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Emily and i have skived off for the afternoon..the interns we are working with get tuesday afternoons for studying so we are doing the same!!! (Yeah right!! )We thought we deserved it after doing 3 lumbar punctures yesterday!!! Our first victim had already been stabbed three times by the doctor he then got angry with himself and so told me to have a go... Emily said my face was a picture to say the least!!... I was so scared! Trust Em she managed to get the psychiatric patient to do her lumbar puncture on who was not very cooperative...its hardly surprising really when they get no anaesthetic!
At the weekend we went up to the Zomba plateau which is at the top of the mountains surrounding Zomba for a weekend of luxury! We got a taxi up, very lazy i know but emily had fallen over the night before .. her ankle was turning a very attractive shade of purple!! The taxi driver tried to rip us off.. we have come to learn that whit means treble the price of everything!!! (We tried to buy bananas in the market the other day... and the girl tried to charge us 420 kwacha when they are meant to be about 50...luckily Emily told her utttt errrr..no way!! and the girl just laughed they try their luck most of the time!!) We stayed at the Ku chawe inn.. it was gorgeous...and went for a 2 hour walk to see a waterfall in the afternoon with our guide and two random dutch guys who turned out to be very funny!! I fell over twice..my trainers are not sensible for walking up mountains in and by the evening we were shattered!! We really enjoyed having baths until we became prunes and ate everything in sight at dinner!!! soup, salad, pasta,rice,meat,potatoes,cheesecake,fruit...you name it we had it..people were looking at us funnily when we went up for our 4th course but after eating beans and rice for a week we werent about to hold back!!! We were in bed by 10... ready for our walk the next day!!! In malawi there is no such thing as a lie in...everyone is awake at 5 am so that means you are as well..our guide wanted to leave at 8 am but we got him to agree to 9!! We went on a 4 hour walk right to the top of the mountain and were put to shame when we were nearly dying ...panting so out of breath and there were malawian guys running up the mountain with trees on their heads! The view was worth it when we got to the top...you can see all the way to mozambique!!! On our way down we passed a beautiful dam and probably foolishly drank from it...(we were then later on that night looking up the incubation period for cholera..but we are glad to say we are fine! ) We met some english med students who are also staying where we are and they joined us in the afternoon for a bbq...however we didnt actually get any food because we had paid a ridiculous amount of money for wine the night before (Most of which Laura drank) so we persuaded our random dutch friends to sneak us some chicken and rolls under the table..the hotel staff were watching us like hawks after that as Emily had told them..No thanks we arent eating!!! When it was time to leave,our mate benedict the hotel manager (everyone loves us out here the doctors are already crying that they dont want us to leave..haha) gave us a lift back to town..he was a legend!! When we got back to our room we found all of our food covered in mould and ants so had to go to town and that was the end of a very long day!!!
Monday was the big day of lumbar punctures...we were very proud of ourselves and we get on really well with the doctors in the hospital so the day goes quickly.. whocan fail to have fun when they like to talk about interesting conversations like how washing machines work (this fascinated them) and weight loss!!! (I was asked by a doctor on our ward completely out of the blue..."Laura do you want to lose weight???... i have seen that on english tv all girls want to look like her!!"..pointing at emily!!) thank god i have a sense of humour.. we were both crying with laughter!
We are going to liwonde national park at the weekend to see the elehumps and are going to have to brave the minibuses with about 60 people in them scary... next entry after this...
Lots of love Emily and Laura xx
p.s thanks for all your messages we love them,...we were especially impressed at our grandparents!! (grandma well done for using your labtop!! xxx)
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