, so that we’ll hopefully reach Mbeya in the afternoon in time to book a train or bus the next day to Dar es Salaam. And then it’s holiday time! Zanzibar is sounding pretty enticing at the moment. Obviously we’re dead excited about seeing everyone again and I hope as many of you as possible will pop in to see us in Battersea on Saturday 28th at some point.

So, more for a record of our own thoughts than for your interest, below is a list of things we’ll miss:

Mwaya beach, swimming in the lake (and dodging the crocs!), the sunshine, dinner on the deck, Kuche Kuche (beer), the children calling “Muzungu” from behind bushes or fences, saying “Timonene” to everyone at every moment you meet, the pre-school kids, ‘wickets’, the Peacecorps and VSO friends we’ve made, the gratitude shown by everyone for the work you do, Geddes’ laugh, Harry’s cooking and the friendliest people you’ll ever meet who are from Mazembe, Mwaya and Matete.

Things we’re less likely to miss:
Beans and rice, curry powder, mosquitos, lakeflies (and lakefly patties), stifflingly hot chalets with no way of getting cool, communual living, never having enough drugs at the health centre, never getting anything you want done when you want it, Zain network (or lack of it), crap bicycles, covering yourself in DEET every evening, sleeping under a mosquito net, walking through the rain to get to the toilet at night-time, wearing a head-torch from 6pm every evening, the fridge that doesn’t refrigerate, mud/dirt walking tracks, having to walk 30mins in any direction to get anywhere, meetings about meetings, white bread rolls, Malawian public transport.

Anyway, here’s to steak and seafood, cold beer and any kind of wine and, of course…..French Cheese!

Thanks to everyone for all your support and kind words. See you shortly.
Marc and Rach. xxxxxxxxxx

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