Two Babies and One Local Chicken

(Katherine)

Today at St. Peter’s Hospital, we welcomed two little ones to the island! A baby boy was born by C-section around 8:30AM while a baby girl was born vaginally at 2:05PM. I received both babies, under the supervision of the nurses, dried them, weighed them, and prepared them for their mothers. What a privilege! I found that I was really excited for the births. Other than the fact that I am always excited for babies, I have been put on call for deliveries, but hadn't been called yet! Anticipation definitely had been mounting. 

Both births proved very interesting. Like the C-section I attended last week in St. Peter’s operating room, one of the clinical officers, trained as a nurse, performed the operation. Also, the baby boy who emerged from the womb did take a little resuscitative efforts from the nurse to get him going. But, unlike last week, the mother had severely elevated blood pressure when we entered the delivery room. In light of this, general anesthesia could not be used safely. The clinical officers chose to use lidocaine (a local anesthetic) to numb the front of the woman’s abdomen and diazepam (a sedative) to calm her. Really, with the amount of diazepam the woman received, I don’t think she would have cared at all what was going on! She remained nearly unconscious for the whole procedure and did not feel any pain. Overall, the surgery went very well compared to the one I watched last week, and compared to what I was expecting.

Since the mother was sedated so heavily, her baby boy could not receive “kangaroo care” or nurse right away. Selfishly, I like the time after a C-section when part of my job is to keep the baby, who has been dried, wrapped, and assessed, warm and calm until the operation is finished. Cuddling with the new baby boy for the first hour of his life, right next to his mother undergoing major surgery, definitely brings mixed emotions.

After the surgery and after helping with the family planning clinic held at the hospital every Tuesday, I returned home for lunch. I went back to the hospital at 1:50PM because we had one young woman, 17 years old, in labor with her first child. We expected we would need to check her dilation around that time. Walking in to the labor ward I was surprised to find all of the nurses gathered around and dressing for the delivery. The woman had progressed quickly! Not 10 minutes later, the woman delivered a beautiful, though underweight baby girl. She came out kicking and screaming, actually causing her young mother to be quite afraid of her. The mother even refused to touch or hold her until she was cleaned.

My eventful day ended with joining a local family for dinner. Derek and I have become friends with a woman named Beatrice and her husband Kingsley. We met Beatrice while we stayed in Mzuzu when she came to visit St. Mark’s church there. She has since taken us under her wing and introduced us to many people on the island.

Beatrice and Kingsley are both from Likoma, met in secondary school, and now have a family together. They have three biological children, but also raise three children born to family members who have been deceased. Beatrice came to pick us up from the Bishop’s house and on the walk to her home we were pleased to discover we were headed to the east side of the island on the lake. All the way, Beatrice talked about her family and what she would be cooking for us, including “local chicken,” one she raised from just a tiny chick and had slaughtered to share with us earlier in the day.

Beatrice and Kingsley are a very interesting couple. They enjoy their family very much and like many Malawians are always filled with music. However, both are active community members. Kingsley works as the local Likoma public librarian, but also is the keyboard player at St. Peter’s Cathedral. To our amazement, Kingsley spends his spare time recording music in his home studio (in a room of his house!) and teaching his eldest son, Confidence, how to play backup keyboard. Beatrice is a house wife and an incredibly active member of the Daughters of the King and Mothers’ Union groups at St. Peter’s. She frequently travels to Mzuzu to conference with other members there, and next week will attend the national Malawian meeting for the Daughters of the King. 

(Derek)

On Tuesday, I got a haircut! For what I think is the first time in my life, it is mostly shaved off. I was tired of having to do anything with it in the morning (we don't have a mirror), and I was getting too warm with a full head of hair. So, I walked down to the local barber shop and had the barber shave it off! Katherine and I don't think it looks too bad. He charged me a grand total of about $1USD.

Derek's new haircut!

The Dean of St. Peter's Cathedral has 6 puppies he's trying to find homes for! Aren't they cute?! They were sleeping in this big heap when I walked by. If anyone wants one, I'm sure it can be arranged :)

St. Peter's Day Weekend Celebrations

On June 27^th and 28^th, Likoma Island hosted a celebration of St. Peter. St. Peter’s Cathedral, of course, takes Peter’s name. The festival weekend began with a baptism ceremony on Saturday afternoon, with approximately 30 babies being baptized. While this may sound like a lot of babies, baptism ceremonies near Easter and Christmas can have well upwards of 80 babies! Katherine was kindly asked to stand with one of the mother’s as the godmother of her 6 week old son, Smith. At her turn, she handed the baby to the priest, who tipped his head back to pour the water on it. She also held the candle with the godfather, a friend of the mother and teacher at St. Peter’s Primary School, aptly named Wisdom. I on the other hand, assisted the clergy during the ceremony (the clergy here have taken to calling me the future Dean of St. Peter’s!).

Immediately after the baptisms, we hurried back to our house. A friend of Katherine’s from the hospital, Bertha, was supposed to bring us a chicken! The way we understood it, it was a baby hen to whom we could tend during our time here and then eat it before departing. We wouldn’t really have to do much with it, as chickens just wander anywhere they please in Malawi. However, when we arrived back at our home from the church, the woman was holding the chicken in one hand and a knife in the other! As it turned out, she wanted to give us a local chicken to eat. So, we watched her slaughter it, and then had to figure out how in the world we were going to clean the chicken! With the help of a neighbor woman, Katherine and I plucked the feathers, cleaned out the guts, and two hours later placed our chicken in the refrigerator for later preparation by our cook. What a process!

The next morning, we arose at our usual 6am, took our breakfast, and prepared for church. Little did we know, our entire day would be consumed by St. Peter’s Day celebrations. The Mass, which usually takes about three hours, turned into five hours, filled with singing, dancing, an hour-long sermon, and of course all of the usual prayers. After this, all of the “visiting dignitaries,” the UK boys, visiting clergy, and we were invited to a lunch of traditional Malawian cuisine, very similar to what we have been eating at our house. Once dinner was finished, we made our way back to the “cathedral stadium,” which is a somewhat flat space of dirt with not too many rocks where events in our neighborhood are held.

What we had been told is that an entire host of activities would occur at this performance, including traditional African (Malawian) dancing, singing and music. Katherine and I were expecting perhaps a few hundred people to turn out to this event. However, by the time everything was in full swing, we, along with the Dean of the Cathedral estimated the crowd to be no less than THREE THOUSAND, all standing, cheering, and yelling during the activities! What an event!! We both enjoyed the entertainment very much, but one of the most entertaining things was this middle-aged gentleman who was some sort of an official at these activities. He walked around the entire time with this big stick, moving it back and forth as though he was wielding a sickle cutting wheat or grass. He did this to threaten all of the little children who kept creeping in on the performance area, threatening to fill it in with their little bodies. Just watching him go around swinging this stick within millimeters of children, threatening to beat them made us laugh quite a bit as we though of how this would be viewed in the U.S.: probably some parents would have filed a lawsuit for threatening to harm their children, but here it is just a part of the culture.

After the long day on Sunday, and a restful night’s sleep to recover, Monday arrived. Due to Monday being the technical St. Peter’s Day, it was a holiday on much of the island. Therefore Katherine and I didn’t have work on Monday. Our work came later on in the day, with our sports tournaments. Derek played football (soccer) on the clergy’s team against the local boys. Katherine played “netball” (a sort of soccer/basketball combination popular here) on a team with some women of the church against the local girls. Both games were very entertaining for everyone, us included, even though both of our respective teams lost. The clergy were up at one point by one goal, but we fell behind at the very end. With the end of the games, the St. Peter’s Day celebrations came to an end, and Tuesday began the new work week.

Women doing a traditional Malawian dance at St. Peter's Day activities

Wednesday, June 24: Day 3

(Derek)

Katherine and I have talked, and it seems like it makes most sense to slow down the blog posts from here on out. We are both settling into our routines, and to post as regularly as we have been might get to be a bit repetitive and boring. Certainly is has been necessary for these first couple weeks of our trip, but now that we are settling in, we don't plan to post as much. Also, with our Internet here on the island having to be purchased by the megabit, we are trying to be conservative with its use. Just thought we should keep everyone abreast of what is going on with regards to blog activity! Expect a new post from us perhaps early next week with an update of how our first week of work on the island panned out, along with a recap of St. Peter's Day celebrations and other independent weekend activities! But, there were some interesting happenings today we thought we would share!

(Katherine)

After a full day of teaching three separate classes, English grammar and history to Form I and Life Skills to Form III, at Bishop Biggers School with Derek today, I took a walk to the hospital to see if there was anything interesting happening. When I got there, the maternity ward, to my excitement, had 4 patients! One anemic patient, 23 weeks pregnant, receiving a blood transfusion, occupied the bed closest to the nurses’ station. But, two other patients were in labor, one of which awaited her cesarean section. A final patient was being treated for acute malaria.

I asked around and learned that the C-section would be occurring as soon as the power was turned back on by 2-2:30pm. I quickly ran back to the house, changed into my scrubs, and returned to the hospital to help. One of the UK students scrubbed in for the surgery to assist the clinical officer, Rashid, who was performing the surgery. My role was to assist the nurse acting as the neonatal caregiver. Under general anesthesia, the mother moaned throughout the procedure, which unfortunately was extremely long. After tugging and tugging and tugging, a limp baby girl came into the world. I took her over to the counter (yes, counter, the hospital does not have a warmer or proper table) and helped the nurse suction and stimulate her while drying her off. When the baby still did not breath, I continued stimulating the baby while checking her heartbeat, relying on my knowledge of neonatal resuscitation. Fifteen minutes later, the baby girl still had not cried but she did have a stable heart rate and was breathing on her own. I swaddled and cuddled her until the surgery was finished.

Though resuscitation is necessary for about 10% of babies at birth, this baby girl seemed to me to be in the 1% of those needing assistance. On top of that, in the heat of the moment while I was giving the baby breaths from the bag and mask rebreather, one of the surgical nurses came over and told me that the baby was already dead. Yet, she had a heartbeat! I hope that this does not mean the baby would have been ignored had I not been here. Most of all, I am thankful that I could be of use!

Now, in a few hours, I will return to the hospital to assist the night nurse with the other delivery we have and recheck the newborn. Tomorrow, I bet, will be an early night!

One more thing we learned today is that St. Peter’s Cathedral will be having baptisms on Saturday in honor of St. Peter’s Day. One of the young women of the church that I met yesterday at the Under Fives Clinic, and who happens to be the niece of our housekeeper, stopped by the Bishop’s house today while I was preparing for my history class. She asked me, with a huge smile on her face, to be the Godmother of her 8 week old son, Smith. What a huge honor! Even though I tried to tell her that I was not the proper choice, she insisted.

(Derek)

Overall, I have absolutely loved teaching! I can certainly appreciate how much work it takes to prepare for a class, teach in an engaging way, grade assignments, then repeat. Because of how much I have enjoyed it, I decided that it would be the best use of my time to teach at the school full time M-F for the remainder of the school year, which is this week, then three more weeks. The teachers are certainly open to that idea! For the final week or so, I will find odd jobs around the hospital doing what I can, and hopefully staying out of Katherine's way.

Everyone at the school has been so very welcoming, helpful, and supportive. One thing that has been extraordinary frustrating for me is that the social studies textbooks I am working with involve plenty of data and statistics, which certainly is nice, but it is all from the year 2000 or earlier. Additionally, the school doesn't have money for student textbooks. Thus, it is up to the teacher to synthesize the (outdated) information and teach it to the students, with none of them having read it or ever being able to reference any information for themselves. Of course, there is no copy machine to make handouts or worksheets for the students, or even tests. Everything must be written on and copied from the blackboard.

My schedule for now will be as follows:
M: English Form III
T: Social Studies Form III
W: Computers Form I, English Form III (two sections of this today)
Th: Computers Form III, Social Studies Form III
F: English Form III, Social Studies Form III

Right now the Form II and Form IV students are not in class. The national exams are being held right now. Form II students are writing the exam in order to receive their "junior-level certification," while Form IV students are writing the exam to be able to graduate, and also as a Malawi college entrance exam. So, the school certainly is quieter without them around, but there is still plenty of work to be done with the Form I and Form III students!

Katherine and I will be able to return to our home each day around noon to eat a lunch together, prepared by our house staff. At 2:15pm each day, school is dismissed, and I am able to leave my office for the 1 minute walk home! Judging by the first few days on the job, it should be a pretty nice schedule, with Katherine at the hospital and me at school until mid-afternoon. After the official work day is done, I have had a bit of work here and there to do in order to prepare for my next day's classes. Other than that, Katherine and I have been exploring the island, reading and relaxing. This coming weekend, we are told is a "St. Peter's Day Celebration," which is a big deal here because of the name of the cathedral. Apparently the whole island shows up around the cathedral campus for games, festivities, singing, dancing, from Friday afternoon straight through Monday. In fact, next Monday school is cancelled due to all of the festivities; apparently in lieu of my teaching responsibilities, I have been told that I will be joining the clergy's team for an island-wide soccer tournament that will be held on Monday. It should be an interesting weekend coming up, and certainly a noisy one given where our house is located!!

Tuesday, June 23: Day 2

(Katherine) 

Tuesday at St. Peter’s Hospital is the day for Family Planning and the Under Fives Clinic, all while the urgent care outpatient center is operating.

When I arrived, a little before morning prayer, I visited baby Jacob and his family. We enjoyed laughing together and talking about the trip the family would make later in the day back to the village—a 2km walk. After a brief morning prayer, I attended the report meeting to be briefed about the patients that stayed or were admitted to the hospital overnight. On Monday, the meeting had been quick, maybe 5 minutes, to just list what patients we had. Today though, our meeting lasted almost an hour! Since Family Planning and Under Fives Clinic consisted mostly of giving vaccines and immunizations, I will talk mostly about the meeting.

Before I continue explaining the meeting, let me tell you about some other visitors working in St. Peter’s right now. Four fourth year medical students, all men, from the UK have been working on Likoma for a week, running the urgent care Monday through Friday at St. Peter’s Hospital. The guys are staying in the Bishop’s guest house, right next to our house, and are sharing our kitchen, so we are getting to know them well. Unlike us however, the guys are not working for the Diocese, but only for the hospital. They have told us that they are not particularly religious, but chose to come to Likoma and work at St. Peter’s for the semester of medical school they must spend abroad. Due to this, they have not attended the morning prayer services or the church services. Unfortunately, I think they have not even been inside beautiful St. Peter’s Cathedral!!!

Now, back to the morning report: Mr. Tableou, the nurse matron, described that the hospital had 5 patients in the general ward, 1 in the pediatric ward, and 2 in maternity overnight. Though some patients were stable and had little change, a few were of particular interest. One patient in the general ward had been admitted on the previous day for acute type one diabetes. He had been misdiagnosed the previous week, prescribed the incorrect medication, and had blood sugar levels that were so high they could not be read by the typical glucometer upon his return to the urgent care. He was quickly admitted and given insulin. After an all-night battle to reduce his blood sugar, it proved still very high. The UK students, Mr. Tableou and the Clinical Officer who oversees the urgent care had differing opinions on how to treat this teenager. The guys from the UK offered a plan based on UK standards of care for a diabetic patient: to provide saline drip, insulin, and withhold food intake until blood sugar levels are stable. The Malawians offered a different plan based on Malawian standards of care: to provide ringer’s lactate drip (because no saline is available in the hospital), insulin, and give healthy, natural foods because Malawi does not withhold food from a patient for any reason. Even with this conflict, as I watched the discussion, I admired the diplomacy and respect among all involved. Tension did exist between the UK students and the Malawians, but the ultimate goal seemed to always be the wellbeing of the patient. Ultimately, a compromise formed to check the patient, reevaluate, provide ringer’s lactate, insulin, and wait to give food. So far, the patient has stabilized, due to the team work shown by his care providers.

The pediatric patient also has an interesting story. After being admitted for acute malaria yesterday and being prescribed quinine, he developed pneumonia during the night. Mr. Tableou happened to be on night duty, so he decided it would be best to start the child on oxygen to assist his breathing along with some antibiotics. When he explained the treatment plan to the child’s mother, she accepted the antibiotics but refused the oxygen. Mr. Tableou told me that her reason for refusing the oxygen therapy for her wheezing three year old son was because she had heard that being on oxygen kills people. He said that unfortunately this is a common traditional belief in this area.

Monday, June 22, 2015: First Day on the Job

(Katherine)

I arrived at the hospital 20 minutes early today for my first day on the job. This happened more out of necessity than anticipation, due to the fact that the Bishop’s house where we are staying has only one key. The key is an old fashioned skeleton key which can lock the door from either in or outside. Since Derek needed to begin school at 7:10AM, and he would be finished before me, he needed the key and so to be able to leave the house at all, I had to leave early!

When I reached the hospital ground after a 2 minute walk, I noticed that it was still very sleepy from the night. The two night nurses and one orderly sat outside waiting for the shift change which would occur after morning prayer around 8AM. Before prayer, I entered the maternity ward to scope out the patients. One patient had delivered a fine baby boy in the night! The other, had been admitted the day before with anemia and she had been under observation for the night, after receiving two pints of blood. The new mother and grandmother showed me the baby boy wrapped in his thousand blankets (every person on Likoma Island except Derek and me think that the 70-80 degree weather is cold and so wrap their babies like there is 5 feet of snow) and placed him in my arms to admire. Looking at him, I asked his name. His grandmother said that he had not been given a name yet. Without a pause, she looked me in the eye and told me to name him!

Protesting, I quickly realized, was useless. True to the Malawian spirit of hospitality and friendship, I was invited, demanded, to give this child a first name to match the middle name chosen by his father. After thinking for a while, I went outside the ward to speak with the father. We settled on Jacob George, Jacob after my younger brother, and George after a relative. What a privilege to be trusted to name a child of a family I have only just met! I asked the father what he thought of his son. He told me he did not know, because he had not yet even seen Jacob. So, on top of choosing the boy’s name, I presented him to his father for their first post-delivery meeting.

The rest of my first day followed suit. With no laboring women, I left maternity and I worked with an intelligent young lab technician named Charles. St. Peter’s lab performs 5 regular blood tests: HIV screening, malaria screening, CD4/3 (to show how well the immune system is working in an HIV+ patient), hemoglobin count, and a blood sugar test. Charles taught me the details and processes of each test while I recorded patients in the log book. Normally, almost every single patient that passes through the hospital’s urgent care is tested for HIV and malaria. Though the HIV tests are given in a separate office, Charles and I administered over 60 malaria screenings today between 8:30AM and 3:30PM! To perform the screening, the tech pricks the patient’s finger, squeezes a drop of blood into a test specific strip, adds a reagent, and sets the timer. Within 20 minutes, we can read the tests to determine if the person is positive or negative for malaria plasmodium: two lines indicates positive, one line indicates negative (the procedure for an HIV screening is the same, but uses a different testing strip and reagent).

Another of my tasks today included writing entrance reports for the hospital’s pre-natal records. On Monday’s the hospital has a community nurse who comes and holds an ante-natal clinic which includes pregnancy education, health screenings, and preventative care (for anemia, malaria, and worms). Each patient seen on Mondays in the ante-natal clinic is being seen for the first time in her pregnancy, so the nurse has to determine her expected date of delivery based on measured gestation age. Though Nurse Sarah and I only logged 4 new pregnancies today, she told me that last week, she logged over 20 new patients!

Even with all of this, I still had a two hour lunch break today! Following Malawi culture, lunch includes a time for relaxation and rest so that people are fresh for the afternoon. For those of us at St. Peter’s hospital, that means until 4PM.

(Derek)

My Monday, as Katherine described above, began at 7:10am for a brief morning assembly, where announcements for the day are read, and a short prayer or two is read, before the students head to their classrooms and the teachers to their offices. Speaking of offices, I have my very own office!! At Bishop Biggers Secondary School, there are a total of four classrooms (one for each form, aka grade), a building for offices, and another building which houses the library and computer lab. Another building on the campus is being renovated for student housing and a kitchen so that the school can become a boarding school within the next year or two.

After the assembly, and after the students were dismissed to their classrooms, I headed back up to the office building with my fellow teachers to finish preparations for the day. Being Monday, my only subject to teach was English grammar to Form III students, equivalent to 11th grade in the U.S. Specifically this week, we have been working with punctuation. Next time we meet, we will move-on to subject-verb agreement. The students do fairly well with the written English, but as with any student learning a second language, it seems, they are better on paper than when having to think of everything "on the fly" when speaking. And when I say second language, it isn't really a first language, but it isn't really a second either. English, being the official language of Malawi, is widely spoken by educated individuals, along with the government. Many of the older individuals we have encountered cannot speak any English, probably owing to the fact that English wasn't mandated to be taught in schools until after the British decolonization. Go figure. So, my students have been around English their entire lives, have heard it spoken quite widely, they have seen most government documents and most store signage in English, but at home, it is quite likely that they have been around Chichewa, the local language. What I am doing, then, is helping to teach them formal English. That seems to be a more fitting description of what is happening rather than English as a second language. At Bishop Biggers Secondary School, the language of instruction for all classes is English. Mathematics, physical science, geography, social studies, religion, history, etc. are all taught in English. But, it is only in English class that the students are able to really work on their formal English. For students coming from primary schools that were taught in Chichewa, which are most students, Form I English can be a bit of a challenge, being their first exposure to formal English.

After my English class was done, I returned to my office to begin preparations for my Tuesday class. Tuesdays I teach social studies for Form III. The new chapter we were starting was on "Social Services and Development." I also prepared my English lesson for Wednesday, along with computer lessons for Form I students. Computer lessons will not be anything extravagant. The students have a beautiful computer lab with about 20 functioning newer model PCs, but nearly all students have never used a computer before, except perhaps for a previous time at school. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the teacher that taught computers died last year, and since then they have received no instruction in computers. So, I am going to do what I can, which for this week will consist of reviewing with them basic terminology of the computer, such as what a mouse is, keyboard, monitor, etc. Then hopefully we will be able to log on, and use "Microsoft Student" to help reinforce concepts learned in other courses. From what I've seen of Microsoft Student, it is a great program for students here in Africa. It has a wealth of useful recourses, from all sorts of geography resources, to all sorts of readings and videos on history topics (from ancient to modern), to help with foreign languages, and even a high quality scientific calculator. This is all ideal for students with no access to the Internet.

Likoma Island: Planning Our Work

(Katherine) 

We rose with the Likoma Island sunshine today, which at this time of year, winter, begins around 4:30AM. Fortunately, after our long Chambo Boat journey, we had gone to bed early.

After eating a breakfast of cereal, extra crunched from having traveled in our suitcases from Mzuzu, we dressed for the day of meetings and planning ahead of us. The head teacher told us the night before to come to visit the school and the hospital to meet with him and the hospital administration to confirm our plans and work schedules for the next six weeks.  

First stop: St. Peter’s Hospital. St. Peter’s Hospital is a co-public/private hospital, something of a norm here in Malawi. This means that the hospital is privately administered and overseen by the Anglican Diocese of Northern Malawi, but receives over 50% of its funding, staff salaries, and supplies from the Malawian government. Derek and I met with Mr. Francis Vuma, hospital administrator for our welcome. Being only an administrator, Mr. Vuma introduced us to Mr. Tableou (pronounced Table-o), head of the nurses, “the Matron,” for our assignments. We hope to give Mr. Tableou a lot of credit; in placing us he gently asked our interests, skill levels, and comfort in different areas, which will help us to serve the patients well and learn as much as possible. Mr. Tableou decided that I would work in maternity, laboratory, and family health education, and Derek will decide where he feels comfortable after further observation, though he will spend some time with the hospital chaplain, Father Jones.

Second stop: Bishop Biggers Secondary School. Bishop Biggers Secondary School is the Diocesan secondary school on Likoma. Secondary school in Malawi is equivalent to high school in the US having four standards (grades). Yet, unlike in the US, after second standard (10^th grade) and fourth standard (12^th grade), each student has to take 6 to 12 different subject exams to pass to the next standard. The exams at the end of fourth standard also act as tools for determining who graduates and who can be eligible for higher education. The head teacher is a priest of the Diocese. The transitional Deacon working on Likoma also teaches in the school. After meeting with the head teacher along with the assistant director, we determined that Derek will teach English, social studies, and computer skills for the three remaining weeks of the current trimester. I will teach English, history, and life skills.

Here are our final schedules:

Monday: Derek teaches English; Katherine at hospital.

Tuesday: Derek teaches social studies; Katherine at hospital.

Wednesday: Derek teaches English and computers; Katherine teaches English, life skills, history.

Thursday: Derek teaches social studies and computers; Katherine at hospital.

Friday: Derek teaches…; Katherine at hospital.

The excitement continues to build for our work on the island, but in the meantime, we will enjoy the time for exploration! 

The Chambo's Arrival on Likoma

In the early morning hours of Thursday, we arose to make our final preparations for our trip to Likoma Island. We finished packing our four suitcases with hundreds of pounds of provisions, since we were told it is best to purchase everything on the mainland due to either high prices or shortages on the island. We set out in an early morning fog, making our way towards the bay, and Mzuzu’s port, Nkata Bay. Our ship was scheduled to leave to 8am, so we arrived about 7am in order to ensure that we had seats and space for all of our luggage. As we arrived at Nkata Bay, the Chambo Boat awaited us, and to our pleasant surprise appeared to be a quality, sturdy ship, fit for a lake prone to rough seas. Onboard, local young boys passed up and down the aisle selling boiled eggs and doughnuts for breakfast, trying to earn a bit of money.

After sitting and waiting for around an hour, 8am arrived and we were ready to set sail. However, foolish us, we were thinking in terms of American time! We waited for 30 more minutes, then another 30, as still more passengers piled on with their luggage. Finally, 90 minutes “late”, the Chambo departed the dock. However, not even 2 minutes after leaving the dock, we circled back. The Chambo had left one of its crew on the dock! After this 15 minute delay of circling back, docking again, and pushing off again, we finally left Nkata Bay and entered Lake Malawi. The Chambo wasn’t necessarily full, as there were still seats available, but the variety of contents on the boat was rather intriguing. Cement, grain, produce, fuel, building materials, firewood, suitcases, appliances, etc. occupied the passenger compartment.

After sailing over somewhat rough seas, we arrived in Chizumulu Island, a smaller island just to the west of Likoma in Lake Malawi. This island did not have a proper dock, and so we simply dropped anchor in the bay as a whole host of men piloting canoes approached the ship to offload some of the aforementioned cargo, passengers, and bring new passengers and cargo to the ship for the trip to Likoma, or to continue on to Mozambique. In addition, these canoes were selling fish, and people on the Chambo rushed to the sides of the ship to purchase the morning’s catch, bringing the fish back into the passenger cabin with them.

After sailing for what seemed like another hour, we finally arrived on the beach of Likoma Island. I say this because Likoma doesn’t have a proper dock either. The boat simply beached itself, put down its front cargo ramp, and people proceeded to unload their persons and belongings! It was quite a sight to see, this fairly large boat, beached on a sandy beach, with people offloading every imaginable good from the ship, since ship or air is the only way anything comes in or out of Likoma. Shortly after we reached Likoma, employees of the Diocese greeted us on the Chambo to help us with our heavy bags. After sliding them down the ramp and either lifting or dragging them through the sand, we placed them into a truck, everyone climbed in the bed of the truck or the cab and we were off.

After a few meters, we exited the sandy beach and found ourselves on perilously rocky roads, winding our way inland. At times I thought that the tiny truck surely was going to overturn due to all of the weight it had onboard, combined with the less than ideal road conditions. Soon enough, though, we found ourselves in front of a beautiful home in front of an enormous cathedral. As time has shown, our home, the Bishop’s island residence, is by far the nicest on the entire island. We have clean running water, electricity, a hot shower, a cook, a housekeeper, a wrap-around porch and a beautiful view of St. Peter’s Cathedral, the largest church in all of Central Africa.

Electricity on the island is provided by a set of three generators in a centrally located power plant. All of them are operated on diesel fuel, which is brought over on the aforementioned ships, 55-gallon drum by 55-gallon drum. The electricity is switched off on the island M-F at 10pm, returning at 6am. On Saturday, the power turns on at 7am, and it stays on until 12am Sunday, returning at 8am Sunday. Each and every day, seven days a week, the electricity shuts off from 12:30pm-2:30pm. All of these measures are in an effort to conserve precious diesel fuel, and money. As one can imagine, shipping all of this fuel to the island, all in a country that doesn’t produce a drop of its own oil, can get to be quite expensive!

Internet service on the island has been difficult to obtain. After chatting with several of the people Katherine and I work with, we determined that the best (only) way to access Internet is via cellular data. A teacher at the school gave us a USB device that accesses the cellular network on the island. We then had to buy data for the device, which proved to be quite cheap, like just about everything else in Malawi, at least if Americans are the ones doing the purchasing. It is remarkably fast, and most importantly, we have access to the world outside of this little island in the middle of Lake Malawi in the middle of Central Africa!

The Chambo offloading at Chizumulu Island while anchored in the bay

The Chambo offloading at Likoma Island onto the beach

Interior of St. Peter's Cathedral

Our home: The Bishop's Island Residence

Fishing boats on the shore of Lake Malawi. Mozambique can be seen in the distance.

Fish drying tables

Fishing boats in/near Lake Malawi

Generators at the power plant

The St. Peter's complex from the front

Island Preparations

(Derek and Katherine)

Hello Readers! 

Likoma Island is Lake Malawi's largest island.

Today, we have prepared to leave Mzuzu and go to Likoma Island on Lake Malawi for the next 6 weeks. Luckily, our coordinator left us the entire day to collect ourselves because we have to take all the food, water, and supplies we will need for the entire time! Having so many supplies to pack is definitely overwhelming, but we are grateful for our generous PGLOBAL grants from Alma College that allow us to have the funding to do so. 

Tomorrow, we will drive about an hour to the lake shore and will ride The Chambo boat to the island, about a 3 hour trip. We will be received by the dean of St. Peter's Anglican Cathedral there, who will settle us in to the Bishop’s island guest house.

Likoma Island Map

Derek and I will work on the island in both the diocesan secondary school and the hospital while we are there. Thankfully, both are near the Cathedral and our house, so we will be able to walk to work Monday through Friday. We have weekends free to explore the island and spend time with our Malawian friends.

Two important notes about Likoma Island: wifi is scarce and electricity is only available from 6am to 9-10pm. But, we will keep the blogs coming as best as possible! 

Talk to you soon,

Derek and Katherine 

Malawi Water Project Follow Up: June 16

(Katherine)

Part of Malawi Water Project’s (MWP) goals include regular follow ups with biosand water filter recipients to ensure the filters are working properly and being well cared for (see previous posts from 6/12 for more about Malawi Water Project). Today, Derek and I helped MWP during some of the follow ups, and we participated in installation of filter #217!

The following is a Youtube video link, which is from the Malawi Water Project. It seems to be fairly well done, and includes more details on how to donate since I know a few readers had inquired about this.https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=38&v=QZBDuLixO4Q

Also, this is a link to the MWP website, which describes everything you might ever want to know about MWP!: http://malawiwaterproject.com/bio-sand-water-filters/

We were surprised to learn that the first follow up we made was for a filter that was already 2 years old, meaning it was one of the early filters the project installed in this area. Serving a large family who had three living huts on their property, the filter looked like new. By the end of the appointment though, Esau, the Mzuzu MWP project coordinator, determined that the filter’s flow rate is too low. The family’s filter will receive another visit from the team for maintenance as soon as possible. Other than checking the flow rate, analysis of the filter consisted of checking the height of the sand inside the filter, making sure the sand is level, and cleaning any brackish water from the top of the sand. The community health promoters, two women who are part of the team, administer a questionnaire to the family to assess the family’s use of the filter and its impacts on their health, hygiene, and cleanliness.

The second filter we checked had just been installed in the past few months. When we arrived at the small brick dwelling, a young boy about 10 years old was waiting for us on the porch. He and the family chickens proved to be the only people home. While checking the filter and helping the boy complete the questionnaire for his family, Derek and I stayed outside; there simply was not room for us to be inside! We enjoyed the time to learn more about a typical rural home in Northern Malawi. Each building was made of red brick with a tin or straw thatched roof. Aside from the living hut, the home also has an outhouse with a “local toilet” (hole in the ground that, depending on the family, is kept very clean or very dirty), a cooking hut, a bathing hut, and a hen house. Scattered around, we noticed the family grows chili peppers, which we thought odd as we have not had any spicy Malawian food. Bananas, mangoes, and corn also dotted the land. At the conclusion of the visit, Esau briefed us about the filter: with a flow rate of over 200 mL/min, the filter is doing well and being well cared for. However, since the boy was alone, the team plans to return to speak to an adult just to be sure the necessary messages are passed along.

The installation the MWP completed today ran very smoothly due to the extra hands the family members provided us. Even the 5 or 6 year old son Francis helped us with cleaning the sand and gathering buckets for extra water needed for the filter. When we began the project, the man of the house was not present. But, by the time we finished, he returned to see water running from his filter’s spout! Seeing his gratitude for the coming clean water made our day. Speaking in perfect English, he thanked us for our part in making his family healthier and offered us a seat on his porch while he received instructions from the MWP team.

This afternoon, the Anglican Sisters of St. Mary, a sister convent of the Sisters of St. Mary in the Diocese of Albany, New York, invited Derek, myself, and Mr. Mainga (Diocesan Secretary) to tea. Of the 5 sisters that are a part of the community, Sister Martha acted as our host and gave us a lovely tour of the property. She told us, while we walked through the gardens and animal pens, that this is the only Anglican convent in Malawi and it has been operational since 1999. Aside from farming, the sisters operate a vestment sewing business by employing local tailors, a 150-member in-home orphan care system which includes a choir, and are opening a nursery school this September for 60 students.

Sensing Sister Martha’s dedication, Derek and I are looking forward to meeting her again soon—we will be riding the Chambo boat to Likoma Island together on Thursday! 

Measuring the level of sand to determine whether the filter is functioning correctly.

Recording flow rates, sand measurements, etc.

MWP employees talking with the homeowner about her filter.