Hi everyone!

This is my first message from Blantyre, Malawi, where I arrived 3 weeks ago.

I had a very african welcome to the country :-). I arrived at the airport here (with my bags :-), but the person that was supposed to pick me up wasn't there so I took a taxi. When I got to the lodge my room had been given away to someone else and they couldn't tell me when my room would be free. So I got stuck at Doogle's backpackers hostel, which to say the least is a bit dodgy. I was convinced someone was watching me in my room every time I turned on the light, and there were lots of older european men and young malawian girls.....Luckily I got to go back to Kabula lodge the next day where I am staying now, with lots of other volunteers.

I got to the hospital on monday, and the lady there told me that I had to stay for more than 3 weeks, or I wasn't allowed to come. I guess I just looked sad enough that she changed her mind after 15 minutes and suddenly it was OK. I went to the hospital and found a group of students on the Gynaecological ward, but no one seemed keen on introducing themselves, and the nurse said I should just follow them ( I found out later that they were clinical officer students, and have realized that it is nothing personal, but they are too scared to say anything to anyone most of the time, I don't know how they will ever function in their future jobs...)....around lunchtime all the students just walked away, while the ward round continued, so luckily I ran into some other dutch students who were nice enough to show me around.

The first week I had lots of interesting classes with the fifth year medical students, who were preparing for their finals (luckily they do talk and introduce themselves most of the time), and I saw more pathology on the wards in one day than I saw in 8 weeks in holland. The wards are huge, with the biggest one containing 50 women in one room!

In the weekend we went for a 3 day hike on mount mulanje (I will upload pictures soon!), which was a more tiring hike than I had ever done, but it was great!! The only problem was that we did not take enough food with us, which made everyone a little cranky until we got to the pizzeria at the bottom of the mountain. The mountain lodge was nice, there were even hot showers (in the form of a tub of cooked water that you could pour over yourself), there was no electricity so we had to sit by candlelight in the evening and cook over the fire.

In my second week at the hospital I joined in some clinics, operations, and did one birth myself. I had done births before in holland but was never left completely alone! Especially since the only things I could say in Chichewa are 'how are you?', 'push' and 'don't push' (and a few other things that are of no use in the labour ward).

At the lodge there are lots of nice people who I have been making trips with, so I am sad to be leaving for Zomba at the end of the week. I am staying at the nursing college dorm there, where apparently the nurses sing all the time (actually everybody sings all the time here..). Two new guests at the lodge gave us a free guitar concert yesterday on the patio (which was 100x better than the malawian concert I went to last friday)! This weekend my friends here are coming to Zomba with me so we can go hiking together on the plateau :-)

For the rest I am slowly adapting to the pace of life here, but missing everyone (especially Jaime) lots...

Love,

Dina