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Published: July 28th 2008
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The motto of the Coat of Arms of South Africa is !Ke e:/xarra//ke, written in the Khoisan language of the /Xam people. It means "Unity in Diversity" or, literally, diverse people unite. I guess it's really quite appropriate then that this country was chosen as the location for PointCare's annual training and development programme, and for the meeting of employees based all across the African continent. People with many different personalities, coming from different backgrounds and different countries and able to speak a host of different languages.
Between the 16 of us that attended we speak English, Danish, Afrikaans, Kiswahili, Kimaasai, Woloff, Lusoga, Luganda, Kikamba, French, Spanish, German, Arabic, Hebrew, Greek and more! (I'm not saying we're fluent and I will be completely honest and say that only very few words are known in the last 3 of those...Chris!). We also speak many different kinds of slang (including New Orleans cajun...Bobby!).
However, even with these differences, we all have the same common goal and we're all doing what we do for the same reason (or at least I hope we are).
I have only been back in Malawi for 4 days and I have been reminded of part of
Africa in perspective
It's a pretty huge continent..... my personal reason for being here. Upon arriving at the airport and being picked up by the hospital driver I was immediately reminded of the friendliness of the Malawian people - many of whom are an absolute inspiration for all who come into their presence. Just as a little cultural side note, as in many places in Africa, courtesy and greetings are very important in Malawi. If you pass a group of Malawians, they don't just give you a general 'hello' but each and every single person asks you, in turn, how your are and how your day is, and you do the same back. This can take a long time if you pass a large group of people! Most are straight away very friendly but others are more reserved, and sort of eye you up with apprehension. If you greet them though, you are guaranteed that their face will suddenly shine and they will greet you back with a nice smile. Often, the ladies will also clasp their hands, bob down quickly and courtesy. I do the same back.
Anyway, back to my return to Malawi. On the drive home, in dark contrast to the happiness that a
Team Africa
Bobby (VP Sales & Marketing), Libasse (FSE West), me (project manager World Bank project), Peter (Sr. Technical Director), James (FSE Central & East), Emmanuel (FSE Nigeria), Kim (Marketing director), Peter (Chief scientific officer), Mathew (Sales director Central & East), Weston (Applications Support Specialist), Petra (CEO), Chris (CFO), Roger (Customer Support Manager), Cheikh (Sales director West Africa). friendly welcome brings, I was immediately struck by a somber reminder of the devastating effects of HIV when the driver suddenly slowed down as we passed through a village and saw over a hundred people sitting on the ground around a small coffin. I have had several other reminders of the vastness of the problem since. I was trying to sort out a supply of HIV rapid test kits for our project. I had to wait in the busy corridor outside the hospital's ART clinic to talk to one of the nurses. To be honest, it's difficult to know what to do in that situation, being surrounded by people who you know are all HIV positive and there to pick up their medicine. When I talked to the nurse she told me that patients are first tested with the 'Determine' test. Those that are positive are tested again using 'Uni-gold' for confirmation. This is what is done all over Malawi. I was told that, whatever the number of Determine tests we have, we should have 15% of that number of Uni-gold tests i.e. we have to assume a prevalence of 15%. Finally, I have been reviewing the employment contract for
Weston taking a wee nap on Sunday afternoon
...with his new friends from the Lion & Rhino reserve our new driver (Harold) and was shocked to find that one page of the 5 page long document is devoted to 'death benefit'.
I am doing what I'm doing because I want to at least try and do a little bit to improve the situation out here, even if I can only help make a tiny difference. Every single day in Malawi, I am motivated, inspired, and educated. Don't get me wrong, it is not always easy (maybe I'll go into that a bit more another time), but I hope that my reasons for being here will be enough to get through any difficulties.
We can't make HIV positive people negative again but we can help them get better treatment, and help them live longer, healthier lives. I've met some people on my travels here who don't realize that AIDs therapy really does work. It can extend a person's fully productive life by over 20 years. The drugs are available here (for free) but the diagnostic tests to manage the administration of the drugs through immune status testing (CD4), are not, so the treatment is far from optimal. I was speaking to a couple of Ministry of Health
employees yesterday (they were visiting the hospital) and they told me that there are currently only about 5 CD4 instruments in Malawi, most of which (in their words) "are not in use as they say 'made in Japan' on them. The reagents can't stand the temperatures here, and people trained on them have moved on and no one else knows how to use them." The instrument that we will be using for this project has been designed specifically for use in conditions like those that we experience out here so we hope to make CD4 testing available to a lot of people who are most in need of it.
Our daily routine in Johannesburg was eat, go to class, drink tea and eat, return to class, eat, go to class, drink tea and eat, return to class, drink the beverage of your choice (doesn't just have to be one this time) and eat. You get the idea! It was a busy 2 weeks. We reviewed the company history and everybody's roles, we went through the instrument in detail - the technology, the clinical interpretation of results, troubleshooting, the training of operators etc. Some of us even managed to completely
Kim, Emmanuel, Weston & Peter
From Denmark, Nigeria and the U.S.) break the thing and put it back together again. We covered a lot. I've used the instrument a little bit over the past few months so it all came together quite nicely for me. I have to admit it was a little strange being back in a more 'developed' environment again! I still donned my African cloths though (hey - they're comfortable...and at a dollar a pop you can't complain)! I actually did my best to go crazy at a big shopping mall. Spent the majority of an afternoon there though and came away with one skirt (below the knees of course) and a bag of tasty treats for my hospital colleagues.
I did enjoy eating well and made the most of the dessert menu whenever I had room to. I also tried some rather interesting items for the first time. How does a plate of rooster cookies, springbok chipolatas, trinchado, russians, ostrich liver and onions, giraffe salad, tongue in mustard, samp, snoek and bobotie sound to you? Let me know what you think after looking at the picture!
Anyway, once again, that's it for this time. Oh - I almost forgot! You didn't think you were getting
Queenette & Lebasse
Did you steal Lebasse's food again Queenette? away that easily did you??? I'm giving you a test. I know you've never heard of a few of those languages. You now have to guess which countries they're spoken in. Good luck with that one! I'll tell you the answers next time. No cheating - I know how easy it is to google - and sorry but no prizes. This is Malawi.
Take care!
Joanna x
p.s. Check out http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7502474.stm. The 'student from Stanford' is my current housemate. I popped in on one of his training sessions today and took some pics. His project will be very useful for organizing our mobile clinics.....we will be able to use the system to contact the hospital volunteers and ask for their assistance with mobilizing communities prior to us showing up.
p.p.s. talking about diverse people uniting, I was just on skype to my Maasai friend Paulo's cell phone. He is right now in his home village in Tanzania where I visited him last year. I think I managed to talk to the entire family (well...all the ones who don't just speak kimaasai!). I've put another picture of him up here for you to see how this
Me & Queenette
(My roommate and Sales Director, Nigeria) is all slightly surreal.......
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Jill from Gen-Probe
non-member comment
I think I will pass on that plate of food!
Hi Joanna, I was so excited to get your blog today. How are you? I think I will pass on that plate of food! But God bless you for what you are doing. As I always say, you are my hero! Love you lots, Smiles, Jill