WARNING Contains Spiders

Give a man a bulldozer and he’ll find the nearest water pipe. It would appear that this rule is a universal rule across all continents. Yep  most of Thursday was spent trying to deal with a ruptured water pipe which was pouring through our site. Kids came and played in it and drank from it. It did not look good from a PR point of view but I was just glad that we aren’t somewhere were water is scarce and people rely on it heavily.......hmmmm!

 

So Pam has been working on special care ward – like our high dependency. So she has been looking after kids with weird and wonderful – Malaria, TB, HIV related illnesses, Schistosomiasis, Takayasu and a one year old with a bowel obstruction after drinking battery acid.

She is getting in to the swing of stuff and feeling useful!

 

Here is a picture of one of the main roads with absolutely gorgeous Jacaranda Trees that only bloom for a very short period of time. As for life here we have pretty much settled into our routine.

 

 

We decided to have an explore around the city this weekend. We found Doogles, the local music venue, where we will be going on Thursday night. We found the blue Elephant a local restaurant. And then we decided to go to the local market. WOW. So okay for those that have been to Marrakesh it is like the souk but much narrower, dirtier and busier. For those that have not image a maze made out of brick walls, hardware stores and covered up. Needless to say we got accosted and lost quite a few times. And it sold everything, trainers to plugs to watches, to car parts, food, clothes. It is the Malawi equivalent of Bluewater!

We also attempted to find a church on Sunday, only the one that was recommended had bone on an away, so we tried one that turned out to be the main cathedral and about 3000 very smartly dressed Malawians watched us turn up in flip flops and a t shirt. Needless to say we left in the first Hymn (Yes they only sang hymns) and went for coffee.

 

Just to keep up the creepy crawlies theme this is a photo of a spider Pam found in the hospital! Apparently the locals were quite amused by her reaction.

 

 

 

 

 

Okay STATMAN:

 

The Mosquito scores are in,

Pam 1 Mosquitoes 20

Chris 2 Mosquitoes 0. (Yep that is not a typo – but now it’s out there I reckon they will have it in for me!)

Take aways eaten:  1 chinese. It wasn’t that nice or that chinesey.

Hugs received from random children because we are white:  5

Cloudy days: 3

Average temperature: frigging boiling!

 

POST POST NOTE It rained most of the day today! Apparently this is very strange for this time of year but it felt a lot like home.