Hatches and Dispatches

This  has been another hectic week, with saying goodbye to the Scottish Dental team of Smileawi, but welcoming 4 other guests who are here for assorted reasons, ranging in age form 16 to 65!! I had not quite appreciated that we would be running a guest house as well, however because of the remoteness of the place, suitable accommodation is hard to find and until Johnny gets the guest house completed this is the only place for people to stay. It makes for interesting community living and so far it hasn't been difficult with all guests helping out and all having something to communicate, whether it be expert knitting advice in order to sort out my amateur attempts to get a garment completed for "baby Another" our impending Grandchild, or filling us in on the history of the mission station and useful information on local issues. the only alarming thing is that the food supplies are dwindling and the food available locally is very limited to tomatoes, onions, eggs and bananas in the local market, white bread, and copious amounts of rice and maize meal, not much fibre to be had!!thank goodness for Johnny and Lyns vegetable garden, which I and one of the new visitors have been trying to work in by planting more veg as well as eating the excellent leeks, spinach, cabbage and carrots!, with the heat here some of the seeds are already starting to come through!

This week we also said good bye to 9 chickens, that were no longer laying eggs, and were being too expensive to feed so before Johnny and Lyn left on Monday it was decreed that they were to be dispatched! thankfully we didn't have to do it ourselves, Joel the trusty gardener was allocated that gory task, on return from the hospital for lunch the gutted, plucked chickens were waiting in the kitchen for me to deal with. We were looking forward to chicken dinner that night, and had asked the two south African medical students who have been staying in the lodges but had no place to cook and were running out of money having to eat in the local restaurant which is very limited too. Despite boiling for a while and roasting the chickens were so tough it was an effort to eat them!! however they did make great soup and I think that will be the future of the other 7 in the deep freeze. we had a lovely surprise on Friday finding 11 little ducklings which had hatched out, so fowl population isn't diminished.

 this week I was working in the maternity ward, which is the busiest place in the hospital, it has sadly also seen its deaths as well as births. It is interesting that in Malawi birth certificates have been recently introduced, since now it is illegal to give birth without a skilled attendant. Traditional birth attendants are forbidden now by law, however as yet there is no system to confirm or register deaths. Compared to previous hospital deaths we have witnessed there was no wailing or keening as the body was taken away, however this may have been because the mother hadn't been told, as she had had a caesarean two days before, or maybe if you dont survive for a full week  your life isn't counted. I may find out more as weeks go on. The hospital chaplain was very involved with the family and he asked me into the room as the body was taken to be wrapped and prayers were said as I had been caring for the mother. It was very sad. However several other new babies were born, those I have seen so far by caesarean section, but that is partly because the hospital is a secondary centre and so sees more problem patients or mothers transferred because of problems in labour. There is no pain relief in labour and women are expected not to cry out or make a noise. I was told by a male midwife it was an an initiation  right into womenhood and there is little sympathy for labouring mothers!

We had a break from  the usual chores on Wednesday when we challenged the hospital women's netball team to a match against the Misungus( that is whites!) our current house guests included a retired PE teacher who is still very involved in coaching and referring. the 2 young girls both play a little so we decided to make up a team which involved Charlie and the south African medical students, both male and female on the team. It was a great experience to see the women turn up in their titengi's wrap around skirts, and selecting trainers from a team bag to wear, although several choose to play in bare feet! the pitch is just hardened mud and far from even, the hospital team was really keen and very good and completely thrashed us. Great fun was had by all including a good amount of local spectators who had gathered to watch the fun, including 2 quite large pigs who wandered onto the surrounding areas.