Most Welcome

We've been traveling for almost a week now. Everywhere we go we are greeted with the friendly words "You are most welcome." At Zomba, we ate lunch at Annie's Place and met an administrator for the Ministry of Health. It was an interesting conversation as he told us of many of the difficulties he is facing as he attempts to get more support for the orthopaedic programs here in Malawi. The belief is that these injuries won't kill you and therefore are not that terribly important. He is trying to convince the ministry otherwise.

The mist on Zomba plateau is heavy and had not lifted by the time we awoke Thursday morning. We sat down to a nice breakfast buffet at Ku Chawe Inn on Zomba plateau. Soon after getting my juice and my fried eggs I sat down at our table. Tom and I were then joined by Maura and her 5 month old daughter Imani - Maura is a Kenyan photo journalist working out of Scotland with a organization delivering tools and training to people with disabilities. She is documenting their trip. Anyway, just as we were about to start eating I heard a noise and looked up to find a huge baboon sitting on our buffet table. I startled it when I yelled for Tom and Maura to turn around. It grabbed a donut and a roll, jumped off the table, took one look back at us and scampered out of the open door at the end of the room! The staff thought nothing of it and kept about their business. So, even the baboons here are "most welcome."

Traveling north from Zomba we came to Manchini district hospital in Liwonde. We spent the morning seeing patients in clinic then the afternoon treating fractures. The orthopaedic clinic officer at Machinga is a young, energetic guy and good at what he does although his experience is very limited. After fracture clinic we made our way to our lodge that is located on the Shire (pronounced Shiray) River. The Shire River flows from Lake Malawi and empties into the Zambezi River which empties into the Indian Ocean. Once at the lodge I quickly jumped into a pair of shorts and decided to take a little walk along the river. The river looked peaceful enough but I've become very wary since I've seen more than a few crocodile bites and hippo attack victims. I stayed far away from the river bank but saw a few men fishing from the river's edge. I finished my walk uneventfully and was heading back to the room when I heard this loud grunting noise. I turned back around and walked back to the river. On the other side of the river I saw a group of hippos splashing about in the water, grunting and yawning. It was quite amazing to see them playing. Not too far off was a fisherman in his hand-carved canoe tying his net to the reeds. He kept his distance and the hippos paid him no mind.

The next day we went further north along the Shire River to Mangochi district hospital. Mangochi is a very busy district hospital serviced by one medical doctor. The orthopaedic clinical officer has been there about ten years and sees about 120 patients in his clinic a day. He also sees all of the casualties, and while we were there we had two children come in that had been hit by cars while playing along the road. The first boy was 6 yo and had been side-swiped and fell over into the bushes. He had only minor injuries and no broken bones and was quite lucky. The second was a 3 yo that was also hit by a slow moving car in town. She however had hit her head. I examined her and found her to be lethargic and then noticed blood coming from her ear. We immediately got an xray and found a fracture at the base of the skull. The baby was admitted and given supportive care as we monitored for further bleeding.
We spent the early afternoon rounding on the wards and giving Mr. Kamoto advice on his difficult cases. After rounds we decided to "knock off" early and make our way to Cape Maclear, at the base of Lake Malawi.

Cape Maclear is an amazing place - there are about 17000 people that live in the village. Walking through the village feels like walking through Colonial Williamsburg only the people living in the village are not actors. Many of the houses are made of mud and almost all of them have thatched roofs. The kids love too see foreigners and run up and hold your hand as you walk through the village. Some of them also ask for sweets.

There are a number of lodges along the Cape that are run by foreigners. We stayed at Cape Mac Lodge, a lodge owned by a french woman. It is very nice and has great views. We met a man named Isaac that has a motorboat and made plans to visit the neighboring islands offshore. The following morning we jumped on his boat and he took us to the Domwe island where we saw/fed the eagles and then went snorkeling (I'll have to take medications later as the water is known to have bilharzia). He cooked fresh fish, rice and tomatoes (which I would later regret as it gave me food poisoning). We met some other travellers on the island then headed over to Otter's Island and went diving off the rocks. We spent 2 nights at the Cape and had beautiful weather.

I drove back to Blantyre sick and tired but made it despite all the potholes and goats that tried to stop us. This week we will be making more visits to the districts and will go to Mt. Mulanje on Friday. I plan on climbing the mountain if all goes well.