Friday, December 31, 2010
New Year
In about one minute it will be 2011. Everyone except for Anthony and I has already gone to bed. I informed them that they are all lame.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Nov 28, 2010 (Sun) – 11:05pm (+2 GMT)
Thanksgiving dinner was quite a success, the only other thing I would have liked to have would have been pecan pie. We had mashed potatoes and stuffing and sweet potatoes and corn and green beans and pickles and olives and Special K loaf and apple pie and apple crisp and pumpkin pie and chocolate pie and ice cream and other things I don't remember at the moment. We all stuffed ourselves till we couldn't eat another bite then had dessert. After digesting for awhile a bunch of us went for a walk to convince ourselves that we were not completely unrepentant gluttons. We walked up to a vacant lot with an amazing view of the valley while the sun was setting. One would think that mountains would make the world feel smaller but in fact just the opposite occurs. In Michigan where everything is so flat I never feel like I am actually seeing all that far.
The house Anthony and I are in now is starting to feel more like a home. When we moved in the only two pieces of furniture were the beds. We have now managed to obtain two dressers, a bookshelf, a desk, a chair and a small dinning table. There is a living room which is about 12 feet by 8 feet, a large bedroom that is about the same, a small bedroom that is about 6 ½ feet by 7 ½ feet, a shower room, a toilette room with a sink that one gets to know very well when one is taking care of business due to the abnormally close proximity of the toilette and sink, and finally a kitchen where when two people are in it they have to take turns turning around. The house has no hot water, no fridge and no stove. There is a laundry machine that sits in the kitchen and has to be hooked to the kitchen faucet to use. There is also a large niche in the wall with a chimney for one to burn charcoal in to cook with. Fortunately we managed to dig up and fix a double hot plate to use. While fixing it I managed to electrocute myself with 240 volts which was rather exciting. The Haytons just purchased a new fridge which should be arriving this week so we will be getting their old one. It will be quite pleasant to be able to refrigerate food and have cold water to drink. Hopefully this week our room will also get fixed since every time it rains (which is nearly every day now) my bed gets wet. I try to move my bed out of the way but since I lost our round of paper, scissors, rock I got the small bedroom and there isn't exactly much space to move my bed if I actually want to be able to open my door as well. All in all things are quite interesting as always. T.I.A.
The house Anthony and I are in now is starting to feel more like a home. When we moved in the only two pieces of furniture were the beds. We have now managed to obtain two dressers, a bookshelf, a desk, a chair and a small dinning table. There is a living room which is about 12 feet by 8 feet, a large bedroom that is about the same, a small bedroom that is about 6 ½ feet by 7 ½ feet, a shower room, a toilette room with a sink that one gets to know very well when one is taking care of business due to the abnormally close proximity of the toilette and sink, and finally a kitchen where when two people are in it they have to take turns turning around. The house has no hot water, no fridge and no stove. There is a laundry machine that sits in the kitchen and has to be hooked to the kitchen faucet to use. There is also a large niche in the wall with a chimney for one to burn charcoal in to cook with. Fortunately we managed to dig up and fix a double hot plate to use. While fixing it I managed to electrocute myself with 240 volts which was rather exciting. The Haytons just purchased a new fridge which should be arriving this week so we will be getting their old one. It will be quite pleasant to be able to refrigerate food and have cold water to drink. Hopefully this week our room will also get fixed since every time it rains (which is nearly every day now) my bed gets wet. I try to move my bed out of the way but since I lost our round of paper, scissors, rock I got the small bedroom and there isn't exactly much space to move my bed if I actually want to be able to open my door as well. All in all things are quite interesting as always. T.I.A.
Nov 25, 2010 (Thu) – 12:56pm (+2 GMT)
I'm sitting in the waiting room of the Limbe clinic waiting – appropriately enough – for Christi to finish up what she is doing so she can ride with Cheri and Elde and I over to the Woods' house for Thanksgiving dinner. My stomach is quite looking forward to it. The last two days I have been trying to figure out how in the world the accounting works at the hospital and have come to the conclusion that it doesn't. After hours and running back and forth between multiple people and them searching for lost receipts and some lucky guesswork we finally figured out what all 10 (really just 8) line items were on my Tech account. It turned out that I an approximately $600 item had been charged to my account that never should have been. We are going to be setting up a separate bank account for the IT department so that in the future it will be easier to keep track of what is going on in the account.
Nov 20, 2010 (Mon) – 11:48 (GMT +2)
At this time last weekend Anthony, Hannah, Diane, Jacquie and I were completely focused on the objective of trying to stay cool, which proved quite elusive. We headed out from Malamulo at around 6:45 Friday morning when we caught a minibus to Blantyre. Once reaching the Limbe (a suburb of Blantyre) bus stop we changed to a large bus to take us up to Liwonde. We all piled into the bus where we all sat in the very back row and proceeded to observe the goings on of the people. Shortly after boarding a pastor stood up and announced that we were going to be having a church service at which point he started leading song service. Everyone joined in the singing and after several songs he launched into a sermon entirely in Chechewa. I don't think in the States anyone would put up with some random pastor leading out a church service on any sort of public transportation.
Once our spiritual dose for the day had been administered we set of on the three hour drive to Liwonde. Every time the bus stopped people would crowd around the windows hawking their wares. At one of the stops in a larger town we purchased some cold drinks, some crackers and a few samosas. The drinks were interesting in that the sellers expected us to drink the whole thing and give the bottle back before leaving the bus stop. If we wanted to keep the bottle we had to pay an extra 30 Kwatcha (~20 cents) for the deposit. Jacquie and Diane didn't feel safe eating the “street food” but Hannah and I quite enjoyed the samosas and I'm not dead yet.
When we arrived in Liwonde we called the Bushman's Baobab – where we were going to stay – and had them come pick us up. We were a bit surprised - some less pleasantly than others – when they arrived in a safari jeep thing (a very technical term) with no roof and a transmission system that had seen many better days. But it was nice being in the open air as we drove to the camp which was located in a small, rarely visited, section of nowhere. On the way we picked up a guy who we later found out was the owner and also discovered to be quite eccentric. He was white Malawian whose family had been in Malawi for 7 or 8 generations. He also drank from sunrise till long after sunset and chain smoked worse than about anybody I've seen. But he did have many interesting stories and had traveled quite extensively, he also knew each of the elephants in the herds that came by the camp by name.
Shortly after we arrived, once we had put our stuff in our sleeping quarters, we all piled back onto the safari vehicle to drive over to where we would be having a canoe safari. We started out in a shallow swampy area, polled through tall grass for several minutes and then broke out into the river. We saw around a dozen hippos, a bunch of impala, water bucks, various large birds and, when we got back to our starting point, a whole herd of elephants. That evening we chilled at the camp - although “chilled” might not be the right word considering the deathly heat. After trying to get to sleep for an hour or so Diane, Jacquie and I temporarily gave up and went out to sit in the common area where it was breezy. The owner was still up and he came over – much to the dismay of the girls – and started talking up a storm whilst knocking back a few beers and going through a cigarette every few minutes. After awhile the girls got fed up with him and went back to the dorm. I ended up staying out and talking with him till 2 am mostly about world politics and related issues. His ability to argue rationally and usefully declined through the night as his blood alcohol level increased. I finally got to sleep for a couple hours before getting up for our safari drive at 6am. The drive was decent, the main problem was that the transmission system on the vehicle kept getting stuck so the driver wasn't able to stop when we wanted to get pictures. The rest of the day we spent most of our energy trying to keep cool. Jacquie had somewhat of a cultural shock breakdown. In the afternoon we ended up sitting in a circle taking turns spraying each other down with a hose. That night we all showered with our cloths on and went to bed wet which was amazingly helpful for getting to sleep. Sunday morning after breakfast we headed back to town where all of us except Hannah caught the bus back to Blantyre. Hannah parted ways to head to the lake before heading back to England.
The bus ride back was interesting. At one point someone got in with a very large box of fish which smelled quite potent. In Blantyre we caught a minibus going to Makwasa. Diane wasn't able to sit in the front this time and she had a rather unpleasant ride back dealing with a bad case of claustrophobia. We arrived back at Malamulo in the early afternoon and just relaxed for the rest of the day.
Once our spiritual dose for the day had been administered we set of on the three hour drive to Liwonde. Every time the bus stopped people would crowd around the windows hawking their wares. At one of the stops in a larger town we purchased some cold drinks, some crackers and a few samosas. The drinks were interesting in that the sellers expected us to drink the whole thing and give the bottle back before leaving the bus stop. If we wanted to keep the bottle we had to pay an extra 30 Kwatcha (~20 cents) for the deposit. Jacquie and Diane didn't feel safe eating the “street food” but Hannah and I quite enjoyed the samosas and I'm not dead yet.
When we arrived in Liwonde we called the Bushman's Baobab – where we were going to stay – and had them come pick us up. We were a bit surprised - some less pleasantly than others – when they arrived in a safari jeep thing (a very technical term) with no roof and a transmission system that had seen many better days. But it was nice being in the open air as we drove to the camp which was located in a small, rarely visited, section of nowhere. On the way we picked up a guy who we later found out was the owner and also discovered to be quite eccentric. He was white Malawian whose family had been in Malawi for 7 or 8 generations. He also drank from sunrise till long after sunset and chain smoked worse than about anybody I've seen. But he did have many interesting stories and had traveled quite extensively, he also knew each of the elephants in the herds that came by the camp by name.
Shortly after we arrived, once we had put our stuff in our sleeping quarters, we all piled back onto the safari vehicle to drive over to where we would be having a canoe safari. We started out in a shallow swampy area, polled through tall grass for several minutes and then broke out into the river. We saw around a dozen hippos, a bunch of impala, water bucks, various large birds and, when we got back to our starting point, a whole herd of elephants. That evening we chilled at the camp - although “chilled” might not be the right word considering the deathly heat. After trying to get to sleep for an hour or so Diane, Jacquie and I temporarily gave up and went out to sit in the common area where it was breezy. The owner was still up and he came over – much to the dismay of the girls – and started talking up a storm whilst knocking back a few beers and going through a cigarette every few minutes. After awhile the girls got fed up with him and went back to the dorm. I ended up staying out and talking with him till 2 am mostly about world politics and related issues. His ability to argue rationally and usefully declined through the night as his blood alcohol level increased. I finally got to sleep for a couple hours before getting up for our safari drive at 6am. The drive was decent, the main problem was that the transmission system on the vehicle kept getting stuck so the driver wasn't able to stop when we wanted to get pictures. The rest of the day we spent most of our energy trying to keep cool. Jacquie had somewhat of a cultural shock breakdown. In the afternoon we ended up sitting in a circle taking turns spraying each other down with a hose. That night we all showered with our cloths on and went to bed wet which was amazingly helpful for getting to sleep. Sunday morning after breakfast we headed back to town where all of us except Hannah caught the bus back to Blantyre. Hannah parted ways to head to the lake before heading back to England.
The bus ride back was interesting. At one point someone got in with a very large box of fish which smelled quite potent. In Blantyre we caught a minibus going to Makwasa. Diane wasn't able to sit in the front this time and she had a rather unpleasant ride back dealing with a bad case of claustrophobia. We arrived back at Malamulo in the early afternoon and just relaxed for the rest of the day.
Monday, November 8, 2010
Nov 1, 2010 (Mon) – 12:48pm (GMT +2)
Well today we have no power so I have a pot of stew I made last night warming up over a charcoal stove that we are burning wood in instead of charcoal. This morning I got woken up by a call from the guy in accounts saying that they needed me to come down right away to help them finish payroll since they were having problems getting the computers to do what they wanted. The rest of my morning I spent talking with Randy about getting some computer training classes going and helping the college tech guy (whose name I can't ever remember) [Edit: Develious (spelling?)] with their network configuration.
Brazil just had their presidential election yesterday and the Diane is not very happy with the results. I'm very annoyed due to the fact that MI did not get me my absentee ballot in time (I sill haven't gotten it) to vote in tomorrow's election. I found that I could have printed an emergency ballot but I didn't discover that till it was to late to mail it back to the states anyway. I don't see why they American embassy doesn't just have it set up for people to come there to vote, it seems to me like that would make a lot more sense.
On Saturday we went to Mount Mulanje again this time with a whole group of people. We met up with a bunch of the volunteers from Blantyre and made for quite the dense group of white people. As always the falls felt really good to swim in after the hike up. On the way back down it started to dump rain and some hail on us so by the time we were all loaded into vehicles everyone was drenched and muddy. I bought a chess set at the shops by the entrance gate. I haggled the guy down from 8500 Kwatcha to 2300 Kwatcha (about 14 dollars). Of course then I managed to leave it in the truck I road back in but Alex is in Blantyre today so he is going to try and grab it for me.
White people overload
Having fun in the water
Exploring the Falls
Our Muddy Trek Down
Brazil just had their presidential election yesterday and the Diane is not very happy with the results. I'm very annoyed due to the fact that MI did not get me my absentee ballot in time (I sill haven't gotten it) to vote in tomorrow's election. I found that I could have printed an emergency ballot but I didn't discover that till it was to late to mail it back to the states anyway. I don't see why they American embassy doesn't just have it set up for people to come there to vote, it seems to me like that would make a lot more sense.
On Saturday we went to Mount Mulanje again this time with a whole group of people. We met up with a bunch of the volunteers from Blantyre and made for quite the dense group of white people. As always the falls felt really good to swim in after the hike up. On the way back down it started to dump rain and some hail on us so by the time we were all loaded into vehicles everyone was drenched and muddy. I bought a chess set at the shops by the entrance gate. I haggled the guy down from 8500 Kwatcha to 2300 Kwatcha (about 14 dollars). Of course then I managed to leave it in the truck I road back in but Alex is in Blantyre today so he is going to try and grab it for me.
White people overload
Having fun in the water
Exploring the Falls
Our Muddy Trek Down
Tea Fields
Tea fields are everywhere here. Our resident Brit says that it is *almost* as good as British tea (I'm pretty sure this is where they import their tea from). Compared to how all pervasive tea fields are here we only have a few scattered stalks of corn in Michigan. Most of the fields are owned by large plantations, you can tell when the ones that aren't since they don't look as nice.
Oct 17, 2010 (Sun) – 9:48pm (GMT +2) - Moving, New People and ICU
Last Friday Anthony and I moved to the guest house so that Elisa's brother's family can move into the house we were in when they get here this Wednesday. Dr. Fam flew out early this morning for a vacation in Malaysia before going to work in Nigeria. This last week a new girl came who is a physical therapist from Brazil. Now there are four of us living in the guest house, the new girl (Diane – pronounced kind of like “journey”), Anthony, Hannah and I. I made bread by myself for the first time tonight and it looks like it came out well, we'll see how it tastes tomorrow. The squid proxy is up and running as of today so now I get to have lots of people complaining to me about what they can't do on the internet. The next thing I need to work on is configuring squid so that I can route https connections through it. I found a tutorial online that looks promising, I just need to go through it and see if it actually pans out. We were going to watch Moonraker tonight but Hannah got back from the hospital quite late and we all have early mornings tomorrow. Yesterday we walked out to the dam after potluck and I discovered that the water system control building is quite good for climbing on.
Last Wednesday I went into BAH with Wes, Alex and Pelica where we spent a long day working on the new ICU. It turns out that we are going to have to completely redo the wiring since the “electricians” that were hired to do it did a completely crap job. It wasn't even just incompetence, he also stole wire or else it just magically disappeared all on its own. There were several places where 6 or 8 wires would be coming down on both ends like they were supposed to but if you went up into the attic all the wires were attached to a single wire that was run across the length of the attic then attached to more wires to go back down. I'm not sure how they thought they would ever get away with it, it's not like we wouldn't notice when things didn't work.
Last Wednesday I went into BAH with Wes, Alex and Pelica where we spent a long day working on the new ICU. It turns out that we are going to have to completely redo the wiring since the “electricians” that were hired to do it did a completely crap job. It wasn't even just incompetence, he also stole wire or else it just magically disappeared all on its own. There were several places where 6 or 8 wires would be coming down on both ends like they were supposed to but if you went up into the attic all the wires were attached to a single wire that was run across the length of the attic then attached to more wires to go back down. I'm not sure how they thought they would ever get away with it, it's not like we wouldn't notice when things didn't work.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Oct 4, 2010 (Mon) – 9:26pm (GMT +2)
So I was just out making my self some food (lunch and supper). Just after I got back to the house the power finally came back on. There was a scheduled power outage from about 8 this morning till about 9 this evening (scheduled in that we know power was going to be out today, we however had no idea for how long it would be out). Saturday the power was also out for 3 or 4 hours ending just after midnight, as far as I know that one was unscheduled or at least unannounced. Anyway, a few minutes after the power came back on a bat started flying around the house. I have to say it is a bit unnerving how close it gets without ever actually hitting. I watched it for a few minutes then went and got my video camera and started recording it. At one point it landing on one of the window bars in the sitting room and I started to get closer for a better shot when suddenly a large owl smacked into the window trying to catch the bat. It was just a bit startling. If it hadn't been for the glass that bat would have had its life ended quite abruptly.
Two of the guys from Loma Linda left this morning. Jere is staying for another two weeks to work on setting up some biometric time clocks and start training on the patient finance accounting system. Of course right after they leave (well technically the night before, but after any useful time of them being here) we discover that the squid proxy we have set up to control web access doesn't allow through SSL connections like gmail which is a problem. Wednesday I'll be able to get in touch with them and hopefully they can help me figure out a solution if I haven't by then. (In the interim I've just routed all https traffic around the proxy which is definitely not a long term solution.)
On Friday Elisa, Christy, Alex and I went to Mount Mulanje (the third highest mountain in Africa) and climbed up the the waterfalls. Christy called me a little before 10 am to invite me and the phone ringing woke me up. She only gave me about 10 minutes notice so it was a bit of a scramble. The climb up the the falls took about an hour and by the time we got there we were all very hot and sweaty so jumping into the cold water felt good. After a minute or two the water stopped feeling cold once out bodies went numb. At one point I looked at my hands and they had completely lost all colour. Once we were sufficiently numb we got out and Chrity and Elisa laid on the large rock by the pool while Alex and I climbed up to the head of the waterfall. After awhile Alex went back down and strung up a hammock he had brought with him and I explored a few hundred meters further upstream. We headed back down the mountain around 4:30pm and got down just as the sun was setting.
Saturday we had a welcome potluck for the Haytans. A whole bunch of people came out from Blantyre and some of the peace core people in the area came as well. There was at least 50 people. The variety of food alone, never mind the quantity, was quite overwhelming. It was hard to know where to start and what to leave for seconds, thirds and fourths. I think I gained back all the calories I lost climbing the mounting. It was nice to be able to socialize with more people. After eating a group of us younger people (it feels odd that I can't categorize us as teenagers anymore) went down to the hospital to show around those who hadn't been there before. A little later some of us went out walking again over to the tea field this time. I hadn't been out that direction before so it was new for me as well. I discovered about half way through the walk when I went to take a picture that I had left the memory card on my desk. I'll have to get back out there soon with a fully functioning camera.
As I mentioned earlier the power was off for the whole evening. We had been going to have a movie night but projectors don't work well without power. I ended up teaching everyone (except for Alex who already know and was quite good) how to play Slaps by flashlight. Anthony kept apologizing every time he hit someones hand and I kept trying to convince him that that was unnecessary.
Yesterday and today were pretty much normal work days although yesterday I did spend awhile skyping various people in the evening. The mosquitoes have been getting worse and so has the heat.
Two of the guys from Loma Linda left this morning. Jere is staying for another two weeks to work on setting up some biometric time clocks and start training on the patient finance accounting system. Of course right after they leave (well technically the night before, but after any useful time of them being here) we discover that the squid proxy we have set up to control web access doesn't allow through SSL connections like gmail which is a problem. Wednesday I'll be able to get in touch with them and hopefully they can help me figure out a solution if I haven't by then. (In the interim I've just routed all https traffic around the proxy which is definitely not a long term solution.)
On Friday Elisa, Christy, Alex and I went to Mount Mulanje (the third highest mountain in Africa) and climbed up the the waterfalls. Christy called me a little before 10 am to invite me and the phone ringing woke me up. She only gave me about 10 minutes notice so it was a bit of a scramble. The climb up the the falls took about an hour and by the time we got there we were all very hot and sweaty so jumping into the cold water felt good. After a minute or two the water stopped feeling cold once out bodies went numb. At one point I looked at my hands and they had completely lost all colour. Once we were sufficiently numb we got out and Chrity and Elisa laid on the large rock by the pool while Alex and I climbed up to the head of the waterfall. After awhile Alex went back down and strung up a hammock he had brought with him and I explored a few hundred meters further upstream. We headed back down the mountain around 4:30pm and got down just as the sun was setting.
Saturday we had a welcome potluck for the Haytans. A whole bunch of people came out from Blantyre and some of the peace core people in the area came as well. There was at least 50 people. The variety of food alone, never mind the quantity, was quite overwhelming. It was hard to know where to start and what to leave for seconds, thirds and fourths. I think I gained back all the calories I lost climbing the mounting. It was nice to be able to socialize with more people. After eating a group of us younger people (it feels odd that I can't categorize us as teenagers anymore) went down to the hospital to show around those who hadn't been there before. A little later some of us went out walking again over to the tea field this time. I hadn't been out that direction before so it was new for me as well. I discovered about half way through the walk when I went to take a picture that I had left the memory card on my desk. I'll have to get back out there soon with a fully functioning camera.
As I mentioned earlier the power was off for the whole evening. We had been going to have a movie night but projectors don't work well without power. I ended up teaching everyone (except for Alex who already know and was quite good) how to play Slaps by flashlight. Anthony kept apologizing every time he hit someones hand and I kept trying to convince him that that was unnecessary.
Yesterday and today were pretty much normal work days although yesterday I did spend awhile skyping various people in the evening. The mosquitoes have been getting worse and so has the heat.
Sept 28, 2010 (Tue) – 5:27pm (GMT +2)
So today I ended up spending several hours multitasking between virus scans and looking for resources relating to Arthurian legend then somehow branched into looking up corner desks to use with multiple monitors. There is going to be a whole list of books I want to buy when I get back to the States. Someday when I have my own library (right next to my den) I will have a large section dedicated to works on Arthur, Merlin and the knights of the round table.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sept 25, 2010 (Sat) – 11:48am (GMT +2)
Last Wednesday the guys from Loma Linda got here rather later than they were planing due to the fact that they missed their flight in Johannesburg and ended up taking another flight up to Lilongwe and then back down to Blantyre. There luggage was supposed to come in yesterday and Jere went with Elisa to pick it up but I haven't heard yet whether that was successful. They were also going to be picking up some more switches and Ethernet cable for the network we are working on setting up for the Hospital. While they were gone yesterday the other two guys and I ran cables to the cashier's desk as well as a cable to the general ward and one to pediatrics. The distance of some of the other wards and especially the Annex is going to make running a single Ethernet cable impossible due to signal degradation. For some of the closer ones we are going to just put up switches to act as signal amplifiers but for the Annex we would like to do fibre optic but the cost may be prohibitive. (Side note: The Annex is what we call the private in-patient area where, if you have the money, you can get a private room and catered meals and the like. Whereas in the general area a family member has to stay with the patient at all times and provide things like meals.) We are going to have to figure out how to get power to the switches we want to hang in the hallway to extend cable range. There is a power conduit running the length of the hall that is for lighting but we traced it out and one switch controls several hundred meters with dozens of lights so we decided that would not be a reliable source of power.
On Tuesday Dr. Fam moved in with Anthony and I and will be staying here for awhile before he heads to Nigeria. This next week a new family is coming who will be using the house he vacated. He brought with him enough food to feed a small country so we should be good on that front for awhile, my only concern is that it will go bad before we can get through it. One item he brought was a bunch of mangoes so I have been learning how to cut up and eat a mango. They are not one of the easier fruits when it comes to separating the edible from the inedible but once accomplished fresh mango makes for a very enjoyable breakfast.
On Tuesday Dr. Fam moved in with Anthony and I and will be staying here for awhile before he heads to Nigeria. This next week a new family is coming who will be using the house he vacated. He brought with him enough food to feed a small country so we should be good on that front for awhile, my only concern is that it will go bad before we can get through it. One item he brought was a bunch of mangoes so I have been learning how to cut up and eat a mango. They are not one of the easier fruits when it comes to separating the edible from the inedible but once accomplished fresh mango makes for a very enjoyable breakfast.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
September 18, 2010 (Sat) – 1:42pm (GMT +2)
In a few minutes we are going to start eating haystacks which I'm quite looking forward to. This morning Anthony and I went for a walk down my the dam and took pictures so when we got back we were quite hot and hungry. Once we got back to the house we made up shredded lettuce and guacamole to take to potluck.
Our worker talked to Anthony a couple days ago to see if we had some more work he could do so yesterday we had him do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen. He worked for about three hours and we paid him 120 Kwatcha (170 Kwatcha to the dollar). I kept having to remind myself that that is a perfectly good wage for here and that I wasn't a terrible person for paying him about 25 cents an hour.
2:37
Ahh... That's better, except I hear there is dessert and I definitely did not leave room for it, lol. I imagine I'll have to stuff myself a bit more. There are several more people here than there has been for the last few weeks. Alex got here Thursday night, Wes had picked him up in Lilongwe and took him along up to Mwami just across the border into Zambia. Kelvin and his family got back from a summer of traveling last week so they are here and they have a little 4 year old girl who, once they got over their initial shyness, Andrew and Keiza have been having fun playing with, sometimes to the detriment of our being able to hear ourselves think. Elisa just got back a few minutes ago with Christi who flew into Blantyre today.
Our worker talked to Anthony a couple days ago to see if we had some more work he could do so yesterday we had him do a thorough cleaning of the kitchen. He worked for about three hours and we paid him 120 Kwatcha (170 Kwatcha to the dollar). I kept having to remind myself that that is a perfectly good wage for here and that I wasn't a terrible person for paying him about 25 cents an hour.
2:37
Ahh... That's better, except I hear there is dessert and I definitely did not leave room for it, lol. I imagine I'll have to stuff myself a bit more. There are several more people here than there has been for the last few weeks. Alex got here Thursday night, Wes had picked him up in Lilongwe and took him along up to Mwami just across the border into Zambia. Kelvin and his family got back from a summer of traveling last week so they are here and they have a little 4 year old girl who, once they got over their initial shyness, Andrew and Keiza have been having fun playing with, sometimes to the detriment of our being able to hear ourselves think. Elisa just got back a few minutes ago with Christi who flew into Blantyre today.
September 15, 2010 (Wed) – 7:30am (GMT +2)
Wes left yesterday for Mwami so I couldn't ride with him into Blantyre to work at BAH. So I am currently squished like a sardine into the Limbe clinic vehicle along with 10 other people in a truck that is clearly not designed for this. I am rather exhausted as I was up till nearly 1:30am last night trying to finish some backups off of one of the hospital computers. I had it booted into Ubuntu and for some reason it kept crashing when I would try to rename this one file. Finally I got the backups finished now I just need to reinstall XP and lock the computer down to try and keep out viruses. Even though the computer had anti-virus software installed it wasn't doing much good since every time it would pop up with a warning they would just click ignore. The workers desperately need some computer training, however I can't help but wonder how much of it would actually stick.
Yesterday I finally got around to putting up the new mosquito net I had bought a week and a half ago. I had our yard worker cut 4 lengths of bamboo that I used to construct a frame to keep the top of the mosquito net spread out. I was quite pleased with the result. Apparently Dr. Fam is going to be moving in with Anthony and I for awhile at least, I think he is going to be going to a hospital in another country soon.
Yesterday I finally got around to putting up the new mosquito net I had bought a week and a half ago. I had our yard worker cut 4 lengths of bamboo that I used to construct a frame to keep the top of the mosquito net spread out. I was quite pleased with the result. Apparently Dr. Fam is going to be moving in with Anthony and I for awhile at least, I think he is going to be going to a hospital in another country soon.
September 10, 2010 (Fri) – 7:32pm (GMT +2)
Well I've been here for over two weeks now and I'm getting used to people driving on the wrong (left) side of the road. Yesterday I spent over 8 hours troubleshooting and getting viruses off of computers, by the time I went home I was feeling rather drained. I decided I felt like reading and took a look at the books that were in the house and found that there was a copy of The Da Vinci Code which I had been wanting to read. I started it at around 9 o'clock in the evening, fell asleep around 1am then finished it during this morning and early afternoon. The ending was a bit different than the movie and it a lot of interesting details that the movie had left out. I would be curious to see a detailed analysis of the book that sourced all the various “facts” put forth by the author.
On Wednesday I tried making lentils that we had a bag of but it turns out that trying to cook a bag of mixed lentils and rice to the correct degree is rather difficult. By the time everything was no longer crunchy there was a nice thick layer of burnt on the bottom of the pan. I tried to save it by putting in lots of spices but eventually I just gave up and threw out the whole thing. Today I made stew and put experimented with putting eggplant in which turned out to be a good deal more successful and quite good. Tuesday I went into town to do some visa stuff and work at BAH and got a fan which has been nice. The white noise has helped drown out all the loud people walking by my house at all hours of the night. But it doesn't do much to drown out the things that crash onto the tin roof of our house. I think there must be a tree that hangs over the house and drops things onto the roof, but I swear it only does it in the middle of the night.
On Wednesday I tried making lentils that we had a bag of but it turns out that trying to cook a bag of mixed lentils and rice to the correct degree is rather difficult. By the time everything was no longer crunchy there was a nice thick layer of burnt on the bottom of the pan. I tried to save it by putting in lots of spices but eventually I just gave up and threw out the whole thing. Today I made stew and put experimented with putting eggplant in which turned out to be a good deal more successful and quite good. Tuesday I went into town to do some visa stuff and work at BAH and got a fan which has been nice. The white noise has helped drown out all the loud people walking by my house at all hours of the night. But it doesn't do much to drown out the things that crash onto the tin roof of our house. I think there must be a tree that hangs over the house and drops things onto the roof, but I swear it only does it in the middle of the night.
August 31, 2010 (Tue) – 11:55pm (GMT +2)
This morning Chrislyn called to see if I wanted to come over and learn how to make bread. Wes came by the house shortly thereafter and I went with him down to the hospital. We hooked up a printer to the airport router and his Mac worked with it just fine but we couldn't get any other computer to work with it. I started learning about IP/TCP headers and things in preparation for setting up firewall and QoS stuff. For dinner I made spaghetti sauce which came out quite well. After dinner I went back down to the hospital to catch up on internet things. The guard was asleep in a chair when I went through the gate. From what I hear, that is not uncommon for guards around here.
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
August 30, 2010 (Mon) – 10:31pm (GMT +2)
Saturday Elisa, Eldi, Cheri (sp?), Deborah and I went to a game park about two hours from the hospital. We saw Zebras, Giraffes, Nyala (these striped deer looking things), Wildebeests, a Warthog, monkeys, birds and a huge ant trail. It was a long day and by the time we got back to the hospital we were all rather drained.
Yesterday Wes and I spent some time at the hospital taking a look at various networking things as well as updating a computer that we will be using as the IT laptop. We also walked around campus and to see where would be the best places for routers and things to make wireless available to as many people as possible. In the evening I started cleaning things out of the fridge and trying to get the kitchen a bit more organized and ended up spending about two and a half hours cleaning. It does look a bit better now but the whole kitchen needs a good deep cleaning. By the time I got to bed it was almost midnight.
Today we filled the Land Cruiser with people and headed into Blantyre at 7:30 in the morning. Wes, Chrislyn and the kids, Elisa, Eldi, Deborah and I managed to fill every seat it had to offer. There were a seeming endless supply of errands that needed to be run around town including, much to my joy, picking up my luggage at the airport. When I had called they said only one bag was in but as luck would have it both bags were in fact waiting there. Now that I've been living off of my carry-on for the last 5 days it feels like I suddenly have an absolutely gratuitous amount of stuff. Having more clothes is a definite plus, especially since this morning I spent a good 40 minutes ironing my cloths to finish drying them. I bought several items while in Blantyre such as a glass bowl to use in the microwave, a knife set, a high/low voltage protector, laundry detergent, wax paper, ketchup, steel wool, some spices and a few other things. On the way back to Malamulo we stopped in what is apparently the best market for fresh produce and I bought a bunch of tomatoes for making salsa with this week. I ate supper with the Lutzes then went back to my house where I ended up helping Anthony with his computer for over an hour until we finally gave up for the night.
Yesterday Wes and I spent some time at the hospital taking a look at various networking things as well as updating a computer that we will be using as the IT laptop. We also walked around campus and to see where would be the best places for routers and things to make wireless available to as many people as possible. In the evening I started cleaning things out of the fridge and trying to get the kitchen a bit more organized and ended up spending about two and a half hours cleaning. It does look a bit better now but the whole kitchen needs a good deep cleaning. By the time I got to bed it was almost midnight.
Today we filled the Land Cruiser with people and headed into Blantyre at 7:30 in the morning. Wes, Chrislyn and the kids, Elisa, Eldi, Deborah and I managed to fill every seat it had to offer. There were a seeming endless supply of errands that needed to be run around town including, much to my joy, picking up my luggage at the airport. When I had called they said only one bag was in but as luck would have it both bags were in fact waiting there. Now that I've been living off of my carry-on for the last 5 days it feels like I suddenly have an absolutely gratuitous amount of stuff. Having more clothes is a definite plus, especially since this morning I spent a good 40 minutes ironing my cloths to finish drying them. I bought several items while in Blantyre such as a glass bowl to use in the microwave, a knife set, a high/low voltage protector, laundry detergent, wax paper, ketchup, steel wool, some spices and a few other things. On the way back to Malamulo we stopped in what is apparently the best market for fresh produce and I bought a bunch of tomatoes for making salsa with this week. I ate supper with the Lutzes then went back to my house where I ended up helping Anthony with his computer for over an hour until we finally gave up for the night.
Aug 27, 2010 (Fri) – 2:45pm (GMT +2)
This morning I got up at 8 o'clock and Anthony showed me the Wheat Bix he uses for cereal. It wasn't bad with sliced bananas and jam mixed in. Once we had finished eating (while listening to NPR and discussing various things from New Orleans' flooding problem to people beating their kids) we joined Chrislyn, Wes and the kids to go to the market in Makwasa. It being a Friday, everyone had come to town to buy and/or sell various goods off all descriptions. I bought a cold drink which was fruity with a touch of coconut and got a few hundred units for my phone. Afterwords I walked through the market and bought tomatoes, potatoes, onions and eggs from various venders. They have a thing where after you decide how much of something you want they will throw in an extra for free. For example I bought two piles of potatoes and they added another part of a pile for a bonus. On the walk back Anthony and I joined a crowd of people gathered around a witch doctor who was “making money” by chewing on a piece of paper then making a 50 Kwatcha bill appear, it wasn't bad slight of hand but that's all. Once we got back to our house I decided to try my hand at a stew and made a quite passable meal. I was going to put some TVP in it but then I realized it is all in Johannesburg with the rest of my luggage but we did have some “soy pieces” which are similar so I put those in. Once I was done I made myself a bowl and went over to the Lutz's house.
8:00pm
The kids were going down for a nap and after eating I laid on the couch to type but shortly followed suit and slept for about 2 hours. After I woke up I called Anthony and met him down at the hospital to get on the internet. I finally had time to upload some pictures and I got Skype installed on my netbook which took 5 tries to download but it finally worked and I was able to talk to people at home.
8:00pm
The kids were going down for a nap and after eating I laid on the couch to type but shortly followed suit and slept for about 2 hours. After I woke up I called Anthony and met him down at the hospital to get on the internet. I finally had time to upload some pictures and I got Skype installed on my netbook which took 5 tries to download but it finally worked and I was able to talk to people at home.
Friday, August 27, 2010
Aug, 26 2010 (Thu) – 10:40pm (GMT +2)
Last night I slept for about 12 hours and got up shortly after 11 in the morning after which I felt a good deal better. I got ready for the day and was just going out the inner door when Chrislyn knocked on the outer door to say that it was time for lunch (she had invited me over the night before) so I went and ate with them. Their kids, Keiza and Andrew, were as hyper as ever and Chrislyn has started referring to me as “Uncle Chris” when she talks to them. After lunch Wes and I went down to the hospital and started catching me up on all the various projects that need worked on. It is going to take awhile to get completely up to speed. We spent a few hours thus occupied and then proceeded on a short tour of the campus on the way to drop some item off at someone's house. From there we went to take a look at the various aspects of the water system. The water tank was a bit low so we drove a mile over extremely bad roads – thank goodness we were in a land cruiser – to where there are 4 wells by a reservoir which supply the hospital with water. He showed me the generator/control room which is inside a solid concrete shed due to security concerns. He tries to keep as few of the pumps running as possible to reduce the energy cost so there were only three of the four running. The smallest one was shut off in favor of the second smallest one which had been turned off, so the added capacity should refill the storage tank. By this time the sun was getting low and we headed back to the house where I stayed and talked and played with the kids for most of the evening, partway through we had a snack of macadamia nuts and apples. Wes told me that I could probably sell my computers and iTouch when I leave for quite a bit of money, a lot more then I would be able to get for them in the States so I may just do that, it would probably give me enough money to buy all new better equipment when I return.
Eventually Anthony came over and stayed for a little while before going out to return a water bottle to one of the doctors who had forgotten it somewhere. Shortly thereafter - once I had played a game of Uno with the kids – I returned to my house, had some toast for a snack and explored the house a bit more. Tomorrow Elisa is supposed to be returning from her meetings in Blantyre and I will probably be going into town to buy some things at the market.
Eventually Anthony came over and stayed for a little while before going out to return a water bottle to one of the doctors who had forgotten it somewhere. Shortly thereafter - once I had played a game of Uno with the kids – I returned to my house, had some toast for a snack and explored the house a bit more. Tomorrow Elisa is supposed to be returning from her meetings in Blantyre and I will probably be going into town to buy some things at the market.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Here
Well I made it to Malawi yesterday after almost 40 hours of traveling. My luggage was not quite so lucky. I think it got left in Johannesburg due to the extremely short connection time. I had to sprint to make the plane and if they had left on time I wouldn't have made it. The next SAA flight into Blantyre is on Saturday so hopefully I will be getting my luggage then. I'm very glad I packed a change of clothes in my carry-on. The weather is quite nice here at the moment but soon it will be getting much much warmer.
After getting out of customs I met up with people from the hospital and we spent a few hours running errands around town before heading to Malamulo. While Anthony and I were waiting in the van for the other two, security guards cleared the street and a few minutes later the president came by in a big cavalcade. I can't say I was expecting to see the president of the country within two hours of getting there so that was interesting. I wish I had had the foresight to have my camera ready.
On the way to Malawi I had an almost 9 hour layover in the Frankfurt airport so I put my bags in storage and took the train to explore Mainz, at least that was the plan. I accidentally got off the train too early and after wondering the streets for a few minutes and not finding any of the street names from my google maps print out of Mainz I realized I was in fact in Ruesselheim. I decided that the first order of business before I even thought about getting back on the train was to find myself a nice doener kebab, that amazing morsel of food to which my thoughts have so often strayed over the last 3 years. I almost got away without using any English but I forgot the German word for “onion” so ended up saying “kein..... er.. onions.” Getting money changed into euros was a quite unexpectedly difficult task. When I was at Bogenhofen I could just go to any bank and change money but for some reason almost no one would change money in Ruesselheim but finally at the Deutsche Bank, after trying 4 or 5 other banks, I was able to get the euros I needed. By that time I decided that I would just explore Russelheim and save Mainz for my layover in April. Shortly after getting money changed I wandered into a fair that was going on in the streets and had rides set up in a park by the river. It looked like the fair that just happened in Berrien but with more German. After wandering through the fair I took a walk by the river and then went back into town. Earlier I had seen a museum marked on a map so I went to take a look. It turned out that it was a historic park with walking paths that went by old towers and ruins now surrounded by nice gardens. I was temped to climb up into one of the towers since the door at the bottom was locked but I decided against it much to my sense of fun's dismay. By this time it was getting to the hour when I needed to head back to the airport. I laid down on the grass for a little while to rest then made my way to the train station. I got back through customs and security with about 2 hours to spare. When I went to sit down I discovered much to my delight that there was a power plug right beside my chair, an occurrence rather unheard of in European airports. Fortunately I had packed a plug adapter in my carry-on just in case lady luck decided to smile upon me in just such a fashion. I spent the remaining time until boarding watching The Da Vinci Code, an interesting movie based quite a lot on myth and legend. It reminded me very much of National Treasure.
Once we got to the house where I'm staying we put my bags inside then went down to the hospital with Anthony, Chrislyn and her two children (a 2 year old boy and a 3 year old girl). On the walk there we saw a very distinct double rainbow. At the hospital I got on her laptop for a few minutes to check email and Facebook after which Anthony and I played with the kids – who seemed to have limitless energy –while Chrislyn did a few things online. By the time we started to head back to the houses the sun had set. Chrislyn had invited us over to dinner which we thankfully partook in while waiting for Wes to return from a 3 week stay in Zambia. After he got back and introductions were made we stayed and talked for a few minutes then Anthony and I headed back to our house to hit the sack. I unpacked the very limited amount of items in my carry-on, spread the mosquito netting and went to sleep.
After getting out of customs I met up with people from the hospital and we spent a few hours running errands around town before heading to Malamulo. While Anthony and I were waiting in the van for the other two, security guards cleared the street and a few minutes later the president came by in a big cavalcade. I can't say I was expecting to see the president of the country within two hours of getting there so that was interesting. I wish I had had the foresight to have my camera ready.
On the way to Malawi I had an almost 9 hour layover in the Frankfurt airport so I put my bags in storage and took the train to explore Mainz, at least that was the plan. I accidentally got off the train too early and after wondering the streets for a few minutes and not finding any of the street names from my google maps print out of Mainz I realized I was in fact in Ruesselheim. I decided that the first order of business before I even thought about getting back on the train was to find myself a nice doener kebab, that amazing morsel of food to which my thoughts have so often strayed over the last 3 years. I almost got away without using any English but I forgot the German word for “onion” so ended up saying “kein..... er.. onions.” Getting money changed into euros was a quite unexpectedly difficult task. When I was at Bogenhofen I could just go to any bank and change money but for some reason almost no one would change money in Ruesselheim but finally at the Deutsche Bank, after trying 4 or 5 other banks, I was able to get the euros I needed. By that time I decided that I would just explore Russelheim and save Mainz for my layover in April. Shortly after getting money changed I wandered into a fair that was going on in the streets and had rides set up in a park by the river. It looked like the fair that just happened in Berrien but with more German. After wandering through the fair I took a walk by the river and then went back into town. Earlier I had seen a museum marked on a map so I went to take a look. It turned out that it was a historic park with walking paths that went by old towers and ruins now surrounded by nice gardens. I was temped to climb up into one of the towers since the door at the bottom was locked but I decided against it much to my sense of fun's dismay. By this time it was getting to the hour when I needed to head back to the airport. I laid down on the grass for a little while to rest then made my way to the train station. I got back through customs and security with about 2 hours to spare. When I went to sit down I discovered much to my delight that there was a power plug right beside my chair, an occurrence rather unheard of in European airports. Fortunately I had packed a plug adapter in my carry-on just in case lady luck decided to smile upon me in just such a fashion. I spent the remaining time until boarding watching The Da Vinci Code, an interesting movie based quite a lot on myth and legend. It reminded me very much of National Treasure.
Once we got to the house where I'm staying we put my bags inside then went down to the hospital with Anthony, Chrislyn and her two children (a 2 year old boy and a 3 year old girl). On the walk there we saw a very distinct double rainbow. At the hospital I got on her laptop for a few minutes to check email and Facebook after which Anthony and I played with the kids – who seemed to have limitless energy –while Chrislyn did a few things online. By the time we started to head back to the houses the sun had set. Chrislyn had invited us over to dinner which we thankfully partook in while waiting for Wes to return from a 3 week stay in Zambia. After he got back and introductions were made we stayed and talked for a few minutes then Anthony and I headed back to our house to hit the sack. I unpacked the very limited amount of items in my carry-on, spread the mosquito netting and went to sleep.
Monday, August 23, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Malawi
So I decided I should post something about where I am going for those of you that might not be up to date on your African geography. Malawi is landlocked and about the size of Ohio with a population of about 14 million. Makwasa (the city Malamulo hospital is in) is near Blantyre which is the country's largest city and the center of commerce (also interstingly named after David Livingstone's birthplace). When I get there "winter" will be ending and from what I hear it will be hot and dry for awhile then hot and wet for awhile. Lake Malawi borders most of Malawi's eastern side and is the eighth largest lake in the world. It also has more fish species than any other lake.
Click here for some pictures of Malamulo hospital.
Click here for some pictures of Malamulo hospital.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Flight Itinerary
So it's beginning to sink in that I will be in Africa in under two weeks...
I'll be flying out of Chicago on Monday August 23 at 10:20pm
(EDT -1)
Flight time: 8:25
Arrive: Frankfurt, Germany at 1:45pm (EDT +6)
Layover: 8:50 (time to explore the city!)
Depart: 10:35pm (EDT +6)
Flight time: 10:15
Arrive: Johannesburg, South Africa at 8:50am (EDT +6)
Layover: 1:10
Depart: 10:00am (EDT +6)
Flight Time: 2:05
Arrive: Blantyre, Malawi at 12:05pm (EDT +6)
And at this point I'm dead tired.
I'll be flying out of Chicago on Monday August 23 at 10:20pm
(EDT -1)
Flight time: 8:25
Arrive: Frankfurt, Germany at 1:45pm (EDT +6)
Layover: 8:50 (time to explore the city!)
Depart: 10:35pm (EDT +6)
Flight time: 10:15
Arrive: Johannesburg, South Africa at 8:50am (EDT +6)
Layover: 1:10
Depart: 10:00am (EDT +6)
Flight Time: 2:05
Arrive: Blantyre, Malawi at 12:05pm (EDT +6)
And at this point I'm dead tired.
Monday, August 2, 2010
New Computer
.jpg)
About a week and a half ago I bought a netbook to take to Africa since the battery life on my laptop is down to a whole 20 minutes and I'd like to not completely rely on the supply of uninterrupted electricity in rural Africa. After many hours of searching I decided to go with the Toshiba NB305. Unfortunately however Ubuntu does not like this model at all (or this model doesn't like Ubuntu depending on how one looks at it) so I then spent about 4 days working on getting Ubuntu working properly. At his point it is working much better but I think I am going to at least dual boot it with windows 7. Other than that I'm very happy with it.
Iconoclast
So this was just going to be the cliché "first post" but for some reason just as I was about to start writing it (this) the word "iconoclast" popped into my head and I couldn't remember what it meant. So, for all you who are now dying with curiosity as to what the definition of "iconoclast" is you need wait no longer:
Iconoclast
–noun
1.
a breaker or destroyer of images, esp. those set up for religious veneration.
2.
a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition.
I'm not sure if that is a bad omen...
Iconoclast
–noun
1.
a breaker or destroyer of images, esp. those set up for religious veneration.
2.
a person who attacks cherished beliefs, traditional institutions, etc., as being based on error or superstition.
I'm not sure if that is a bad omen...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.jpg)