Criminals at Lusaka Inter-city Bus Terminus 21/06/10

My visit to Zambia didn’t end with a good note.

I booked a coach ticket from Lusaka to Lilongwe yesterday, that should depart from Lusaka at 12N. On getting off the taxi at Lusaka Inter-City Bus Terminus, my luggage was immediately grabbed by a group of guys who allegedly ‘helped’ me with my ‘very heavy’ luggage. It was useless to shout at them. Holding my luggage ‘hostage’, they demanded ‘luggage fee’ (which was totally unheard of) from me in order to ‘transfer it from Lusaka to Lilongwe’ – so the coach fare I paid didn’t include luggage? Oh obviously NOT! I have spent all Zambian Kwacha so I had to pay in Malawian Kwacha – and these greedy barbarians took opportunity again to manipulate on the exchange rate to extort more money from me. I ended up paying 4 times higher than usual – a REAL mzungu price! Anyhow I later found out that most passengers didn’t pay at all even though they travelled with 10 bags or more!

Well as I said the coach was supposed to leave at 12NOON. The name of the coach company was Zambia-Botswana Luxury Coach Service. And it wasn’t cheap – the price was ‘luxury’ indeed, but service was the lousiest! Instead of departing at 12N, we departed at 1500. For three hours, I was just sitting in the bus watching vendors coming up and getting down the bus. Basically they moved the whole market up into the bus. They sold everything you could think of – from food, drinks, gloves/socks/scarves, phone credits, items you could normally think passengers need; to peculiar items like wigs, half-length mirror (how on earth do I carry this if I purchase the mirror?!), primary school exam questions, television (???!!), etc etc..
Before we left, we had to change to another coach at 1430. I saw everybody suddenly rushing down the bus and I didn’t know why. Nobody said anything to us. I tried to ask but nobody spoke to me, or spoke to me in the local dialect. When I finally found out that I needed to move to the second bus because only the second bus was ‘licensed’ to cross the border, I found my luggage was locked in a compartment in the first bus but I found nobody to open that for me. And the stupid thing was the second bus had less seats than the first one – so everybody squeezed into the second bus in panic. I was panicking too – as I had to get in the second bus to grab a seat; but I couldn’t leave the first bus because my luggage was kept in the locked compartment. I was worried the first bus would leave with my luggage and the second bus would leave without me.. I tried to get some help but had nobody to turn to. All the gangsters who extorted money (for ‘luggage fee’) from me just now just disappeared. They didn’t issue receipt for the fee I paid so obviously they were just robbing me because they knew I couldn’t do anything but to obey. And now I was in the situation with absolutely no help, and no idea what was going on.. It was the first time during my whole trip I felt so helpless, so lonely, and so angry..! and the next thing I knew was I started to sob uncontrollably. May be they were not just tears out of today’s frustration but an accumulation over the past few weeks.. I had been feeling so lonely, and so scared at times; I thought I was strong but at this moment I was not at all.. I felt I just wanted to give up. I don’t want to travel alone anymore. It is just too tiring to be constantly on the watch-out for bullies, for people to take advantage just because I look different from the others, constantly planning and budgeting not to spend too much, constantly worrying for not getting home before dark....... ahhh it’s just too much... I just want to go back home.. hoME... HOMEEEE...

Perhaps the tears saved me. One of the guys came forward to help me move my luggage to the second bus and explained me what was going on in English. I couldn’t thank him enough, though he was actually one of them who sold too many tickets for too less the seats. These greedy bastards don’t care for safety, they just wanted to make money. They just issued tickets to whoever came forward without taking into consideration whether we fit in the coach or not. If you don’t get in the bus, you lose your money anyway. In the end, the whole bus was overloaded. Luggage was everywhere, from the luggage compartment to every corner of the coach especially the aisle. There was literally no space to walk – you had to step on other people’s luggage to ‘walk’. There were a few times my arm was nearly stepped on as somebody’s legs had nowhere to stretch but to step on somebody’s arms!

I thought I could finally rest after the coach departed at 1500. But it only moved for 15 minutes before all passengers were asked to get down the coach because coach needed diesel refill. I asked why we needed to get down for refill oh the reason was they were worried the coach would ‘catch fire’ during refill. Oh very considerate indeed of our safety! But strange enough passengers gathered right beside the coach.. so if there was indeed fire, what’s the difference for you to sit in the bus or to stand right beside the bus?!?

I don’t understand why but the refill took 30 minutes. You really can’t get impatient with such ‘luxurious’ service you are just wasting your energy.. so oh fine we moved again at 345pm. I closed my eyes and thought oh great I would reach Lilongwe 4am instead of 1am as promised earlier by the coach company.

But NO, reaching Lilongwe at 4am next morning was indeed a LUXURY. The coach stopped again at 5pm – it broke down because one of the water pipes burst and some other problems. The driver and bus conductor spent 30 minutes to repair it just to get the coach to run for another 10 minutes. And it stopped and got ‘repaired’ again for 10-minute running. This tedious cycle was repeated 3 times before the bus driver finally convinced that this bus couldn’t run anymore.

We were left stranded in the coach for the next 8 hours. No rescue bus came. Most passengers slept in the bus. Some left the bus to have some fun in the club at a nearby village – don’t worry, be happy, always! I just slept I was too tired to worry anymore. But the elderly uncle who sat beside me didn’t allow me to sleep too long.. he accidently spilt half a bottle of coke onto my trousers and woke me up completely..

The rescue bus finally came at 2am. There went another frantic fight for seats in the new bus. Everybody was panicking. Everybody was trying to save his/her seats and taking care of the luggage. So you saw people squeezing into the bus to grab a seat, then squeezing to get down the bus to move the luggage over to the new bus. As most people had more than one luggage (I always think people in Africa move their house with buses, or sometimes even minibuses.. they have so much to carry! You would lose count of how many gunny sacks they carry!!) they had to run up and down for many times. The whole process of switching bus took 2 hours can you believe it.. because we need to allow time for argument (about whose seat was ‘stolen’, about people from which part of the country are greater.. etc etc). It was just a total MESS...!
Finally the bus moved at 4am. We reached the border at 12pm next day. And the rest of the journey was uneventful (even if something happened again.. didn’t surprise me anymore..!). I got to my new place in Lilongwe at about 2pm.

I swear this was the first time and also the last time I would ever take this coach! And I would never travel alone at Lusaka – just too much harassment, too much mzungu price!

Scary Dinner Date 20/06/10

One of the most difficult decisions to make when travelling alone is whether to accept invitations to dinner. Risk of accepting is.. you know what. And ‘risk’ of not accepting is you miss out chance to see the city.

I travelled alone to Lusaka and was there only for a night. Badly want to see the city before I left the next day. Perhaps it was a wrong decision as the invitation sounded really attractive – a car which could fetch me around the city (oh silly girl!!). We met at Livingstone and he was the Director of one of the pharmaceutical companies. I gave his number to the friend I stayed with and they met before he took me out so I thought it should be fine.

Contrary to what I thought we went to his house instead of a restaurant. It was so stupid of me to try to be polite and entered the house to find nobody else was in the house. To say I wasn’t panicking was a lie. I felt into my bag and found I forgot to bring the rape alarm along. This guy was really a weirdo. The first thing he saw me was his son’s pictures. Oh I thought perhaps he wanted to match-make me with the son or just to show off how handsome his son is.. that’s better. But after that he started asking a string of questions about me, without revealing the intention why he asked those questions. I was feeling really uneasy but appeared calm enough to start saying things that could be as bitchy as possible. I was aiming for the door for escape at any minute!

It was excruciatingly painful to stay in the house for one whole hour before he finally said we should go pick up some friends for dinner. Perhaps I was too sensitive (but I never was too sensitive!) but this guy really freaks me out. I even started to think about the movie ‘lovely bones’ where a silly girl was murdered mercilessly just because of her curiosity to look at the house of her murderer..

After one hour that felt like one thousand years we finally left the house without me being murdered (phew!).. We picked two other guys up from their house and went for an Indian restaurant. There things became much better. We had good conversation and I was rather convinced that these guys felt isolated from the rest of the world after living in a country ‘with very slow pace’ for some years. So they always want to speak to somebody from outside of the country to find out what’s going on currently in the world. I also learned from their experience living in both Francophone and Anglophone African countries. We shared some similar observations but they told me about Francophone African countries was something I haven’t heard of. Food was good – I have no doubt the dinner was really good.

Then we dropped these two friends off before sending me home. He gave me a ‘goodbye’ embrace and three ‘kisses’ which I had to fight against.. before I fled from the car..!

I will never be so stupid again – never ever enter a house if you don’t feel safe! Don’t try to be polite!

Saying goodbye to my ‘roommates’ 19/06/10

There are some people with whom you click with right away. And there are too people with whom you share an office/class/whatever with for 10 years and you still know nothing about them.

Mr D and C belong to the former group. Although I was a bit wary of them at the beginning, I felt very comfortable speaking with them from the first day itself. Perhaps that’s due to the fact that we both knew we wouldn’t meet again so I didn’t need to hold anything back and could just be myself. We joked about just anything and they always made me laugh and I did the same to them. To me, they are witty, crazy and spontaneous (just the type of guys I like!). To them, I am ‘funny’, ‘smart’ and ‘don’t need condoms’ (guess what the first gift D offered me? condoms! Hahaha!)

Mr D (51 years old) is a naturalist. He doesn’t eat fried food and tried to avoid any food that is ‘artificial’. Doesn’t drink and doesn’t smoke. But women – yes. His philosophy of life is to enjoy it, well that includes sex. He had been travelling to more than 100 countries and could tell about a country right away. I must say he was pretty accurate. Also a musician – not to impress anybody but to self entertain most of the time. He said he owns a studio or production something I believe so as he’s an entertainer indeed. Whereas Mr C (43 years old) acted in porn films before and performed in strip clubs but had stopped some years ago. Part of the conversation while we were travelling from Malawi to Zambia involved how much he earned for each film and each performance in the strip club (...!!...). On the other hand I never thought a porn start would know so much about Osho (and even named his dog Osho!) which impressed me a lot. We shared the same belief in the outlook of life (well I probably share more with Mr D but he was too busy to reveal that to me until the last few days). Contrary to Mr D’s very much laid back attitude, he was the one who always busy holding camera and collecting information for their ‘documentary’ for Africa.

Well I like both of them. Very genuine people. And also people who allow others to be genuine to them. I do not need to be too careful in communicating with them. I do not need to put up a polite smile. You couldn’t predict what would happen next when you were with them. They were just too spontaneous and hilarious. The day we went to see Victoria Fall we were distracted by baboons before we got to the entrance of the fall. And guess what the next minute these two crazy guys were trying to bribe the baboons into doing some funny acts by throwing them some popcorn. Well I was standing quite a distance away because I knew it was not funny to provoke the baboons. Haha true enough they finally stopped pestering the baboons after Mr C was slapped in the face by one of the baboons!! I was actually a bit worried whether we would be attacked by the whole baboon family! But it was FUNNY... oh god it was just hilarious thinking of the moment C was given a punch oouch!!

For three days I needed to attend to some serious business in Livingstone so I missed out fun with them. And they left one day before I did. I felt so sad seeing them leaving indeed. And I felt even worse when I got back to the empty room at night. It almost felt like a family leaving me behind. I need somebody to talk to when I got back from work and they let me felt I was ‘home’. Although the time we spent together was so short I really appreciate this friendship. Because of them I had many moments of re-thinking about life and through them I see where I belong. It was not just because I was lonely I was attracted to them. There are many out there I met during this field trip but nobody had yet to make me feel belonged (to the friendship). It’s funny as they don’t seem to belong to the circle of friends I used to have. If I were to have a chance to pick I wouldn’t have chosen to travel with them. But I think it was fate which leads me to discover these friends.

Love you guys and I shall remember you – though our paths would never cross again.

Victoria Fall (Livingstone, Zambia) 16/06/10

This is magnificent – I had thought it should just be the same with what I saw from pictures but NO, please, you need to see it with your own eyes.. I felt goose bumps all over when I stood in front of this.. how do I describe this.. this very mother nature which is so powerful, so lively, so beautiful.... I was stunned, speechless indeed! You know I could just sit and watch it for the whole day! It’s unbelievably, overwhelmingly, amazingly... (use all words you can..) ahhh.. I don’t have sufficient English vocab for it!

I was really glad that I made it to Victoria Fall. My two trip mates didn’t want to pay $50 to cross the border to Zimbabwe to see the Fall from the Zimbabwean side. Holding a Malaysian passport, I have no problem getting into African countries without visa. Indeed Malaysian passports are very travel friendly – I do not need visa travelling in Europe and Africa, which is just too convenient to be true!

So I walked alone for about 1km to cross the Zambia-Zimbabwe border. It was a bit scary as many people tried to sell things to me (who came VERY close to me). one of the most commonly sold items at the border is Zimbabwean currency, which is of no value now – people sell ‘one trillion’ Zimbabwean money, which is ‘worth less than toilet paper’ (according to the local). I was intrigued. But dared not stop to look at the notes as I was walking alone. I later saw a note from a friend which had print of ‘valid until 31st December 2009’.. interesting huh!

My adventure to Zimbabwe was uneventful apart from a slip at a place called the ‘dangerous point’ (haha.. could kill myself indeed!). This is the month where the water flow at the Fall was at the peak of the year hence I couldn’t see the whole stretch of the Fall as there was just too much water forming too much mist in the air and blocked the view. At the viewing points I was almost drenched if not for the umbrella I always carried with me!

I went back to the hostel and showed off the beautiful pictures to the two crazy Americans. They were convinced that they needed to get in no matter how experience it is but guess what the next day they just sneaked in the Fall by pretending to be tenants staying in the hotel nearby the fall! Ah maybe that’s one of the good things being a mzungu here – people just believe what you claim yourself to be!

Journey to the West (Blantyre-Lilongwe-Lusaka-Livingstone) 15/06/10

It took me 3 days to get to Livingstone – where I was attending the AGM of Pharmaceutical Society of Zambia. The journey was CRAZY (not less exciting than the stories in ‘Journey to the West’.. indeed I was travelling west!)
With no money to fly, all journeys were made by route –but comes in different vehicles.

I had the most luxurious time getting a lift from Blantyre to Lilongwe (in the car of one of the most famous doctors in Malawi! LOL!) – well this must thank my housemate who pulled the string of course I myself would have no access to the most famous people!

I stayed at a backpacker hostel called Mabuya Camp (with the initial intention to sleep in a tent but I realised it was impossible the moment I arrived – it was just too cold!!) in Lilongwe Sunday night with the plan to get a coach to Lusaka Tuesday morning. Then these two people walked into my plan (and indeed my life!) and nothing went according to plans from the moment we met.. these two American blokes are crazy, very crazy, and very fun to be with (this I found out later of course, not the first moment we met)! We checked into the same dorm at the same time with a raised eyebrow from me as they never were too embarrassed to talk about just anything with me even during the very first minutes we met! So in the very first hour we met it was made very clear that they both enjoyed SEX – one kept saying Asian girls ‘are the best’ while the other one was used to be a porn star.. oh my god – so I was going to sleep overnight here, within inches away from these two sex maniacs?!!? Things got worse when light suddenly went off – the whole room was dark, and two stupid batteries I bought for my torch were (again!!) just fake batteries. All I had now was just the light from my mobile phone which also was running out of battery..

Most people went for a drink at the bar in the living hall. I continued to write with my laptop. And strange enough these two SMs didn’t join the rest for drinks instead just lied in the bed chatting. They teased me here and there thinking I didn’t speak much English. Oh of course I didn’t keep quiet and started to counter-‘bully’ (verbally). Conversation flew and I became quite comfortable with them as I found out these two SMs actually spoke something of substance. They said they were film makers but of course I didn’t believe a word of it. I spent quite some time to make it very clear about my disinterest in their ‘interest’ and tried to bore them with lots of facts until they said ‘oh you’ve read too much books!’ – no guys are interested in nerdy girls so that perhaps the best I could do for protection (which later I found to be absolutely unnecessary – they’re in fact great guys who not only think with the lower parts of their body lol!)

Oh by the way come back to the business of the journey. Because of these two blokes who also travelling to Livingstone, I followed them to hunt for coach ticket the next morning. Unfortunately we were told it took 17 hours to get to Lusaka from Lilongwe.. ohh forget it! at the same time some local people suggested to us to just take a minibus to get to Chipata (the town where the Zambia-Malawi border is) then we could get frequent coaches from Chipata to Lusaka. I was a bit hesitant about travelling in minibuses with my suitcase – you know you could just end up having it lying by the roadside or broken into pieces or smashed or god knows what.. well Mr C’s rucksack smelt fish as it was stuffed underneath lots of fish during their previous minibus trip!

Anyway I was faced with two choices: go with them in the minibus or being left alone to travel the 17-hour coach ride. I think I didn’t really think sensibly but I was sure I didn’t want to be left alone again. So I hopped on the adventure – but there was a little trouble if I needed to go with them. I needed to give my laptop to the doctor friend (who gave me a lift from Blantyre to Lilongwe) as I definitely did not want to risk my laptop with one-week travel in Zambia, especially when I travel with minibuses!

I made the craziest decision so far ever in trusting strangers – I didn’t know why I trusted these two blokes. I gave them my suitcase and asked them to wait for me while I rushed to the hospital to give my laptop to my doctor friend. You know at that moment I was worried, and very unsure of the risk I was taking – I could risk losing everything in the suitcase. I knew them for just a night and I trusted them that sounds crazy huh.. perhaps!

But you know what that was one of the life-changing experiences I had (I had many while I was with these two crazy Americans). I felt free.. I actually felt FREE of attachment of this worldly belonging of my suitcase. Because I knew I might lose it anyway, I need to be detached in order to stay sane. At that moment I felt I could lose anything – take away my money, take away my passport, my research data, even my life – nothing is certain in life, if you choose to live, you choose to take risk that could befall you anytime. So be FREE..! it may sound illogical here that a small incidence could trigger such thought but yeah.. that was indeed enlightening for me.

Anyway the ride from Lilongwe to Chipata was an uneventful one. My suitcase arrived in one piece, without smell (!). Anyway even if it didn’t, I think I could handle it. On arrival to the border, guess what happened – I had expected the border should be a vibrant city selling lots of food, having bureau de change, banks, bus stands to greet tourists/people who cross the border as it is a popular spot to cross the border. But NO, nothing you could predict in Africa really – it was just a dull, forgotten place with a few blocks of immigration buildings. No food at all. No banks – but ‘moving banks’ yes.. i.e. the black market money changer. And they flushed in like bees – you know when you are attacked by bees how it is. we refused to be stung by all these irritating bees but they keep on pestering us ‘sister! Sister! Come back to me! I give you good rate! GOOD RATE!!’ ‘Ok how much you want? Give me a price! HOW MUCH? HOW MUCH??’ ‘remember me ok! Remember me! Best rate I can give you!’................................ OH MY GOD!!!!!!!!!!!

We had no Zambian kwacha with us. That means we had to change some with these black market people. Luckily I found a small bureau de change hidden beside the immigration. We had some changed as the rate wasn’t great.

And there was no bus stand. Unlike what we were told (to get frequent buses from Chipata to Lusaka), there was just NO public transport. What choice did we have?? No choice – we only had black market cab drivers who obviously wanted to change the ‘mzungu price’. I was so relieved I had both of them with me – I couldn’t imagine how panic I would be if I were to be swamped by all these crazy men.
After rounds of haggling and pretending not to get the cab and bla bla bla, we settled on a reasonable price offered by one of the cab drivers. On arrival to Chipata town where we were supposed to catch the ‘frequent’ coach to Lusaka, guess what is next – there was NO bus until next morning. And how we found that out? From an old lady who was sitting by a ticket selling counter – as we believed nobody! Once we got out from the cab, we were again swamped by too many guys who accused each other of telling lies ‘Take my bus I give you the best price!’.. ‘Don’t listen to them! They’re lying! Come to my coach!’.. ‘come here at 4 hours tomorrow and my bus is sure here!’... ‘DON’T BELIEVE THEM! THEY ARE LYING!!’ ......................OH SOMEBODY HELP ME!!!!

That’s the thing we keep getting when travelling around Zambia – everybody says the other person is lying and only he (no she – it’s always the guys who mess you around) tells the truth! And who do you trust?!? There’s nothing that looks trustable around you just have to pray you make the right decision!

As the coach came only the next morning we had to put up a night in Chipata town. We met the manager of a guest house who wanted to marry Mr D the first minute she saw him haha.. in Africa managers of guest houses manage EVERYTHING – from room service, payment to food catering (not just ordering food but cooking the food for the customers!). That’s why she felt so over-worked and just wanted to leave the country (by marrying Mr D!).

Now the issue is about whether taking a room by myself or to share a room with a porn star and somebody who kept saying ‘Asian girls are the best’ (!!).. if I took a room to myself I would have not enough cash for coach next morning – so did I have a choice? No, I looked absolutely confident with staying one room with them (they slept on a double bed and I on the couch) but god only knows how nervous I was! I was clutching a rape alarm and a pair of pliers (!!!) with me the whole night and was awake immediately when somebody moved.

Fortunately 4am came very quickly – I was the ‘military’ (that’s what they called me) who forced everybody to wake up on time. I didn’t want to miss the bus of course! When we finally dragged our luggage to the bus stand, there was another gush of bus drivers pestering us to buy bus tickets from them. My trip mates were never tired to get to beat the price down. So we moved our luggage from one bus to the other after they managed to haggle the price down from 95,000 to 80,000 – saving 15,000 (which is equivalent to about £2). I didn’t agree but I usually did not have chance to disagree!

Well anyway the bus was ok we got to Lusaka after about 8 hours. In fact there was no difference in taking any of the buses. The buses were racing with each other on the way and when they overtook another bus, the passengers in the bus would cheer!
We arrived Lusaka Inter-city Bus Terminus at 1pm and we got tickets to depart to Livingstone at 230pm. I was very lucky to have a friend in Lusaka who fetched us to the town for money exchange, lunch and toilet in 1 hour – we were running from toilet to ATM to bureau de change to supermarket.. ohh crazy!!

Well we got back to the bus terminus at 215pm and guess what the bus left at 220pm. Imagine if we were ‘late’ the bus could have left without us and we had to stay a day in Lusaka though we already bought the tickets!

The coach promised to take us to Livingstone within 6 hours but in the end it took 8 hours. We were sooooooo tired.......... I couldn’t think anymore I just checked in the same hostel (and the same dorm again) with them and all I could think of was just sleeeeeeeeeep!!

A not-so-nice parting 'gift' :(

I was really pissed off this morning.

Let’s start the story from the beginning: I need to back up files online but I don’t have internet at home so I had to do it in the office. Problem is I don’t have enough time to do that. So the only way I could make sure all files were backed up before I left Blantyre was to bring my laptop to the office, leave it for a day and retrieve it when I come back from Mulanje.

Usually we get the key to enter the department from the guard house. But when I tried to get it from them, the key was not available. And there was nobody in the department. We checked and found that one of the colleagues had taken the key home. I certainly didn’t want to leave my laptop in the office overnight for fear of theft. So I called her to bring back the key. She shouldn’t have taken the key home because the department doesn’t belong to her alone!

Unfortunately she said her house was ‘very far’ from the university (which I later found out wasn’t true at all!) hence she couldn’t come back. It was just 530pm. I wasn’t calling her middle of the night. I explained I need to leave Blantyre the next morning and I need to retrieve my stuff before leaving so could she please return the key now. Ah well she repeated the ‘very far, very far’ excuse so I gave up and said alright we would do it tomorrow morning.

I actually suspected she shouldn't live so far away so I asked her where she lived probably I could get somebody to give me a lift to her house. But I received no reply. I also tried the Head of Department who has the spare key unfortunately she's 'very far' as well.. ohhh welllllll.... and the guards are just useless - they don't ask who took the key, who do or do not return the key, have no spare key, even if anything happens in the department they just can't enter the building to do something.. basically I don't know what they're there for!

I was really worried the whole night about my baby (laptop). If I lose it I'm not going to have another one here as it's bloooody expensive!!!! I even dreamt it was stolen. Yea I was quite a paranoid.

We agreed to meet at 8am because I needed to leave Blantyre at 930am. I was at the gate at 8 o’clock sharp but saw no sign of her. No surprise actually. Most of the times she said she would meet me at the department and she usually didn’t make it. I called her. She shouted ‘I’m on my way!’ – AT 8AM.

At 830am. No sign of her. I called her again. She shouted back at me ‘don’t call me! You’re distracting me! I’m driving!’ Ohhhhh FINEEEEE...

She showed up after one hour. With a nice headscarf tied around her head. She came in for work. So bringing the key wasn't at all the purpose why she came. She didn't even apologise when she saw me. Just threw me the key. I was furious I told her how disappointed I was she just brushed me away saying ‘oh I am sorry. But you don’t understand.’

Oh I don’t understand!! I DON'T UNDERSTAND?!?!! What the !"£$%^&&*?!? I waited for ONE WHOLE NIGHT. Then I waited ONE FULL HOUR. All I’ve got for the explanation was ‘you don’t understand!’ Sure.. I don’t understand!!


I haven’t stopped learning for even one minute since I came.. and until the last minute before I left I learned something new!! Ahhh!

Mount Mulanje

Everybody says it’s a beautiful place that you should see. I don’t have time to go for proper hiking but decided to make a day trip with my new colleague Carmen.

I think things here have become more or less done at ad-hoc basis because of shortage of time. So much to do in such a short time.. so for leisure activities there’s just no time for proper planning of how to get there, what to do etc.. well even if you want to do that sometimes you just can’t find information online!

Well anywhere we started off the trip with just one piece of information at hand – take minibus from Blantyre to Limbe, then from Limbe take the minibus that goes to Mozambique border, and Mt Mulanje is just half way in between.

A journey that was supposed to take just one hour dragged to more than two hours because there were just too many stops in between where people hopped on and off the minibus. And because the driver won’t move from any stop if you don’t get four people sitting at one row (super sardine seat indeed!). I think taking minibuses are definitely labelled as high risk activity by our Health and Safety Officers in the UK because.. first, overload of passengers and luggage (there’re usually potatoes or sweet corns or bags of rice or something on the floor..); and secondly, the drivers usually drive crazily they’re hated by all drivers on the road and notoriously known as the nuisance on the road.. but one thing good about them is that they’re available at all times and extremely cheap. This is the most developed private businesses I’ve seen in Malawi. a lot of people doing this business hence could bring the price down. But the down side is the ‘proper’, regulated public transport can’t be established at all as the road is already monopolised by the minibus operators.

So anyway Carmen and I decided to risk our lives for the sake of the beauty of Mount Mulanje. LOL!

During every stop there’s so many dwellers coming to the minibuses trying to sell their goods, mostly fruits and vegetables. And some boys were selling eggs (uncooked ones) with chillies.. can’t make sense of this one.. was he trying to fry the eggs with chillies in front of me..? and also there’re muffins, breads, nuts, sweets, mobile phone top-ups.. etc etc. You basically get a mini-market around you. It’s quite funny when Carmen asked for ‘bananas’ (note: she just said it once in a very low voice..), all the tomatoes around the minibus turned into bananas within 3 seconds! Wow talking about customer service.. the British should really learn from them!!
Anyway we arrived at the wrong station and had to make another trip back to the town Chitakale. We tried the bicycle taxi – this was my first time after one month being here.. it was really fun.. and the seat was comfortable. You even have handles to hold on. We could see people travelling in the bicycle taxi with chicken, pig, babies, ... you name it!

From Chitakale we took another bus to get to a place called Likubhula. We only found out about this place after asking the local people what is nice to see. I brought a guide book but ahh forget about the guide book.. too complicated.. on arrival to Likubhula we were again swamped by a group of people, this time not selling bananas but offering their service as tour guides. And again, had to pretend you were not bothered to take the guide and started haggling. So we managed to beat the price down to about £3 so it’s fine. Most of the times I just try to get the price down as much as possible then give them more than we agree at the end of the task. This will usually make both parties happy haha. Anyway I think it’s really not ethical to bring the price down too much as this is how they earn their living.

I didn’t expect to climb a mountain so steep indeed. It was quite a tiring trip indeed that took about 1 hour to reach the waterfall. But along the way what I’d seen made me feel I really shouldn’t feel tired.. I saw lots of women and girls carrying huge load of firewood from the top of the mountain. And how they carried it? On the head! I really have no idea how they could balance that kind of huge weight on a say 10 year old girl.. I noticed there were only girls doing that so I asked our guide where are the men? He said oh men are supposed to work in the farm and ‘produce food’; the job of ‘cooking food’ belongs to the women – and that including of course collecting firewood. Division of labour. But I guess it’s a bit unfair to ask girls to carry such a heavy weight. I once asked the doctors whether they see a lot of arthritic cases because people carry heavy stuff on their heads a lot. But no not many cases because people don’t live long enough to develop degenerative diseases....

We stopped on and off during the hike up the mountain to take pictures or sometimes to talk to the people who also rested half way after collecting their firewood. There was one girl who was mumbling something to me repeatedly with a blank look. I finally made sense of it after a few minutes that she was actually saying ‘money money money’. Fair skin = money. Yes, even children learn that. The parents actually teach the children to wave to tourists to get something. I’d seen once during my trip to Liwonde that a mother was holding a toddler’s hand and to wave to tourists. We get waves everywhere we go. Children as little as 2 or 3 wave to us. At first I feel welcome because I thought people were really friendly. After awhile I just feel sad.
The waterfall was beautiful of course. But a picture worth a thousand words so please just look at the pictures. Sorry about not uploading pictures until now internet is scarce and expensive so it’s just hard to share pictures. Nothing special happened at the waterfall. I felt like jumping into the water but couldn’t do so. We only had a little picnic (with a small box of biscuits and water) and sat for half an hour.

The way back was easier as most parts of it were just descending from the mountain so it was less tiring. I slipped a few times with my lousy sport shoes. But in fact I shouldn’t complain about the shoes. Our guide wore only slippers and he was stable like a rock. Alas I was just lousy I know. And of course we still saw a lot of firewood women along the side this time I learned to say ‘bo’ (that means how’s it going?) and they would reply ‘bo’ too (which means good). We didn’t stop long enough to catch anybody mumbling ‘money money money’ to us.
At the bottom of the hill I bought a couple of wood crafts which cost a few times lesser than the same thing we tried to buy at Blantyre city centre. I also learned to play the Bao chess game and I bought a set of it. Very interesting we should try. Good way to kill time.

We took another bicycle taxi from Likubhula to Chitakale, which was great as along the way we saw tea plantation. The only problem is you get so near to the ‘taxi driver’ (or rider?) that you can’t avoid some bad smell... anyway I managed to take some pictures along the way – a proof that the taxi was really stable!

So around 330pm we caught a minibus to go back to Blantyre. Couldn’t afford to stay longer as it would get dark soon... irritating!

Limbe Market

Following the expensive yet unimpressive trip to National Park two weeks ago, I’ve become quite resistant to the generally held opinion of ‘you should make use of your limited time here to visit places in Malawi’ – and that means touristic places like Liwonde National Park (which I did 2 weeks ago), Lake Malawi, Zomba plateau (which I also did on the way back from National Park), Mount Mulanje, etc.. It doesn’t really make a difference whether I took a picture of the elephants or not, if I do not feel excited when I snapped the picture. Game drive was fun, but you know, sitting in the four-wheel drive and watched the animals from a distance.. I feel it’s just the same like watching it from National Geography.

I was in fact quite itched to see Lake Chirwa, which is not so much a touristic place but a nice small lake nearby Blantyre (Blantyre is the city I’m currently residing). And I want to do it with Ceciiia and her daughter. Unfortunately Cecilia is in Mzuzu this weekend. So I came up with an ad-hoc plan to venture into another place which I also wanted to explore since I came: Limbe market – not a tourist attraction at all but a very popular market among the locals.
Berna (my housemate) and I were very lucky to get a lift from my landlady’s sister-in-law from Blantyre to Limbe, as she owns a printing shop in Limbe. We were sitting in her car with one of the car windows smashed. On the way to Limbe she told us about the robbery that happened to her family 2 weeks ago. 15 men broke into the house, held everybody up and robbed whatever they could. Thank god nobody got hurt but they are deeply traumatised. And that’s why they couldn’t stay in their own house anymore and moved to my landlady’s house instead. The disparity between rich and poor here is too wide. If you drive a car, you get envied looks. If you don’t drive a car, you get robbed after dark (that’s why I must go home before 5pm because I don’t have a car). Almost all rich families’ houses are tightly fenced and guarded – that is what my landlady calls ‘an invisible prison’. Poor people trapped in poverty. Rich people trapped in expensive houses. I feel really uncomfortable about this whole thing. Social class is very distinct and it’s almost impossible to live in between. Although there’re many rich (non-Indian) Malawians, whether you’re rich or not are judged by your skin colour. Perhaps if you’re fairer than the others, you must be rich. There’re many Indian Malawians here and they are usually running businesses (and hence richer). There’re no Malawians as a whole, but there are ‘the’ Malawians, ‘the’ Indians, and ‘the’ expatriates. If I were to decide not to work here this is the main reason why.

Well forget about unhappy robbery, today’s focus was on Limbe market. After 3 weeks living in Blantyre and constant visits to Blantyre market, Limbe market looked like just another Blantyre market, but double (or perhaps triple) the size. And we managed to see many things that aren’t available at Blantyre market. First thing we saw was the shoe market. Stalls after stalls of shoes. I wish I could show you the picture but it’s really unwise to flash your camera in the market. And you would know why later. Shoes were arranged on piles of bricks. I mean bricks were stacked up as a ‘stand’ for shoe display. And in front of each shoe stall there must be a pale of water – guess what, you get shoe wash at the same time! And indeed all shoes at the stalls looked so clean!!

I was hoping to get something Malawian as souvenirs – I have been having problem getting anything that is locally made.. as there just isn’t any!! Well apart from nsima I really can’t name any.. Berna and I were trying to get something from the ‘fabric department’ (which means piles of clothes everywhere for you to dig deep inside to get something good, if you’re lucky!). I was hoping to find some shirts or something that were locally made but of course I was disappointed again. There were plenty that were made in China or from Europe such as H&M shop (from the UK, and costs the same!). We only found one that sold ‘sarung’ (those clothes that women wrap around their waists like skirts) and we bought some.

The next thing that caught our eyes was the music shop (or stand/hut, whatever you call..). I’m anticipating myself to run out of watchable movies very soon judging from the speed I’m ‘consuming’ the movies I brought along. So I got a DVD that contains TEN Al Pacino’s movies – yes, ten, not very good quality but.. you know when you’re hungry you don’t choose food! And then we also learned about thing that is typically Malawian – you don’t always get things even though they are in the menu.. There’re many CDs on display that we were interested to buy. But guess what, some were not available, some did not play, some display CDs were really ‘just for display’ as they contained no discs inside! You know sometimes I really think people here should just work a bit harder – here we are, the customers who are ready to spend, but we just couldn’t!

We passed by many stalls that sold food but of course weren’t interested at all because all stalls sold only the same thing (and it’s the same everywhere you go) – chips, salad and fried chicken. Chips (or French fries, for American translation) is the commonest food. Many people take just chips for a meal. I find most people just take carbohydrate and have very less protein intake. If you walk into a bakery, it’s not surprising to find only buns and sliced bread that contain nothing. You have the wrong guess if you think customers buy these to make sandwich – they just eat those on its own (and perhaps with a bottle of fanta). Coming from Malaysia where the bread and ‘kuih’ come in different flavour and fillings, it’s really disappointing for me to keep on getting bakery that bakes with just flour and nothing else.

There was also a hardware market that I felt it was a huge scrap market.. you find lots of nails (rusty nails inclusive, and in fact most of them are rusty), iron chains (don’t know what for), some unknown metals I have no idea what to use for.. or even plastic bottles, glass bottles (used ones) – it looked like a huge recycling factory – I mean people are selling these things that we usually brought for recycling factories. In between these scrap market there were some interesting stalls that sold tree roots/barks. When asked what those were for, the sellers had a very difficult time explaining to us that’s something for ‘something between men and women’. Hmm traditional medicine for sexual health. Very interesting – Berna said I should do an interview there and then! LOL! I was a bit tempted to yes.. hahaha..

Another interesting thing we saw was how alcohol was sold in small packets of 20mls. It costs only 15kc for each small packet (equivalent to approx 5p). Very cost friendly way to indulge yourself. The final (and most important) section we went to was the fruits and vege section. Malawi is a paradise for vegetarians as there are a good variety of them. Fresh, cheap and tasty – unlike those you get from Sainsbury’s where tomatoes do not taste like tomatoes if you ever buy any Sainsbury’s basic (sometimes I’m really amazed at how consistent they are in toning down the taste of food in perfect proportion to the price you pay!). So for less than 500kc (£2 equivalent), I get everything I want for the week. In fact I’m very happy to become a vegetarian here as this satisfies perfectly my desire to eat lots of vegetables but never afford to do so in the UK.

The last bit of the market wasn’t pleasant and I’m glad this happened only at the end of our shopping – there was a guy who was prying on my bag and came very close to ‘sell his plastic bags’. I suspect he had a ‘partner’ who tried to distract me by touching me when I was buying some funny looking cake. I felt something was wrong immediately and quickly walked away. However these guys didn’t give up and followed us very closely. So close that I felt he was almost glued to my backpack. my reflective reaction was feeling ANGRY, and indeed furious! I shouted very loudly HEYYYYYY!! And turned around pointing him straight in his face ‘HEY YOU!!! STOP IT AND STAY AWAY FROM ME!!!’ I guess he was quite stunned at my reaction and he just disappeared from our sight. We lost interest in any further ‘exploration’ and made our way back. On the way back we just ignore all the ‘hi’, ‘how are you’ (usually I respond as I think they’re just being friendly) and so on. The zip of the front pocket of my bag was open. I’m very sure he was trying to steal (or even rob) something from me. Bad guy.

Anyway all in all Limbe market was a good day out, quite an experience luckily I didn’t lose anything. In fact it was not surprising that we attracted attention (from people who think we have so much money!) as obviously we were the only two foreigners in the market. I’m happy we made this visit but I don’t think so I will come back again.

No water, again..

There’s no water, again.

I’m learning to re-define what ‘necessity’ is, in a way or another. Today one of the expatriate professors said ‘you have to live without modern technologies’ when I asked him what’s the most important thing he thinks for international work. He has been travelling since young and been to Jamaica, South Africa, East Africa and now 4 years in Malawi. His children were born in Jamaica and South Africa and had grown up in different countries and cultures. Well, that wasn’t one of the interview questions. I usually had a small chat with the interviewees I found amazing before I left. I’m quite amazed at the power of listening – just by careful listening (and hence producing relevant questions) to other people’s stories make them eager to talk. I guess it’s human nature to like to talk about their lives and share their opinions. I’m amazed at how quickly ice breaking could be achieved by just spending half an hour talking, even for VIPs whom I thought would never bother to speak to unimportant people like me. For interviewees who are willing to give me just half an hour, usually they are able to open up and speak after about 15 minutes, and even better after half an hour. Only exception to some very experienced interviewees (whom I suspect had been interviewed or have been speaking for some organisations) it could be extremely difficult to get them to speak.

I wonder how long I could live with frequent water cut, very limited access to internet, no access to any sort of modern entertainment (apart from the movies and less than 400 songs stored in my external hardrive.. I really regret not to bring more! By the end of three months I think I would able to recite the lyrics of every Jack Johnson’s back to front!), no heating despite very cold weather, struggling with mosquito net every night and the most irritating of all – the rule of coming home before 5pm. I’m ok with it now, actually it’s quite an experience. Quite nice to just live very peacefully without hassle of internet – indeed what good internet brings in our lives when you really think of that..?

I’ve got this question at an increasing frequency now: do you consider taking up a position in the school of pharmacy? Well, I usually say I will consider and thank them for suggesting that. And indeed I will consider, no joke, it could be after my PhD, could be after I work for awhile in some other institutions, could be after 5, 10, 20 years. I’m not sure. And that’s why I’m asking myself how persistent I could be living under such situation. The most devastating of all is coming back to home without a person to talk to (my housemate Berna has been gone since Monday for Zambia so I’ve been just all by myself). I find all expatriates who come would bring their families along. Without a family, living alone could be really hard. Look at me now, speaking to a blank sheet of paper.

Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital, Blantyre

Health system hierarchy in Malawi goes Special Hospitals – Central Hospitals – District Hospitals – Health Centres – Community level e.g. village clinics. Queen’s Elizabeth Central Hospital (QECH) is both a special hospital (used to treat leprosy cases) and a central hospital. There’re only four central hospitals in Malawi – you find them at Mzuzu (north), Lilongwe (central), Blantyre (south) and Zomba (south east). Theoretically patients should go to health facilities at the community or district level before reaching the central hospitals. However due to lack of facilities/health workers at these levels, many patients bypass the lower levels and just walk in to the tertiary hospitals.

With these in mind I was expecting to see maximally over-crowded hospital without even a space to stand and perhaps a pharmacy that was 10 times worse than Penang GH (my hometown General Hospital where my father once waited for medications at outpatient pharmacy for 5 hours!).

Well when I said I ‘was’ expecting that means it was not the case: at first glance it actually looked slightly better than Penang GH – well at least there were parking spaces available LOL!!! I was especially impressed at the paediatric department where you even get a special A&E for paediatric patients. I remembered what I read about Prof Dr Elizabeth Molyneux, a British paediatric specialist who had come to Malawi in the 1970s and contributed most parts of her life to QECH, together with his husband Prof Dr Malcolm Molyneux (a clinician-researcher-academician who specialised in hepatic research but was later involved in malaria research as a response to local needs). This couple has contributed a lot to the development of the hospital. Apart from expanding the paediatric wing, Malcolm is also the founder of Malawi-Liverpool-Wellcome Trust Programme Queen’s site. No doubt without their effort my previous assumption about Queen’s might be correct!

And again, when I said ‘at first glance’ means there was something else that I discovered after chatting with a few people working there. It looked just fine from outside but people are dying at a rate you wouldn’t have imagined. According to one of the friends who had worked at paeds, it’s very common to see children pass away (may be 2-3 a day..). The number is even higher for the adult wards (hmm that they don’t even bother to count!). Nurses are severely understaffed. They are on the move on all times. Nobody stopped and asked me hey you what are you doing here – they just have no time! Some wards, especially the medical wards, are overcrowded. Beds were arranged very closely to each other. Some patients were sleeping on the floor. Perhaps bed occupancy is something like 200 or 300%. Patients must have their family members with them to take care of food and laundry. Nurses don’t even have enough time to finish the clinical tasks let alone catering for patients’ food and bed linen! Therefore you could see large open space for patients’ family member to rest or ‘picnic’.. there is also lots of washing areas where patients’ carers (or patients themselves?) do their laundry. Everywhere in the hospital you go you could see lots of washing lines with bed linens, clothes, etc hanging on them.. when there isn’t enough space the ground is covered with wet clothes. If you just look at the picture with clothes may be you would think that’s second hand clothes for sale or something.

And of course I visited the pharmacy department. Although I had prepared myself to see very different things in the pharmacy here, seeing it myself was still somehow appalling. The pharmacy is huge, in space – contrary to what I imagined (I put Penang GH always as a comparison – where space is always an issue). And maybe it’s so huge I actually felt it’s so.... EMPTY. Maybe because there weren’t many people that’s why it felt empty. But many shelves have several bottles here and there.. as opposed to how we used to squeeze as many bottles/boxes into the shelves as possible. Drug store is quite small in comparison, considering they’re serving 15000 outpatients and 1250 inpatients daily. Yes – I do not add a zero to the number 15,000. Not 15000 drugs they’re dispensing but 15000 patients. And only with 1 pharmacist, 2 intern pharmacist and 4 pharmacy technicians; 3 windows at the outpatient pharmacy – we worked the maths out to come to a figure where you only have less than 1 minute with each patient – and that’s without lunch or toilet break (forget about coffee break!!!)… I walked past the manufacturing site – it looked as if it was not used for many years. I don’t know. May be I missed something here. It just felt lifelessly empty. Crazy workload yes.. and they’re blamed all the time for having no stock and no communication with doctors/nurses. Oh yes it’s all the pharmacists’ fault.. it’s not new story anyway..

However the most important thing that gave me some food for thought was I discovered almost half of the hospital sites are dedicated for research. Clinical trial wards exists next door to MoH (Ministry of Health) wards. Patients are treated under the same roof but as you could imagine, with different level of ‘service’ (not to comment too much here.. just try to imagine how a patient should be treated in a clinical trial in order to ‘ensure the rigor of the research’: drugs must be served on time - so out-of-stock mustn’t be a problem at all, transport must be taken care of to make sure patients come to the hospital on time – sometimes ambulance is used to transport patients). Research nurses (who receive higher pay from research project) work in close proximity with their MoH colleagues (who might well just be their former co-workers). I’m not making any statement here but you know what kind of conflict is going on here.. whether you get your drugs or not sometimes depends on whether you fit the ‘inclusion criteria’ or not. Tell me. How sad.

I just heard from the radio this is an important year for Africa as most countries will mark their 50^th year of independence from their colonial masters. ‘Independence’? !?! Has Africa ever been free from colonisation...?

COLDness induced insomina... grr

It has already been two days since I last had a proper sleep.. it’s just tooooo cold to sleep.. I would always wake around 4-5am because that is the coldest time of the day – there’s just no way to keep warm (as the house has no heating) and I had already put 4 layers of clothes on plus two blankets.. I really miss my electrical blanket in Nottingham! It was really a big mistake not to prepare well for cold weather in Malawi. And the cold isn’t the same as the cold in the UK – for the same temperature, this cold could just ‘get into your bone’ (the phrase I would agree – and it’s ‘due to unpolluted African air’!!)

So what did I do? I slept at 830pm and woke up at 430am to do exercise to warm myself up. Never been so rajin (hardworking) and healthy in my life before. Oh yes that other thing so healthy about me now is that I’ve turned myself into a vegetarian – well not strict vegetarian but no poultry or any meat products. Just eggs, beans and some anchovies. Sometimes my dish looks so green that I feel myself filled with so much chlorophyll that I could photosynthesize at any minute!! Actually it’s not because I want to be healthy or I don’t like meat (but I could live without it.. now I realise) simply because meat is too expensive here.

So yes where I was.. I wanted to say I haven’t been sleeping well yes.. ahh yeah the funny thing was half way through interview today I nearly slept off..! Errmm it’s really very bad if this gets to the ears of my supervisors.. I was interviewing (or perhaps half chatting) with a pharmacist from a private hospital. Hmm that is always so bad about me when I heard the same thing (as I already spoken to a few pharmacists and discovered no new issues, and for the fact that I have been speaking to so many pharmacists about the same thing before.. so...) I would expect the same conversation to go on and I was somehow shut down – though I was STRICTLY forbidden to do so.. not really my fault too as she was picking up her phone and stayed on the phone for quite a while.. I was about to enter the REM stage when she came back to me – ahh luckily I woke up just on time!

Then I realised I really need to get something to cover myself to avoid myself snoring in front of the next interviewee.. so I got some warm clothes – which was actually not very warm.. and nothing my size in the shop.. it’s either lady’s department which was too large or kid’s department which was too small... in the end I compromised on age 12, ah well.. also got a hot water bottle. I’ve borrowed one from my landlady but don’t feel good at all borrowing things from her – not because she’s not nice, but because she’s too nice! It almost feels like a sin if I ever get anything from her.. ohh that links to the earlier story (which I haven’t told) about rent. We agreed on a rent in the emails before I came. But the rent was actually not the amount she meant to. She mistakenly quoted a lower price for me. In my first week here I didn’t know what the price was for rents here but I felt it was really expensive. For one month she said she was charging £180 for the whole house unless I got somebody to share the house then I could halve the rent. I felt it was expensive (I thought things should be MUCH cheaper in Malawi) but still agreed to that price. When I arrived there’s another doctor who shared the house so I thought the rent should be halved to £90. However she forgot about the deal and still asked for £180 and of course I would argue for my rights. We finally settled at £120 – well don’t be mistaken that we had a huge fight. Everything was done very peacefully and very professionally. I later found out that the rent in the same area could go up to as high as £840 per month (yes JUST for a room!!!) so I actually felt quite bad about paying too little to her. And that’s why I almost feel like a criminal stealing from her if ever need to get anything extra..

This room is sufficient to live for a short period of time no doubt about that though there could be much room for improvement. There is no wardrobe for the first thing. And secondly there’s no sink in the shared ‘kitchen’ (but a workable fridge). Forget about microwave of course. Even the toaster is broken. Luckily the stove and the kettle are still functional. For the first few days I was sleeping without mosquito net because there wasn’t any hook for hanging the net. Later I found one in the room and nailed it myself unfortunately that isn’t a proper hook but just a L-shaped nail. So sometimes the whole mosquito net would just fall down my face middle of the night. Usually I am too lazy to wake up to hang it again so I will just sleep without the net or have it cover my face. Well I just have to trust Pharmaniaga’s (the generic manufacturer in Malaysia) doxycycline to work perfectly otherwise... anyway there aren’t many mosquitoes as this isn’t rainy season so should be fine.

Ok I really have to go to bed now so that I can wake up to my morning exercise! Or maybe I don’t need that tomorrow morning as I already have the 5^th layer of clothes!

Visit to a health centre at rural area

I hopped on this trip with a new friend, Umar. We met randomly at the staff canteen when he took interest in my plate of nsima – actually I had no choice as that’s the least expensive option when I had no more than 500kc! (well not to say I don’t like nsima I quite like it too)
He had arranged everything so it’s great that I just followed. It’s my wish to see all levels of government health facilities though it is not in my research agenda. I simply wanted to see things with my own eyes though I probably can’t use them as my research data.
That’s a rural area we were going into. After 2.5 weeks in Malawi, there wasn’t too much shock that would really strike me. Having seen how a ‘shop’ is like at rural areas, I would imagine a health centre is something like a small outlet with very small scale of operational facilities.
Hmm but no – it’s much impressive than the picture I painted myself through literature. And I must say it was better than some Klinik Kesihatan we have in Malaysia. I don’t mean better in facilities wise, but the programmes they run were really good. Every morning they run special clinics e.g. HIV clinic, ante-natal clinic, supplementary feeding programme, family planning, etc. And in the afternoon it’s general OPD. However emergency OPD is open at all times.
When we arrived, there was a HIV clinic running. The room was crowded with patients. I was speaking to a community nurse (while Umar was doing his research bit with the Health Surveillance Assistants) who led me into the HIV clinic. They usually see approximately 200 HIV patients every Tuesday morning – screening, prescribing ART and co-trimoxazole prophylaxis, checking ADRs, referrals if necessary. I saw 1 clinical officer, 1 nurse and 1 clerk were working. It felt quite strange to walk through the very crowded room – to come so close in contact with HIV positive patients. Not to say I hadn’t worked with HIV patients in Malaysia but squeezing yourself through these patients really made you come face-to-face with your fear of getting so close with them. I must confess I had this fear – though very unlikely, not sure if there’s somebody who was mad at me for whatever reason and could just give me a little scratch or needle prick or something.. paranoid me.. tell me who is not paranoid the first time you come to a country you haven’t been, come in close contact with patients who carry fatal disease that is communicable.. but of course I pretended to be such a professional ‘tourist’ (that’s another thing I felt so bad about myself – especially when I took a picture! But how do I tell the world what’s happening in Malawi without pictures?!)
There is also a ward in this little health centre that admits post-natal mothers. I asked how many babies are usually delivered in a day – the community nurse said oh many.. 2 or 3. Then she led into the ward to see the mothers. There were 4 mothers with their babies – most of them were young.. 18 with her first born; 24 with her 4th child; 29 with her.. (forget); and the oldest one was 44 years old with her... 13th baby!! She was advised by the nurses not to have any more babies. And again the nurse told me about the government plan to encourage people to have no more than 4 children. Seems the people get the message across very well. Everybody is talking about it.

There’s also a special site for donor-sponsored project for testing efficacy of Fansidar in pregnant women. Again it reminded me of what I had seen at Queen’s and the conflict behind – though the nurse-in-charge did say they (she and the research nurse) worked ‘hand in hand’. The world can never be fair, no matter how people claim that’s ‘ok’, as long as we do not own the same. I felt myself exploiting the research site sometimes – no matter what you generate from this site it’s going to be novel and you can publish something about it. You think my project is helping Malawi? No – I think Malawi is helping me. It’s them who enrich me, I’m just a little nuisance disturbing other people’s busy workflow most of the time..

Another interesting thing I saw was the food distributed for supplementary feeding programmes. Peanut butter with ‘added medication’ (I think perhaps fortified with vitamins and minerals and some other nutrients, not medication..) called ‘Chiponde’ is given to malnourished HIV patients. It looks just like any other peanut butter at the supermarkets (see picture). The nurses said it’s more salty than ordinary peanut butter. Hmm. I actually felt like trying (well I feel like trying everything the local people do at all times.. including putting a huge bag of rice on my head) but of course it really is a sin to take even a wee scoop isn’t it..

I’ve also spoken to one of the HSAs. Ohh I read a lot about them in the literature so coming face-to-face with them was really an exciting experience. I asked what he did and whether he liked his job. Ok here proved my assumption wrong again: I thought most HSAs do not speak English (as Umar said he needed to get translator to speak to them), do the job part-time and half volunteering for the job, and do mostly surveying task as the title suggests. But no they’re doing so much – going from house to house, knocking on every door on the village he’s in-charge of (there’re about 1000 people in the village he’s in-charge of). He is giving education about how to use toilet, how to keep food clean in the kitchen, how to make sure water is clean, importance of using washing line (and not to dry your clothes on the ground), checking on malnourished patients, watching out for diseases e.g. cholera, malaria (then do referrals if necessary).. now you could see how uninformed the people living in rural areas could be – we’re now talking about keeping the most basic standard of living. It’s so important to get most people into at least basic education otherwise we have to use a lot of resources just to teach people how to live and care for themselves. Oh yes and coming back to the question whether Mr HSA is happy with his job: he grinned happily and said yeah everybody calls him doctor, doctor! I asked if he would like to go for further degree to become a doctor, he quickly said yes of course he sure can do it. I bet if he were to be born anywhere else in the developed nations, he would most probably have no problem at all becoming a doctor. This guy is intelligent (from the way he responded to questions), speaks perfect English, ambitious, held high self esteem – the only thing that keeps him from moving forward is just lack of opportunity. The same goes for the community nurse I've spoken to – I told her sincerely I was really impressed at how good the job they’ve done as community nurses. And I told her she’s equally good, if no better than, any nurses I’ve met in Malaysia or in the UK. And I really think. She knows her job well. She did 3 year training for nursing then 1 year for public health. She knows what to look out for the patients, how to manage drug stock, how to run different clinics, why it is important to do certain things.. if you assume health workers at community level are less competent than their colleagues at higher level of the healthcare system – here proves your assumption wrong again (I’m critiquing my little undeveloped brain here..). In fact it’s even more important to train really competent people at community level because that’s the first line, and the most cost-effective way to curb diseases. Only if you are well trained you know what’s important to the people. It’s not just about the technicality in delivering tasks e.g. giving injections, it’s about TAKING CHARGE of people’s health! So for those doctors, pharmacists, nurses out there who think clinical specialisation is the only way to prove that you are clever that’s a huge mistake – working with people requires equal or even bigger brain capacity!