big girls

Here are my two girls who are looking so grown up.

 

We’re all getting very excited about a visit from Granny and Grandad. Our eldest was telling her friend that mummy was very excited about Granny coming to stay. They are coming for 6 weeks, and it’s there first visit to Africa so we feel a bit of pressure to make sure that they enjoy their time here. I’m also wondering what they will make of our life here, there are some things that we are much more relaxed about and things that we would never do in the UK that we find acceptable here. I am sure that they will enjoy being outdoors most of the time and we have found some beautiful spots to take them.

calm

If I was a grumpy hippo yesterday, today I feel calm and at peace, like these hippos. It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep can do.

 

grumpy

This hippo looks pretty grumpy, our guide told us his skin looks a bit burned.

I feel very grumpy, we’ve had 2 weeks of disturbed sleep and neither the doc or I are coping very well. Mostly it’s our youngest who keeps us awake she is back on Larium as a change of drugs didn’t seem to make a difference but now I’m not so sure and it’s difficult to know if it’s behavioural or drug induced or just bad sleep! We all find sleep more disturbed here, the temperature changes a lot in the night, we all drink lots of water so get up to the loo and there can be loud music and intruders too! The last straw this morning was when we had our eldest in our bed in the hopes that she might sleep despite her younger sibling crying, we were going in to the youngest every 10 mins to reassure her and trying to encourage her to go back to sleep when one of the guards knocked on our bedroom window to tell us that the children were crying!

power

We have spent a weekend with very little power. Normally power cuts are twice a week, at about 6/6.30 pm just as it goes dark, if you live near someone important then you are less affected by this load shedding. It is getting dark earlier and the cuts seem to go on for longer and we are getting regular cuts at lunchtime and then like this weekend all day. Of course we can manage without power but it’s a bit frustrating as the ironing pile is enormous (everything has to be ironed to kill the putsi fly) and washing has to be done by hand, we can’t use the internet or make phone calls and the food that can be cooked on a camping stove is limited!

 

The power company Escom have had to change the slogan on their vehicles and literature – they were told that it was incorrect to say “power everyday, all day” so the vehicles now say “striving for power everyday, all day”!

less rain

The rainy season has officially ended, so this will be the last pics of splashing in puddles for a while. Having said that we did get a heavy downpour yesterday which was unexpected as usually once the rains finish it’s only occasional showers. The weather is gorgeous, warm enough not to have to worry about jumpers but cool enough to enjoy being outside, the garden is looking lush and colourful.

working girl

So how does a museum curator find a job in Malawi? Help put together a grant application for an interactive display about clinical research and medicine in Malawi. We have just heard that our application was successful so I should have about 20 days work over the next year helping do some audience research to put the exhibition together.

 

I am also having fun getting involved with the Society of Malawi and offering some advice for the management of the archives. As part of this I joined a trip on Saturday to the National Archives of Malawi in Zomba. The staff were incredibly helpful and patiently answered our questions and let us have a look at some of the material and books, including the oldest book in their collection. The book is dated 1685, although I it looks like it is a later reprint of a book written in the 17^th century in French about Africa this picture shows “dragons”.

sausages

Sausages for tea which reminded me that I had a photograph of a sausage tree. We don’t eat a lot of pork as all the good butchers are halal but I have found a pork butcher (out of town) so pork is back on the menu, the butcher talked me into buying a 2.5Kg pork neck joint which he tells me to put in water to roast! Anyway sausage trees, the fruits are enormous and can weigh upto 10Kg and it’s a bad idea to sit or camp under the tree (in case the fruit drops on your head). Apparently the fruit is edible but not widely eaten.

days like this

It’s days like this that make me wonder if I’m cut out for living in Africa. A late night after a lovely dinner followed by a toddler awake and screaming from 3am, a busy morning followed by other toddler getting a high temp, so another visit to the malaria alert centre (all tests negative) and the prospect of a night of taking temp and calculating doses of painkillers. Apart from the malaria test not much different to life in the UK except that I worry that I’m exposing my children to extra risks, oh and it doesn’t help that the rains have ceased and the temperature has soared.

 

The doc’s research is storming ahead with 25 patients recruited already (he’s aiming for 200) although the bad news is that the other haematologist is leaving in June and won’t be replaced until September so for a few months there’ll only be 1 haematologist in the country.

hot excercise

So how do you exercise in a hot country? Until this month I have found even walking with a pushchair too strenuous in the heat but I either need to stop eating cake or start exerting myself. The rains have been keeping the temperature down so last week I tried an aerobics class led by an energetic Dutch lady, whose English is excellent, although she has a great turn of phrase - while we were lying on our tummies she told us to make ourselves like a horseshoe. I find the commentary from a non-English accent restful and a slight distraction from the pain.

 

This mornings activity was a squash lesson with the doc, taught by the current Malawi squash champion, all for the grand sum of £2 plus court hire. He was lovely and had some really helpful suggestions, he seemed to enjoy playing as much as we did, I had forgotten just how addictive squash is although it is going to hurt tomorrow. I suppose the question is who will hurt more, me or the doc. Fortunately tomorrow is a bank holiday, it’s Martyrs Day when we remember those who died in the 1959 uprising.