Dressings, dance offs and ditches.

 Another week in male ward done, time is really started to fly now. My week started off very busy. I arrived back on the ward on Tuesday morning after my days off to find the ward full due to a bad road traffic accident during the weekend. The patients all belonged to a football team who had been travelling home from a match. They all had really nasty wounds which took all morning to clean and dress. I definitely earned my lunch that day. In between getting their wounds seen to,  they spent all day sat outside in the sun (a perk of a Malawian hospital) waiting to be discharged home.

After the last football player had packed up his things, settled his bill and rounded up all his family, the ward felt empty. A theme that lasted the rest of the week, with regular discharges but very few admissions. On Thursday and Friday we had a grand total of 4 patients!! With two nurses and myself, it was practically 1:1 care, apart from they were all stable and needed very little attention! A massive contrast from earlier in the week. 

Peter, Hemy, Me (aka peg leg) and Juliana before our first workshop.

As well as working my shifts on the wards, myself and Hemy are also running some HIV education workshops in the local youth centre. We were granted funding from the Magnus Magnussun Fund, through uni, which allowed us to set these up. We have done two sessions so far and are planning another two before we leave. Luckily, we have enlisted the help of another two student nurses from the hospital's college to help us. Despite not quite knowing who would turn up and what to expect, the first workshop was a huge success (eventually). I say eventually, because being due to start at 9am in the morning, Hemy and I rocked up at 8.30 to make some final preparations. But after being in Africa for a few weeks, we should have known things would run no 'African time'. We sat waiting patiently from 9am until 10am and we had a total head count of 1! It took another half an hour for more and more people to arrive and we started the workshop sometime around half 10, 11ish with over 50 people - ages ranging from 7 to 20ish. Everyone participated in the activities we had organised and we finished off the session the only way you can finish anything in Malawi.....a lot of loud music and more dancing. As per usual, my dancing skills weren't quite up to scratch and I was well and truly outshone by the children. It did get slightly awkward though when the kids started to copy all my dance moves, so I think at one point I had about 20 children under the age of 10 all changing the light bulbs. It was such a good morning though and great to see our hard work in action after months of planning.

Doing my best colouring in

Our resident workshop DJs

Friday night at Mulanje Mission Hospital is pizza night. The nearest town -Chitakale, is home to (apparently) the 'world's greatest pizza' and after a few weeks of eating my body weight in peanut butter, rice and nsima, I'm starting to agree wholeheartedly with them. Normally these Friday nights are pretty standard......couple beers, pizza then home. Last Friday was a different story though. Before settling down to an evening of pizza goodness I nipped over to the cash machine. As per the norm, the first two banks I tried were either empty, broken or my card had been blocked (RBS don't like people using their cards in strange places and seem intent on blocking it every time I go away......but dont get me started on RBS!). So, off I troop (with Hemy as my bouncer) up to the next bank at the other end of the street. As it was half 6 or so in the evening, it was totally pitch black - and I'm gonna blame the darkness for what happened next. Walking along quite the thing (while cursing RBS), I managed to miss the massive gaping ditch that runs along the side of the road. The next thing I know I'm up to my thighs in a minging brown mud/water/rubbish/god knows what! I clambered out to be met with Hemy's look of 'is she hurt or is it ok to laugh' face and about twenty Malawians running across the road to my aid. They proceeded to make sure I was still functioning by testing all my limbs, bending them back and forward really fast. Luckily I hadn't broken any bones, but if I had I'm not sure that would have been the best first aid! We finally managed to shake off the concerned Malawians, pick up all my things and trudged back to the pizza place. I didn't fancy walking in like the creature from the deep so I sent Hemy in to discreetly tell Clare, the designated driver for the evening, what had happened. I in the meantime stood outside, dripping wet, inspecting my wounds. And, of course, weeping like a baby :(

After cleaning and dressing my wounds (luckily I was now an expert after taking care of all the football players injuries earlier in the week), changing my clothes - which were covered in the contents of the ditch,
and drying my eyes, I headed back for the now much needed pizza and beer. My injuries weren't too bad, the worst one was from knocking my elbow off the side of the road on my descent into the ditch ('descent' makes it sound graceful; it wasn't graceful!). So, I have a lovely multicoloured bruise and some attractive scabs.

You'll be pleased to hear that later that weekend I was able to successfully withdraw money without doing myself any more mischief!

Returning to the scene of the crime. Of course, the ditch is now dry!