QOTD
Sika | October 9, 2007
“We’re Doctors without Medicine, not Doctors without Borders.”
Because They're Burning Bricks
Life and Times In and Out of Malawi
30 September
Sika | October 2, 2007
Chichewa words of the day: bwana, azungu: Bwana literally means boss, and if you’ve seen as many movies about apartheid era South Africa as I have, you probably already know that. But since I know very few people who were as obsessed with apartheid as I was, that knowledge may have understandably escaped you. I [...]
Interlude
Sika | October 2, 2007
Chichewa word of the day: Ujeni. Ujeni is a word that means approximately whatchamacallit or thingamajig or whosits whatsit. This is relevant because at this moment my puppy, whom I’ve named Ujeni, is sitting on my lap and is rather perturbed that I won’t let him eat my computer. He got that name because of [...]
29 September
Sika | October 2, 2007
There’s a story I want to tell from the Male Medical Ward that I feel touches on many of the aspects of life here that I forget to talk about. And also confirms for me, at least, what I was thinking earlier about nurses and why they appear to be callous. One day on the [...]
Why Malawian nurses are callous
Sika | October 2, 2007
Malawian nurses have a reputation for being uncaring and callous. To be perfectly honest, as much as it disappoints me that it is so, I can’t see how it could be any other way given the health care system. On the pediatric ward, there are 100 beds. There are 200-300 children and all of their [...]
Update: Housing
Sika | October 2, 2007
I realized that I haven’t written anything about what’s been happening here with me. When I arrived in Zomba, my house wasn’t ready, even though we had been told the day before that it was. The remodel wasn’t completely done, but more importantly, Escom had not put in the electric meter. Now that sounds like [...]
Update: Work
Sika | October 2, 2007
Work For the last two weeks I have been doing my orientation at the hospital, which is why I haven’t had much of a presence online, besides the connection problems, with which wakko, Shannon, and pearl helped quite a bit. I still get transport to and from my house everyday, but then instead of being [...]
14 September
Sika | October 2, 2007
In a culture that is completely open about ailments of the stomach (diarrhea, in case you were wondering, is kutsegula m’mimba in Chichewa, which literally means opened stomach), where when someone asks how you are it is completely normal to answer, “I am a little fine. I have kutsegula m’mimba,” being seen with toilet paper [...]
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