Wacky NKK

Today I am off to Nkhotakota for the night. One of our projects is phasing out there, and the District Health Office is holding an event to mark them taking it over. I have even been asked to make a speech. Aren’t I fancy? It’s gratifying to see the project get taken on by the government, though. They have been pretty much running things for the last year anyway, but this will make it official.

Anyway, I enjoy going up to Nkhotakota – I always see the strangest things on these trips. For example:

Once, I saw a full grown man, sitting in the middle of the yard in front of his house, strapped to a dining room chair. He was just enjoying watching the cars go by. I’m guessing that he was mentally unstable, and his family probably needed to get some things done around the house, so they just tied him up and left him while they worked in their garden, or went to the market or whatever.

On that same trip, I rode for a while behind a tiny little hatchback car that was filled with ELEVEN large men (4 in the trunk, 4 in the back seat, and three up front). They were on their way to the mosque, and all were wearing their caps and jalabeeyahs for the service. It looked a bit like a clown car in a crazy Muslim circus.

On another trip, we ran over a monitor lizard by accident. I felt really badly about that. Those things are big and pretty amazing. Then on the way home a big crow flew smack into our windshield. I have nicknamed that driver the Grim Reaper now.

Jorge and I once bought a 4-foot long catfish just outside of Nkhotakota on a trip to the lake. We saw the man holding it up by the side of the road, and couldn’t believe our eyes, so we had to stop. The monster was still alive too. We tied it to the side mirror, then had to double it up and tie the tail to the mirror too, so that it wouldn’t drag on the ground as we drove home. That fish fed us for months.

I’m wondering what exciting new Malawi sights this trip is going to bring me!

Holidays!

I could give you the litany of excuses as to why I have not been posting much lately, but let's be honest here, my friend Pam has a full-time job and two-year-old triplets, and she blogs every day. What can I say that's going to top that?

But Malawi-wise, I don't have much to say. We've got petrol again, which is a good thing, but I still get annoyed every time Jorge lets the tank go below half-full. I am still working on analyzing

and writing up the results of that last survey, and I am acting as the No. 2 boss in my office for about a month, so work has been terribly busy.

Also, the political situation here seems to be getting even more bizarre and nonsensical lately, but I think perhaps I won't blog about that, as it would not be pleasant to have my work permit withdrawn.

Instead, I'll take the lazy blogger's way out and post pictures of my ridiculously cute progeny. With pithy comments thrown in for free:

This is the cheap little plastic tree I got from the grocery store. It made me indescribably happy, and is still up in our living room. And ALL the presents are for Milo. Santa didn't come for me or Jorge this year.

Milo trying out his new train set.

It took the kid a while to figure out that the boxes had TOYS in them. But once he did, there was no stopping him.

In his cool new igloo tent!

And since I also failed to blog for New Year's, you get the combo post.

We made it to TWO parties on New Year's Eve this year, not bad! Last year we spent it eating cheese and drinking wine in a hotel room while Milo screamed. So this was an improvement.

With our friend Malene, who threw a fabulous bash, complete with a whole roasted pig.

Then we went to our friends Jessica and Diego's, for a delicious Italian buffet. And plenty of champagne!

The next day we drove to the lake with our friends Mina and Carrie.

Here's Milo with his adorable tousled beach hair look.

O . M . G .

OMG OMG OMG....! THIS just crawled across my hand:


And why do those things always come after me when I am sitting on the toilet? It's the second time I've been ambushed that way. This time, the monster was under the toilet paper. I went to grab a bit, and it raced out, right across my hand, and sat there on top of the toilet roll.

My reaction? What do you think? I screamed like a madwoman for a few seconds, then got my wits about me and ran out with my pants down!

And then of course I called for my husband and went for the camera. Meanwhile it retreated to the corner:

I shut Jorge in the bathroom with a can of Doom. He'd come out every 30 seconds or so saying "OK, it's dead now". Then he'd go back to dispose of it and call out "Oh, never mind. I lost it." So Milo and I stayed locked in the office, a towel shoved into the crack in the door, until the thing was good and flushed.

I'm such a wuss. I am still shaking.

Home

Sorry, I got so busy I didn't finish updating on the survey. Well, we finished data collection in 6 days, but the last day we finished early, so we were close to our 5-day target. We continued to have transport snafus - ended up having to buy fuel on the black market. But it all worked out in the end.

We drove back up from Nsanje on Saturday, with only one near-death experience, when the driver fell asleep and drove into the wrong lane, then nearly drove us over the side of the ride and into a ditch before my screaming woke him up. Then I irritated him the rest of the trip to make sure he didn't do it again. Seriously, it was scary. There could have been a car coming the other way, or people walking by the side of the road. We were very lucky.

Unfortunately, the government staff who came in to help us with data entry took veeerrryyy long lunches, and only got a little bit done, so I spent my weekend doing data entry. But it is now done, and I am moving on to cleaning and analyzing the data!! Yay!!!

I am the biggest geek. I get excited about data analysis. I really do.

Jorge has asked me not to *try* not to work this weekend, though, so I will do my best. There are a lot of things that need to get done around the house anyway, so I guess I can divert my busybody energy. I look at myself lately and wonder what happened to the lazy little slob I used to be. It's like Jorge and I switched bodies, and now I am the one who can't stand a messy house and who works all the time.

Ah well, I hear a little boy waking up who wants his breakfast, then it's off to work.

Day 5

I can't believe it, but I think everything is going to work out.

My husband would say "of course it will work out!" but he has a lot more faith in me than I do.

So it's been an extremely challenging week, but it looks like, act of God notwithstanding, we will finish data collection tomorrow and be on our way home Saturday.

It was a little touch and go yesterday, when I got a call from one of our teams, at 8 o'clock at night, saying they were stuck in the mountains, the four-wheel drive wasn't working, and could we send a car to tow them out.

Oh, and they were three hours away, on the Mozambique border.

Unfortunately for them, we have a pretty strict policy about taking cars out after dark, so we told them they would have to go to the nearest village and try to find a place to stay. I was super stressed, because sending a car to tow them out the next day was going to set us back a full day of data collection.

Fortunately for the team, they happened to find the chief when they went to the village, who showed them an alternate route through Mozambique. They got in to town around 11:30 last night, much to my relief. The teams went out again as planned (we let the team that got lost last night rest a bit first. I'm not heartless) and they pulled through and visited lots of villages today. Tomorrow we have 8 villages to go to, but they are all close to town, and we should finish up well before dark.

Man, will I be happy to get out of this heat! It was about 100 degrees today, and the A/C kept going out. I am melting. I can only imagine what it was like for the poor suckers, oops, I mean survey enumerators, who were out wakling around collecting data in it!

And with that said, the last set uf suckers is here, which means I can go home before 8PM for the first time all week.

Just one more day!

Welcome to the Hotel Madalitso

Let’s just step away from the survey for a bit, shall we? Instead, let me give you a little tour of my new home away from home: The Hotel Madalitso.

The linens don’t match, and they are worn thin, but each night I come home to a new Harry Potter-themed pillowcase, which is a nice touch. The towel is rough and scratchy, but it’s clean. There’s no soap, but at least the toilet has a seat, which is an improvement over my last room at the Madalitso (I must have gotten a free upgrade. Lucky me!)

There is only one power outlet, forcing me to choose between my computer and the fan. But there’s a fan! And it works! A ceiling fan would be better, but really, who am I to complain? The power has only gone out once since I’ve been here, and if it does, the Madalitso has thoughtfully provided a candle (but no matches).

Ah yes, the Madalitso. It’s not so bad. I’m kind of fond of the place. I even brought Jorge here once. They did, after all, invent the signature breakfast dish Deep-Fried Egg. It comes with a side of chips. They are both cooked in the same oil. The egg is like a little pirate’s island – you dig and dig through the crusty, brown mess, and eventually, you find the buried treasure – a little gold edible egg yolk!

I think you are beginning to understand why, when I go on vacation, I like to stay at hotels with “Palace” in the name…

Day 2

Transport has become a problem.

The logistics of this survey are a nightmare. We have to visit 95 communities from throughout the district. We have 5 teams, and we optimistically hoped that each team could visit about 4 villages a day, finishing up in 5 days.

We’ve got five cars to do this: 3 decent, but not great, 4WD cars we hired in Lilongwe, 1 Land Cruiser that belongs to my organization, and the shoddy little pickup truck from the government I told you about yesterday. And we need every little set of wheels we’ve got.

Last night, I got a call at 9 PM from the office manager, saying he needed one of the cars to go to a meeting an hour away. I tried to explain that there really are no cars to spare, and he got very angry with me. We ended up giving him a lift to the meeting this morning, setting us back a couple hours.

Yesterday, one of the cars blew out a tire going up a hilly, rocky mountain road. It’s beyond repair, so that car is now out in the bush without a spare.

This morning, the government driver called in sick. It took 5 hours to find a replacement.

Our IT guy is here from the head office, and he needs to go to Blantyre (3 hours away) this week to buy computer supplies.

We are seriously one flat tire or busted shock away from this being a total disaster.

Only a few more days to go…only a few more days to go…only a few more days to go…