A Day of Exploring

 Table on our porch.

 UNC Project Guest House.

 The girls' side.

 Our yard chickens.

 Sign from Joyce, the keeper of UNC Guesthouse

 Mine and Alex's room

 Kitchen

 Clothes hanging

 Joyce, housekeeper, and Fatniss, her helper.

 Joyce and our house dog, Fumu.

 Our exchanged currency, the Malawian Kwatcha

 The Lions Sight First Eye Hospital

 Everyone rides these bikes here.  I love them, love the hand brakes.

 Bible (?) outside

 Lilongwe

 Pensive Amblessed

 Papaya tree

 petals

 Peace Corps SUV

 Love this van for the Ophthalmic Outreach Programme

 The Afri CAN cafe, with drinks and pastries on the hospital campus

 Malawian nurses

 Inside the Afri CAN

 UNC <3 Lilongwe

 Lighthouse HIV clinic on the KCH campus

 Ambulance

 School children...

 Hospital gate

 Guards at the gate

 Home sweet hammock

Days here start around 3:30 AM, with the morning call to worship from the surrounding mosques waking you.  One mosque must start the call, and then it is followed by all of the surrounding mosques, because you begin to hear gongs, instruments, and noises from all sides.  Being blessed with the gift of falling back asleep immediately like a narcoleptic, I kept on. I legitimately woke up when our housemate Brian (MS3 from Vandy) came over, bringing a Malawian doctor named Frank who is going to see about getting our Yellow Fever cards for the border in Zambia when we go on Safari in a few weeks.  Our housemates left for various corners of Lilongwe for work and Amblessed and I scrounged around the house for some breakfast. Not wanting to steal everything from our housemates, we walked over to the drivers' office and asked for a ride up to the ShopRite, a local grocery store.  A very kind man Tom (and by the way, all Malawians have been wonderfully kind to us) took us by the store and waited for us to pick up some groceries.  We bought canned fish and tomatoes and rice for dinner tonight, and picked up some corn flakes, box milk, and orange juice which Amblessed suspects is closer to Sunny-D than real juice.  We had planned to also buy a cell phone at the market across from ShopRite to make local calls, but we ran out of money during our grocery shopping.  We only brought 8,400 kwatcha (27ish dollars).  Tom brought us back to the UNC Project guest house where we found one of our housemates, Urooj, who is a post-doc doing research on water systems in Malawi.  She's been here a week and is in the know about the lunch situation at the hospital, where a local woman sells cooked rice, fish, chicken, beef, and veggies.  I wish I had taken a picture of my lunch.  At the suggestion of our Chichewa teacher in Chapel Hill, I had the fish, which was a local Malawian fish that had been fried.  As Chifundo promised, it was delicious.  The veggies were too, especially the cabbage slaw and the cooked greens.  All of this by the way was 350 kwatcha, which is less than two dollars.  Amazing.

After lunch, Urooj went on with her work, interviewing people at the Ministry of Water and Amblessed and I went back to the guest house to grab more money before walking into town.  Our driver Tom had taught us a short cut to get out to the main road from the hospital that probably saved us 15 minutes of walking time.  We walked past a group of school-aged children who smiled for us.  We made it back to the center where ShopRite is and found a person selling cell phones.  We bought a phone, sim card, and 1,000 kwatcha minute card for 5,000 kwatcha (bargain shopping).  Then, we went exploring in a little shopping mall with another super market, Spar, a Malawian Wal-Mart (which is owned by Wal-Mart for real) and a Creamy Inn, which sells soft serve.  I ordered a coke float and the guy behind the counter told me that he only had pink ice cream- it was totally delicious.  After all of this fun, we walked back to the guest house.  Mission accomplished. 

I was able to set up the hammock in the front of the house.  There are only a few trees in the yard, so I had to hook it to the columns.  We relaxed for a little while before Dr. Shores arrived.  She had just flown in from Johannesburg where she was after her All-African ENT Conference in Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe.  I can't wait to see those pictures.    Tonight we are going to an ex-pat bar called Harry's.
Cheers.

In Lilongwe!

 Finally there! 27 hours of travel!

 Getting off of the plane for good.

 In Lilongwe.

 We are freaking here! Takulandirani!

 Arrived in Lilongwe

 Taxi drivers

 Congo airways

 Really almost there

 Lilongwe land

 Getting off the plane in Lilongwe

 Quick stop in Libumbashi, Congo

 Greeting us to Ethiopian Airlines

 Welcome from Ethiopian Airlines

 Duty Free Cart

 The awesome Duty Free cart on the flight to Addis Ababa

 Welcome to Africa

 Aviation school in Lilongwe

 Airport in Lilongwe, Malawi

 UNC Project Malaria vaccine unit

 Dennis picking us up from the airport in Lilongwe, Malawi

 Made it to Ethiopia!

 Waiting in Dulles for the flight to Addis Ababa

 On the flight to Addis Ababa

 So, we arrived quite safely in Malawi after 27 hours of travel.  On the ride from Dulles to Addis Ababa, around 7 hours out, a woman in the next row over from me fainted and I ended up, with the help of the great flight crew, taking her up to the front of the plane and checking her out.  Her pulse was slightly low and I think she was dehydrated from not drinking water and drinking a mini bottle of wine.  With some rest, fluids, and a sugary snack she was OK, albeit embarrassed.  She was very sweet and grateful for the help.  I did not sleep one hour on the flight to Addis.  However, I made up for that by sleeping (with drool) the entire time from Addis (with a layover in Libumbashi, Congo) to Lilongwe.  Cheers.

The Waiting Game

Airlines.  They're so great aren't they?  Yesterday I tried to check into our flights online and was able to check in to United but the Ethiopian Airways check in service wasn't working.  So I called Ethiopian Airways and their response was, "Oh that thing, yeah that doesn't work."  But honestly, they said it in really the nicest way before telling me to be at the gate 3 hours before departure.  Then I called United to make sure that our bags would get to Lilongwe without us being able to check in on Ethiopian online.  The customer service rep told me, "Oh, you never checked in on United."  So that made me feel great considering United had just sent me the confirmation email from my check-in.  Turns out they would need to see our passports before giving us any boarding passes.

Lessons learned:
Get there early
Don't freak out
Be nice even when the person on the other line tells you that you didn't do the thing you just did
Weigh your suitcase before leaving (42lbs for Amblessed and a winning 47.5 lbs for me)

Amblessed came over to our house last night and the dogs happily greeted him.  Nala made sure to hang out on the bed in the guest room with him and be in his Skype call with his girlfriend. 

The alarm clock sounded at a rousing 3:30 AM this morning.  We got up and Joey chauffeured us to RDU.  Checked into our 6:00 AM United flight and made it to Dulles.  We hopped on the Dulles train shuttle over to the international terminal and here we are, playing the waiting game until our 11:15 flight to Addis Ababa on Ethiopian Airways.  There are quite a few Ethiopian women who are waiting for our flight wearing traditional clothing in the most beautiful colors.  Now we wait to board...

 UNC Medical Alumni gave us a flip cam to take with us so look forward to video footage.

Oh hello there, it's my new address @ Kumuzu Central Hospital, UNC-Project Malawi, Lilongwe, Malawi.

 Amblessed setting his watch to Lilongwe time- 6 hrs ahead of Eastern US.

 The Starbucks barista did a quite interesting spelling rendition of Amblessed's name.

                                                                   ready, set, go.

                                                                        just leaving

                       The majestic Ethiopian Airways jet... See you in Addis Ababa.

5 days to GO!

It's really setting in that I have 4 full days left in the states to cram as many things that I love about America/Durham before I leave.  I satisfied some of those desires by eating at Foster's with Joey's mom for breakfast this morning, and this weekend we will likely conquer Durham's Beaver Queen Festival, eat Indian brunch buffet at Sitar, and go to the Triangle Restaurant Week's pre-party and enjoy the rest of our time together before I leave.  That's not too much for one weekend, right ;)?

Today, I went to Joey's school with our pups as a bit of a reward for his class.  It made me miss teaching, not so much the day-to-day but knowing that you are really doing something for someone else.  I cannot wait to feel that again (!), and I know it will come, hopefully on this trip and definitely 3rd year. 

Still trying to decide what to cram into my giant suitcase...I wonder if that 50 lb weight limit still applies?

On one last exciting note, my friend Alex has organized a safari trip for a group of UNC Medical and Nursing students during my last week in Malawi, which I will absolutely post photos of.  I can't wait to tell Nala (yellow dog) what the rest of her pride is up to.



Next post will either be a picture of my overflowing suitcase or it will be from Lilongwe!