Stats, a dog and two adorable kids!

 Mico, chilling in the yard

 Hollis (born Mphambano)- now adopted by Carson and Jeff White. He made his first appearance on last years blog when he was undernourished and couldn't walk!

 Esime, another child that has suffered repeatedly from malnutrition - please pray that the adoption plans for her (Carson and Jeff) will go through!

 Hollis, laying on the charm!

Coy little Esime

A short blog today, as we are trying to get things wound down. It is harder than it would seem. We did have dinner at the Copper Pot (thanks Jeff and Carson) the other night, and got to enjoy their little ones, Hollis and Esime.

Some quick stats:
Maula prison clinic (lasted about 3 hours)
112 patients
~80 bars of soap
100 doses of ivermectin (the drug for Norwegian scabies)

Mgwayi - another ~3 hour clinic
111 patients registered as seen
~20 plus kids whojust got handed fungal cream for their ringworm.

Not bad!

My left over meds (not many) will go into the 'pile' for the next team that comes. One is scheduled for Oct for sure.

Thanks again to all those who helped in any way to make this possible!

Mgwayi village clinic

 Getting swarmed by the kids - notice the cases and boxes in the background - our medical supplies.

 Look at the tiny table and stool they found for me to be the 'doctor's' desk - hahaha

 Joseph helping out in the pharmacy - we tried to seperate all the COTN kids with ringworm first. This was the first wave of those kids.

 The line forms - the guy with the white shirt is my translator, Chikondi.

 Sitting at my tiny stool - just glad it held me up!

 Nasty rash on a little girl's foot.

 Joseph and his translator, Davie. Joseph didn't even GET a table and stool!

The view out my window - right into a thatched hut!

Today we went to the village of Mgwayi. It is on one of the main roads out of Lilongwe, behind the Children of the Nations (COTN) office. It is a feeding site for some COTN kids (260 I think). We were swarmed by kids as soon as we got there!
 We really went to see the kids, so we started with them. Lots of ringworm and coughing. I did see a couple of kids who had Moms, but they looked malnourished. One quite malnourished, but Mom has HIV/AIDS and is on meds but very thin and appears ill - she is still breastfeeding, but the child was obviously ill and not getting enough nutrition. The second child was also thin as was the Mom. Davie (one of our COTN contacts and Joseph's translator for this clinic) will try to get these kids registered as COTN kids so they can get additional nutrition.  I started out seeing patients, with Joseph helping Sofia in the pharmacy, but when the line grew longer, Joseph jumped in and took care of folks, too. If the COTN kids get really sick, they go to the ABC clinic. The village is a short distance from a main road and the capital, so one would expect the villagers would seek medical care. Unfortunately, they do not. I am not sure if this is the expense involved with transport, the time away from home (it would be an all day ordeal) or just lack of understanding; in whatever case, it is disheartening to see so much 'un-wellness' in a village with reasonable access to the health care system in Malawi.

We did a clinic in this village last year, also. I will say that there was a nasty fungus among many of the children last year (that we treated) that seemed to be significantly lessened in those we saw today.  We can only hope that treatment last year made a difference!

This is our last scheduled village clinic for this year.  We will re-organize what is left of our medication and leave it for any in-coming teams to use.

Thanks to any and all of you who have seen fit to support us with medical supplies, medications, finances or prayers. We do really appreciate you!

Praise:
That we were able to find those two malnourished children and arrange follow up.
That we had the necessary medications for the patients we saw.
Our continued safety here.

Prayers:
continued safety as we wrap up this trip.

Maula Prison

This will be short. We did the prison clinic (Maula prison) today. We did this last year, too, and found rampant Norwegian scabies, poorly treated HIV/AIDS and general illness. It was emotionally very distressing.  We were prepared for the worst.  I am glad to say, this year was better!  It appears the clinical officier assigned to the prison has started HIV and TB testing, and is trying to get their medications on time. (I suspect a change in the government may have also helped with this). Charles Musuka (ABC student) has a ministry there and tries to bring some soap in every month or so, along with occasional distribution of clothing and religious tracts.  There are 2000 men in this prison.
Joseph and I were the 'doctors', while Carson and Sofia did the pharmacy. We know they have only one meal a day - nsima and beans. Malnutrition is an issue, especially for those men who also have HIV/ AIDs and /or TB.
Everyone we saw got vitamins and de-wormed. We happened to find the oral medication for Norwegian scabies (a true blessing) and so treated as many as we could, also handing out soap to those guys to wash their bodies and their clothes. We saw a variety of skin infections and conditions along with many, many cases of scabies. We also had the usual cough, asthma, body pains and old traumatic injuries. There were several cases of stomach problems. I did see two men that I suspect have an underlying cancer (one of the esophagus, one colon). We did NOT see any Kaposi's sarcoma - last year I lost count of how many of those I saw. That is another indication that the HIV/AIDs treatment is getting better.  The guards wanted the clinic to end by ~noon, so we obliged. I think we saw everyone that was acutely ill that we could help.  At the end of the clinic, there were prisoners begging for soap. We had already distributed all the soap we brought. This is not good soap, either - bars of green soap for laundry and bathing, with a funky smell and no lather. We bought a couple of cases, but they were soon gone.

The crowd became unruly at the end, when the guards wanted the clinic to end. Charles and Joseph were outside at the time, assessing patients, and the guards told them to get back from the fence (the guards, by the way, were NOT on the side of the fence with the prisoners....or with Joseph and Charles!). With that said, none of us ever felt threatened by the prisoners - they were just desperate for help and soap. All in all, it was a good clinic, in a tiny space and we feel like we may have alleviated some human misery by treating the scabies.

For those of you who donate (or have considered donating) - a bar of the green soap (bought by the case) costs about 20 cents. If you think your small donation 'won't be much help', think of men begging for soap.

Maula Prison does not allow photos during the clinic. Trust me, you don't want to see them, anyway. Norwegian scabies is a nasty, disfiguring, miserable disease.

Praise:
Safety in the prison
Ability to help some of the prisoners.
Finding the right medications that so many needed

Prayer:
Pray for the men -and women- in this prison, as well as other prisons throughout developing countries. Generally the legal system does not work well in these countries, and the health care is almost non-existent in the prisons.
Continue prayer for our safety.

Mount Mulanje - Malawi's Island in the Sky

 Part of the Mulanje Massif

 Joseph on the stair landing to our 'room with a view' (but killer stairs!)

 Dirt road through Fort Lister Gap - before it became an impassable goat track.

 Nyama (meat) - caught by boys in Likabula Forest - I think it is a cane rat.

 Another great African road - found out this was also considered impassable. I love my Rav 4!!

 Getting ready for tea at the Likabula Forest Lodge

 Our stroll on the mountain behind the lodge - led us to a tea plantation

The way down from the mountain - this bridge is actually scarier than the photo!

Tea pluckers in Thyolo. It really wasn't tea plucking season, but we did see some of them out and working.




Joseph and I left on Tuesday for Mount Mulanje (or the Mulanje Massif, Malawi's 'Island in the sky'). This is the largest mountain in central Africa and I think the second highest in Africa. It is in the southern part of the country, and (if you don't get lost) an almost 6 hour drive. Needless to say, it took us a little longer. The road goes through Blantyre, the commerical capital of Malawi, and the road signs are pretty much non-existent. We stayed at Kara O'Mula lodge, nestled up to the mountain with great views. They first put us in what was almost a tree house. The steps were killers, as the width of the steps and the height of the risers were not consistent. However, after two nights of no hot water, they moved us to another, slightly lower room, that did have hot water. All in all, I would recommend this lodge except that they don't give you change for your fees. We paid in US dollars and they were going to give us change in Malawian Kwacha (which is fine with us).. but they wanted us to 'run a tab' at the restaurant and then 'settle up' when we left - again, OK with us... BUT, then they refused to refund the money we did not spend, saying it is against their policy to give refunds!  Trying to explain this was NOT a refund, simply our change from the initial charges was a true Malawian conversation. Needless to say - do NOT come here with US dollars and, due to the difficulties we had getting hot water, I would NOT pay in advance.  With that said, the view was lovely and the food was passable. The beds / pillows were typical Malawian, and the towels were NOT nice (my bad - I usually take towels and I did not). The windows had no screens, and the mosquito nets had so many holes it was not worth putting them down. Pretty much the normal Malawian lodge - except for the 'no change' rule!!

I have a guide book to Malawi that showed a road through the northern section of the Massif, through Fort Lister Gap. The history of this Fort is interesting, as it was built to stop the slave traffic through this area (1893) but was not needed at the end of ~10 years and was abandoned.  Following this road would let one go completely around the Massif. Oops, looks like that road has gotten so bad it is a goat path now - so we made it ~half way through the gap before we had to turn back. The guide book did describe it as 'peaceful and little traveled'. It was both of those! I will not even stress you with descriptions or photos of the bridges. Our second day we drove to Thyolo to see the tea plantations and to find Thyolo Forest Reserve. The guide book was vague, no one seemed to know how to get there (even the police), so we finally gave up and went to the Likabula Forest Reserve, where we got to do some off roading (not intentionally - it LOOKED like a road!!), ran into a couple young men with their still living dinner, and had tea at the Likabula Forest Lodge. We also had to fend off many of the village men who wanted to be our 'guides' in the forest. We turned them down.

Later that afternoon we walked up the mountain path behind the Kara O'Mula lodge and found a tea plantation, some water falls, and a foot bridge that was (even for us) scary.

All in all a very pleasant trip.
Praise:
Safe travels
Fuel is available
God's majesty revealed in nature

Prayers:
Continued safety
The people of southern Malawi, as the rains have not come as expected the last 3-4 years and it appears they may be facing food shortages later this year.

Mico and the yard

 Mico checking out the flower beds.

 ?Shrimp plant?

 Flower

 Camilla

Shorty giving Mico a bath.

OK, this is on the lighter side - Tuesday we left for Mount Mulanje for a few days. I will blog on that later. Before we left, I went around the yard and took some photos. Mico, the guard dog, came with me. He is an old guy, and used to belong to the Browns. He now guards the guest house. He does have a big bark, but I suspect he would just lick anyone who tried to break in. For Karri and Mandy - yes, we are still feeding him some table scraps!  Shorty also feeds him dog food (not just nsima). During our walk-about, I couldn't help but notice a couple things - he smells terrible and he has his own personal collection of flies. Before we left for Mulanje, I concocted a doggie shampoo with tea tree oil (for the flies), and then Shorty found a tube of ointment to keep flies away. He was getting his bath when we left - and actually seemed to be enjoying it. On our return yesterday, he had fewer flies and less smell, and came and laid at our door (aaawwww...). Ok, it is just the hope of food, I know!  So for the girls, Gaylord and Fredna - Mico is doing fine and enjoying his quasi-retirement! Enjoy the photos!