Friday to Friday
A couple Fridays ago we went to Clare's for drinks before heading to pizza which was fun. At pizza we had yummy food, good chat and a couple of beers. On the way home, we passed a crashed car and an over turned mini-bus. so as there was 2 doctors, 3 med. students, 2 nursing students and 1 wanna be med student, we stopped to see if we could help. luckily no-one was seriously hurt, but the driver had some pretty nasty cuts on his arm so we piled him and this other fellow into the land-rover to take him to the hospital. Apparently they were being chased by the MRA (or something) for smuggling stuff in from Mozambique.
That Saturday we had our first workshop which went really well. There was over 50 kids, ranging from 7 to early 20s. Really pleased we managed to pull them off. For more details go to hemyandlynsey.blogspot.com
After the workshops we crammed ourselves into another minibus to go to Blantyre for two nights. The hot shower was as good as I remembered and I ended up having 3 in the few days we were there. On Sunday after relaxing by the pool we ventured out to the cinema. I was so excited! I got popcorn, chocolate and coke, the movie was utter rubbish but it was a very fun few hours, although about half an hour into the movie, the snacks lady came in as she had undercharged us and wanted more money, so Lynsey had to struggle to get the money by the lady's torchlight. At the cinema we got talking to an Australian missionary, out here doing construction work for orphanages, called John, we invited him to join us for dinner as he was going to eat alone. After dinner we had some amarula for the 2nd night (which is amazing) before retiring to our room to watch crap tv. We ended up staying up past midnight which is the latest this whole trip (I'm usually asleep by 9). The south african adverts were almost as entertaining as Girls.
We journeyed home on Monday, after going to the immigration office to extend our visas. It was pretty straight forward, which is lucky as my passport had been stamped the 2nd of Jun not Jul (something I hadn't noticed). After reassuring the guy that I had not been in Malawi illegally for 21days, he expected that there had been a mistake at the airport and extended my visa with no further questions. If this had been any other country I would have been arrested and/or deported.
Tues-Fri I was on female ward, I'm really settled and going to miss everyone a lot. On Wednesday I decided to donate blood to a patient as the blood bank was empty and her haemoglobin (Hb) was really low (3.2), luckily as I'm O+ I can give to any + people. I was so pleased to see her sitting outside in the sun on Thursday, with her Hb up to 6.5 (still low but doesn't require a transfusion). She went home on Friday, I don't think I've ever been so happy to see someone being discharged. Other than that work was pretty standard, I feel like my nursing skills are improving. On Thursday we had two visitors,of the clucking variety, wander into the duty room, almost saying whats up? before casually strolling out.
Friday night pizza was a slight event last week. As me and Lynsey were heading to the bank, she fell into a ditch full of dirty water and rubbish, for a split second I had no idea where she had gone, luckily it was only about 4ft deep and she wasn't seriously injured, just covered in a few nasty scratching and lots of mud. Around 10 locals came rushing over, one woman grabbed her leg and started flexing her knee (we assumed to check for injury, but if it was injured thats the last thing you want to do). Someone then started to do it to her arm, copying the first woman. Once we had managed to extract ourselves it was just a case of getting home, where Lynsey cleaned her wounds (it's handy being an almost nurse) and changed before going back for a well deserved pizza.
That Saturday we had our first workshop which went really well. There was over 50 kids, ranging from 7 to early 20s. Really pleased we managed to pull them off. For more details go to hemyandlynsey.blogspot.com
After the workshops we crammed ourselves into another minibus to go to Blantyre for two nights. The hot shower was as good as I remembered and I ended up having 3 in the few days we were there. On Sunday after relaxing by the pool we ventured out to the cinema. I was so excited! I got popcorn, chocolate and coke, the movie was utter rubbish but it was a very fun few hours, although about half an hour into the movie, the snacks lady came in as she had undercharged us and wanted more money, so Lynsey had to struggle to get the money by the lady's torchlight. At the cinema we got talking to an Australian missionary, out here doing construction work for orphanages, called John, we invited him to join us for dinner as he was going to eat alone. After dinner we had some amarula for the 2nd night (which is amazing) before retiring to our room to watch crap tv. We ended up staying up past midnight which is the latest this whole trip (I'm usually asleep by 9). The south african adverts were almost as entertaining as Girls.
We journeyed home on Monday, after going to the immigration office to extend our visas. It was pretty straight forward, which is lucky as my passport had been stamped the 2nd of Jun not Jul (something I hadn't noticed). After reassuring the guy that I had not been in Malawi illegally for 21days, he expected that there had been a mistake at the airport and extended my visa with no further questions. If this had been any other country I would have been arrested and/or deported.
Tues-Fri I was on female ward, I'm really settled and going to miss everyone a lot. On Wednesday I decided to donate blood to a patient as the blood bank was empty and her haemoglobin (Hb) was really low (3.2), luckily as I'm O+ I can give to any + people. I was so pleased to see her sitting outside in the sun on Thursday, with her Hb up to 6.5 (still low but doesn't require a transfusion). She went home on Friday, I don't think I've ever been so happy to see someone being discharged. Other than that work was pretty standard, I feel like my nursing skills are improving. On Thursday we had two visitors,of the clucking variety, wander into the duty room, almost saying whats up? before casually strolling out.
Friday night pizza was a slight event last week. As me and Lynsey were heading to the bank, she fell into a ditch full of dirty water and rubbish, for a split second I had no idea where she had gone, luckily it was only about 4ft deep and she wasn't seriously injured, just covered in a few nasty scratching and lots of mud. Around 10 locals came rushing over, one woman grabbed her leg and started flexing her knee (we assumed to check for injury, but if it was injured thats the last thing you want to do). Someone then started to do it to her arm, copying the first woman. Once we had managed to extract ourselves it was just a case of getting home, where Lynsey cleaned her wounds (it's handy being an almost nurse) and changed before going back for a well deserved pizza.
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