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.

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.

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.

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.

Heading out

All my life stored in four bags. Off to Africa.

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.

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.

New Computer

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...