Blogs from Central, Malawi, Africa - page 21

Hello everyone! A bit belatedly, I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday and happy new year's! I know its been a long time since we last posted, and since leaving our volunteer group in Zambia in the beginning of December, we've traveled to quite a few places. Since there is so much to catch up on, I thought I would try something a bit different, and just include some snippets of our adventures (in chronological order of course) over the past month and a half.... - Visiting and safariing with parents in Zambia and Botswana: walking into the Royal Zambezi and realizing we are not in backpacker land anymore; swimming in Victoria Falls and being sure one of us was going to go flying over; flying in a 5-person light aircraft into the Botswana national parks; ... read more

My first day at the clinic has come and gone. The dichotomy here is so deep. The clinic is part of an outreach project funded by multiple sources and primarily staffed by US doctors. You should check out the website www.bayloraids.org for more details on what they are doing around the world. This clinic is better equiped than the clinic I work in back in Atlanta. Each exam room has a computer on which the docs can access the electronic medical record on every patient they see. Upstairs there is a computer room, library, and conference room. Clearly Baylor has resources. In stark contrast is the neigboring hospital. Outside you see women washing the sheets for the cribs and beds. Women and babies lay in rusty cribs/beds. The hospital serves approx 300 kids. A large quantity ... read more

A more perfect African meeting place could not be found. It was on the shores of Lake Malawi, the very lake "discovered" by Livingstone 150 years ago, that I found him. Feared lost in the heart of Africa, here he was, immersed in conversation in the Butterfly Lodge. As I walked in, he stopped talking, and met my gaze. He was shorter than I had imagined, and his hair was longer, blonder - but it was definitely the man I was looking for. 'Bobbie Nystrom, I presume?', said I. Well, no, I didn't really, but I did say 'Bobbie?' After months of searching, I had found Nystrom, a man I had never met, but nonetheless, felt I knew like a brother. Years ago - in the mid-80s, in fact - my folks befriended a Swedish family ... read more

Ok, just got to the computer after a week of being out and about only to find out that travelblog.org had a systems crash and lost a ton of entries from a bunch of different users. Apparently I'm one of the unlucky ones. I'll write more about the past week at a later date. I'm going to use this time to try to figure out how to recover what was lost and catch up on e-mails. All in all, everything is fine over here. Hope everyone is well. E-mail me.... read more

As written in the wee hours of last night/early this morning. It's about 1 a.m., and here I sit at the kitchen table having just put away a block of cheddar and crackers. I heard a rooster crow not long ago. I think his watch is a bit fast. The last 2-3 days have been primarily characterized by rumbly tummies for both Katie and myself. It's nothing serious, just an annoyance that keeps you from feeling 100%. I think it is mostly from the drastic dietary change we have undergone since arriving. I really think Mr. Banda has a 50-gallon drum of rice hidden around here somewhere. Along with small potatoes, rice makes up the base for almost every meal. All bread I have encountered so far is white. Starch abounds, but nothing containing fiber seems ... read more