Malawia

I finally have the opportunity to update this blog! So much has happened so far, I probably can't cover it all but I'll try. Things here have been going very well. I am thoroughly enjoying exploring this place, meeting the people, helping out, and most importantly learning.

I am staying in a city called Senga Bay, about 2 hours away from the capital, Lilongwe. It is very close the Lake Malawi, a huge lake that borders the eastern part of the country. My host Margaret is the director of the Senga Bay Baptist Clinic, and I am staying at her house with 2 other volunteers (Gretchen and Cally) from Alabama and North Carolina working as teachers. When I arrived, I began working at the clinic (a private community clinic), where they treat mainly malaria/HIV. The facility covers other roles such as maternity, immunizations, nutrition, palliative care, counseling...and it even has a primitive lab for diagnosing things like malaria and TB.

The first weekend after I arrived, Gretchen, Cally, and I went to a place called Cape Maclear, on the southern end of Lake Malawi. It was beautiful! We stayed in a lodge on the beach, took a boat out, went snorkeling, met some other foreign aid volunteers, and ate great food. On the way back to Senga Bay we killed a goat with our truck. Oops.

The following week up until now I worked in the clinic and at Salima District Hospital. Salima is the city of about 300,000 located about 10 miles away from Senga Bay; since the clinic is pretty slow sometimes (as it is private), I went to Salima's hospital which is FAR busier. I have learned so much...especially everything about malaria. In the afternoons I help Gretchen and Cally teach an english class (well, they do most of the teaching). There are so freaking many kids here...family planning anyone?

We started a project today painting the baptist church here..it will be a lot of work for the 3 of us but we can at least get a good start on it if we don't have enough time, and we bought all the paint for it.

Tomorrow we are headed to Liwonde National Park to go on a safari for the weekend; I'm pretty excited!

There is so much else I would love to say but just don't have the time. Hopefully another update next week. L8r m8s!