February 9, 2008
I’m purposely not writing more about having Malaria right now because I am trying to forget about it as I am, hopefully, nearing the end of my recovery and am getting really tired of it. So let me expand on something I wrote before about a typical day and talk about a typical process of getting something done, which can give you a better idea of the way things are here. The example I’ll use is the ongoing saga of our lost luggage.
I finally decided it was time to file our lost luggage claim when we were in Mzuzu this week, since some people had said that once you file the claim, more energy gets focused on finding the luggage to avoid having to pay you. Since the mail from Livingstonia is horribly slow, and there is no functioning fax anywhere there, I had brought all our copies to take to the University offices in Mzuzu where they have both a copy machine and a fax which they said we could use. Faxing seemed like the best way to send our claim what with the speed and reliability of mail everywhere in Malawi.
Unfortunately, when I got to the office thinking I’d make the copies and send the fax and be done with it, I learned that the copy machine was broken (when this happens it could be days or weeks before they can be repaired). OK, no problem, I could just walk a block or so to the Synod office and use their copier, go back to the University office and send the fax and be done with it. Except that when I took my copies back to the University to use the fax machine it wouldn’t work. The bursar/administrator went next door to another office to get that administrator to come and try to get it to work, finding out that it was a problem with the phone line not being set up to send a fax outside the country (to South African airlines offices in Johannesburg).
The administrator called the phone company who told her they would set it up and if it wasn’t working in 5 minutes took the name of the person there to call back. Half an hour later after several more phone calls, I decided to take the fax a half a mile away or so to the local Internet café where John was working on email and I was going to meet him so we could walk another half mile to lunch. I really didn’t want the University to pay the cost for the international fax anyway.
At the Internet café, they struggled to get the fax sent and after 20 minutes or so managed to get the deed done for a cost of about $20US. The whole ordeal took at least 2 hours if not more - a 10-minute job in the US at probably. The really frustrating part came when I called the person I have been dealing with at SAA in Malawi to tell her I had sent the claim to the fax number on the claim form only to be told that was not the correct place to send it. Of course I didn’t learn that until returning to Livingstonia, so I will have to start all over again when we go back to Mzuzu again whenever that is. At this point all we can do is laugh, or lose our minds. The one thing we can count on is that whatever we want to do will take longer than we expected, if it can be cone at all.
You also asked about a typical work day for colleagues, and since classes are getting ready to begin again at the College of Education this week, this might not be exactly a typical day for the Principal/Dean of the College, but is representative I think. The Principal had to delay the start of classes from last week to this week when the Adjunct Faculty members (who live in Mzuzu 3 hours away) were slow in turning in their grades from last semester as well as needing to complete some repairs I’ll describe below. The grading delay resulted in a delay in assessing students to determine who needed to take “supplementary exams” (this is part of the British system in use here, which enables students whose numerical scores are not high enough, to take an exam, which if passed would avoid their having to repeat the class). It can take students a day or more just to travel to Mzuzu to take these exams and both testing, assessing and travel time was needed so the start of the semester had to be adjusted.
So last week he was supervising the supplementary exams in Mzuzu, while simultaneously trying to procure the food needed to be brought up to Livingstonia for the Students arrival Sunday (the price of beef had gone up sharply so he was trying to negotiate that or come up with some alternative a few hundred kilometers away), and also supervising the rebuilding of a collapsed pit latrine at the students dormitory (yes, you read it correctly, latrines at the dorms) and the replacement of 2 other latrines that had filled – oh and at the same time handling the repair of the large cooking pot used over a wood fire at the mess hall, as well as some repairs to beds and some termite damage. All of these problems contributed the delay in opening school.
Typical days for all of us are often spent handling these kinds of things that would not occur in the US, or that some other staff member could handle fairly quickly or easily in a larger or more established institution. Here, the people in authority often have no money and little or no staff so end up doing everything themselves. If you’ve ever worked for any kind of a start up organization, you’ll recognize that this is often the case, as are problems with getting decisions made, especially when something new and different happens and no one is quite sure who ought to be responsible. Start-ups usually don’t have the processes or infrastructure in place – but what complicates matters here is the lack of money.
February 10, 2008
Yesterday was frustrating for me with the Malaria because I had been feeling so much better the day before and my digestive system was really bothering me again - bad cramping, a backache and diarrhea. Everyone kept telling me I needed to eat and since I had more appetite on Friday, Smelton had fixed a feast at lunch. I ate a lot more than I had the day before and I think it was too much and too rich for my system. Yesterday I stuck with oatmeal, eggs and toast and soup and feel much better today. The Dr. in Mzuzu who treated me, Austin Mkandawire, a former director of the WHO in several countries who was one of the first Malawians to be trained as a Dr., called today to check on me, and assured me that all was normal and that my Malaria is now gone thanks to the medicine.
It was like old-fashioned service that some of us remember from our childhood when I got sick Monday night at our Hotel in Mzuzu. John called a friend from the Synod office who got up at 2am to go get Tylenol to lower my fever, and Dr. Mkandawire called John to check on my symptoms to determine what was best to do – wait until his clinic opened at 8am or take me to a hospital. He advised that as long as I didn’t continue vomiting or having bad diarrhea so that I started losing too many fluids, and if the Tylenol brought my fever down I could safely wait until his clinic and lab opened – which was our preference since we hadn’t brought any of our sterile needles or anything with us and knew we could trust his clinic.
As for Malaria, it’s like a really bad case of the flu in some ways. Horrible chills(I’ve really never experienced anything quite like it before), but they only lasted for a few hours, then the vomiting and a really high fever – we didn’t have a thermometer with us but I would bet it was around 103 to 104 as I don’t remember being that hot since a bad infection I had in my 20’s when I know it was 104. The fever didn’t last too long either, but poor John said I was moaning with every breath until I fell asleep an hour or 2 after taking the Tylenol. A few hours later the diarrhea started and that is the one thing that has lasted the entire time. John and I have both been taking a Malaria preventative, but none are guaranteed to be 100% effective, and I did forget to take my dose that Monday morning, taking it just a bit before the chills started. It seemed to come on really fast, and Dr. Mkandawire said it probably had nothing to do with the missed dose as it takes a week or more for the incubation after you are bitten.
Nothing I care to repeat, I know that. It’s hard to believe how often people have it here, and easy to believe what a worldwide scourge it is considered to be. It’s often fatal if not treated, but very easy to diagnose with a simple blood test and to treat with modern drugs fortunately. Like the flu, it’s hardest on the young and old, and not so bad for those who are healthy when then get it. They rate in on a scale of 1 – 5 and mine was only at 1. We asked the Dean/Principal how often he gets Malaria and he said 3 times last year, one time at 4+. Don’t even want to imagine that. People here seem to get malaria with the same frequency we get colds at home, but this is so much more debilitation and lengthy – plus, if untreated it can kill you.
We were without power for 22 hours until about 3pm today, and were pretty bored and hungry for something other than bread and peanut butter. It rained so hard yesterday that our yard had at least an inch of standing water. I took a picture of it because it looked like the grass was floating and will try to attach it.
Today is the day that the students are supposed to return and we are worried about the road up. They need to make their way to Chilumba, the town at the base of the Gorodi road up the escarpment and then are shuttled up that amazing road in shifts somehow – 150 or so students with vehicles making repeated trips up if the road is passable, starting at around 3 or 4 pm today. When we came back on Wednesday after a hard rain, our four-wheel drive vehicle was sliding sideways in 2 places, and in one place we didn’t think we’d make it thru. We are concerned for the transportation process today.
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