Blantyre

Thursday, the 8th, Jose had another great village clinic experience. We had gone over to the Brown's (missionaries with the Assembly of God) the evening before, and Jose taught Adriane, their daughter from the US, how to take vital signs. She joined him at the clinic and they seemed to have had a great time. He has posted some photos on his facebook (and tagged me so if you are his friend or mine, you can see them). Thursday we had lots of power issues and ended up losing the internet - we finally got it fixed today, Monday, so that explains the time lapse. We had planned to go to Blantyre for the week end and stay at a little lodge. There is a new doctor here, Ty Kreible (not sure about the spelling) who just finished his residency and has come to volunteer for two months. He is a huge help and is fitting right in! Since he is here, we felt we could take off on Friday morning, as it is a ~5 hour drive to Blantyre and the lodge is another ~20 km. We had a great trip, even stopped at Dedza pottery for lunch and a look around. We arrived at the lodge in time for dinner.

I will post more info on the lodge later.

Blantyre is in the southern part of Malawi and is considered the commercial center. It has the only cinema in the country, and a Game - a store sort of like a mini Walmart - but better than anything in Lilongwe! There is also the big Seventh Day Adventist hospital, Queen Elizabeth, and the orthopedic hospital, the CURE. In that area of the country you can also find the tea plantations. We didn't make it to them but hope to some day.

Pictures: The mountains coming into Blantyre, with a village at the foot. A man selling Mouse kabobs on the side of the road - each one of those sticks has several little mice (actually ground squirrels) on it that have been caught, killed, ?gutted, boiled and then dried. They eat them, fur and all. A stick of about 8-10 sells for about $1.50. They stand on the side of the road and wave them at passing cars (that is the next photo). Fourth photo is a small truck with the back end loaded with people and cargo. Lastly is a small house with a tin roof, the tin being held down by big rocks. Those rocks do fall off and, if they hit someone, can cause significant damage. Oh, the many ways you can get injured here! I am not sure of the most recent stats, but a few years ago, Malawi had more deaths per highway mile than any other country in the world. Impressive considering they don't have lots of vehicles - but many of the vehicles - like this truck, huge lorries, minibuses, etc have many passengers, and the emergency response system is pretty much non-existent here. So if you are a trauma victim, you have a much better chance of dying than in other countries.