This past weekend we visited Lilongwe, Malawi’s capital city. We met up with a couple others, and stayed overnight at an interesting hostel. Lilongwe itself did not seemingly have much to offer, but we were able to stand in front of the parliament building and visit an animal sanctuary. To get into the parliament building you would need an appointment, and for international individuals, their home country’s administration tends to organize the meeting. Think I would have any luck if I asked Trump? 🙂 The grounds were gorgeous, and we had a good chat wit h the guard about Lilongwe! The animal sanctuary had baboons, monkeys, a python, etc. etc. that were all rescued from poor living conditions across the world. Many of the animals were disabled in some way 😦
We visited a market in the city that was shack after shack of second hand clothing items, electronics, pretty much anything you could think of, sort of like a huge flea market. In order to access said market we had to pay 50 kwacha to use a very rickety bridge to cross the river. We squeezed our way through the market, and then eventually ate at a traditional Malawian restaurant, where there’s only a couple items on the menu and they simply use one barbecue to prepare everything (I kindly declined the goat and went for the chicken). Here I tried ncima, which is basically like cornstarch boiled down in water until it becomes thick and moldable. You then dip the ncima in a sauce or eat it with whatever your entree is. It is a really popular thing to eat here, and our housekeepers often prepare it at home as well. After eating we headed back to the car to drive to Nakoma, the village where Claire’s boyfriend is interning at the hospital. Beautiful village, very green and lush! Got to witness a traditional futbol (soccer) game!
The next morning we stole a baby from the person running the hostel…just kidding, she let us babysit a 6 week old baby that belonged to the orphanage next to the hostel 🙂 So we met Reuben, who’s mother was 14, her boyfriend denied the pregnancy, and she was forced to take care of her ill mother, not allowing her the time or energy to take care of her own baby. Though she comes every day to breastfeed (which is highly unusual for orphaned infants) she has left him in the orphanage’s care for now. The children there were the first to not cry and run away when they saw people who were white. They lapped up the attention and we danced and hung out for over an hour. One toddler even became my cameraman and ran around with my GoPro, of course having it upside down as well as his little fingers gripping the lens 🙂 The children there were the absolute sweetest, and it was hard to leave them. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll bring one home with me! We then had lunch and headed back to Blantyre, about a 4 hour drive.
I was able to go on overnight clinic this week with Iona, which means we went to two clinics each day, 4 in total, with a stay at a church in between. Though tiring, we were able to screen a lot of kiddos and had a lot of fun learning more about our PPB team. We are staying around Blantyre this weekend, but stay tuned for our Easter trip to Zanzibar/Tanzania 🙂
Project Postgrad 