Lilongwe! And Some Other Things I Forgot!

August 12, 2009


I am in Lilongwe, the capital city of Malawi. Tomorrow starts a conference on reproductive health that is sponsored by the College of Medicine Centre for Reproductive Health. I was supposed to be presenting but they moved me on and off the program about 4 times- no lie. But the good news is that my boss is here! She put us up in this NICE hotel with a bathtub (I have been in twice in like 24 hours) and a comfortable bed and wireless internet and a big breakfast in the morning. No joke it feels like heaven. Haha I sound so spoiled. I have been in Malawi for only 19 days and I am already craving Western amenities. Anyway, we got here yesterday and checked in and Amy came soon after. We went to dinner and she listened to our concerns about the project and our experience in Malawi. She also offered some good ideas on what we could have done differently to better collaborate with the people at the centre.

This morning, we got up and went over the status of the project. It seems like we may be done translation within a week or so. Then the question is whether to go back to the village in an attempt to locate more of the women's husbands. It is going to take some resources but I am in favor of this because I haven't yet been to the field. It seems kind of crazy that "my" project will be almost entirely conducted without me! After we finished all of this, we went out into the city. Amy had hired a car and driver and he took us to all of the sights including President Banda's tomb, the Ministry of Health (and the others as well!), and the hospital. We also went to the tourist area and saw some curios for sale. I had to explain a million times that this was a looking day and not a buying day. The thought of bargaining was tiring.

I am back in the hotel now. Dinner is Indian food (score!) in about an hour. It is so nice to be able to blog or write emails or whatever I want to do online. I spend so much time on this computer! They are going to have to tear it from me at the conference.

Other thing I forgot! We went to Nkopola Lodge for the day a while ago and we saw monkeys! They swooped down and stole things from people as they ate and it was a good day :) There is going to be a big music festival there in October that we are looking forward to. Should be a good time. Also exciting is a potential plan to see my friend Brent in Botswana in December. He is working on a PMTCT project with the Peace Corps and is almost done his time there. It would be pretty sweet.

OK, anything else that I write would be just me blathering on because I have internet access. Until next time...