Back home and at school

I thought I would include a more complete album of my expereinces in Malawi. This link will direct you to my Malawi 2009 album.

-dakotah

Finaly Days in Malawi!

After a wonderful trip with Dr. Eskridge and crew, I have now arrived at Mabuya Backpackers for the final stay of my time in Lilongwe, Malawi. Prior to arriving in Lilongwe, I had been looking for one of my former students whom I was having a hard time frinding; his name is Thomas. He was one of the students who lived with me during my last year of Peace Corps in Monkey Bay (2005). Thomas is an HIV/AIDS orphan who essentially has no family......so one day while I was in Mtunthama I recieved a phone call from Thomas!!! i was so happy to hear from him. He is now sturggling to get by in Blantyre. So I told him that if he could find a way to make it to Lilongwe, I would reimburse him and pay for his trip back to Blantyre.

Initially, Thomas said he was going to catch the 4am bus from Blantyre and arrive in Lilongwe thurday morning (tomorrow). Then catch the bus in the evening back to Blantyre thursday eveining. However just as I arrived Thomas called me and mentioned that he wasn't able to get a 4am bus ticket and instead was going to take the 7pm bus tonight and arrive in Lilongwe around 11:30pm. Then he was just going to hang out in the Bus Depot until Thursday morning!!!! After hearing this, I arranged a bed for him at Mabuya Backpackers and stay with me......I couldn't have him stay at the bus depot with NO bed!!!

I look forward to seeing Thomas:-) Tomorrow we are going to Lilongwe Market so I can buy gifts and other things before I head home.

Ludzi (part II) and Senga Bay

After leaving Mtunthama on a sour note (see previous blog), I arrived in Lilongwe to meet up with Dr. Eskridge (the woman who helped me to organize this entire trip), her son Alex, Jade, and Carol. Jade is a 3rd year resident in Internal Medicine and Carol is a Physical Therapist who recieved funding from her church to go on a Mission trip. Dr. Eskridge as been coming to Malawi at once a year since 2004 and is a member for Global AIDS Interfaith Alliance (GAIA). I met her while I was studying at Cornell when she came as a representitive of GAIA to give a presentation on working as a Doctor in Malawi. GAIA formed in 2000 in response to the growing AIDS epidemic and decided solely to focus on Malawi.

When I met the new group we travelled to Ludzi Mission and visited the same group of Nuns that I started out on the trip visiting:-) It was really nice to see them again. While I was there I managed to visit my old patients that I first talked about -- the man with the worms and the poor lady with the presumed malignant tumor in her cheek (see previous blog post). The man with the worms is now cured from the worms, however he now complained of poor ability to breath (due to his smoking). The woman with the malignant tumor in her cheek, when Dr. Eskridge and Dr. Jade took a look at it determined that it was most likely Birkett's Lymphoma, which is quite common in people who are HIV/AIDS positive. Essentially it is the over production of B-Cell's (a cell that plays a part in the immune system). Unfortunately, there was nothing we could do for her other than to give her a few gauze pads to clean the open sores and reccomend to her to come to the health clinic for draining of the sores.

Following the trip with the Sisters at Ludzi, we travelled to Senga Bay to the Senga Baptist Clinic. It was a great experience! We joined a mobile clinic and went to the rural villages around the Salima yesterday (Tuesday 8-11-09) where we treated about 120 people. Of those people, I managed to treat 8 of them while Dr. Eskridge and Dr. Jade treated the rest. It was here, where I managed to diagnose, prescribe, and treat the patients all on my own (with close observation by Dr. Eskridge). It was a liberating experience. Of the patients I treated, two had eye sightproblems which were corrected with donated glasses from America, one women with an infection underneath her eyelid that was treated with antibiotic eye droplets (but really needed sugery), one patient with an ulcer in his stomach, and a rest treated with quinine for malaria.

The following day (today 8-12-09) we then spent time at the Senga Bay Baptist Clinic were we treated patients who came to the hospital. Again, I managed to treat patients with severe malaria, asthma, stomach ulcers, allergies, Bilharzia, and worms. The trip was a wondeful trip as I was finally able to take all of the knowledge that I learned at the beginning of this trip and begin to treat patients. I really enjoyed it. You can see pictures at the following link. Here are two other pictures (here and here) from the American doctors camera as well of our trip.

One minor problem at Mtunthama

So I am finally able to get on internet as it has been sometime since I have been able to get access. I have finished my time at Mtunthama, St. Andrews hospital. I had a great time with my host family, the Minjale's.....except for one small mis-communication. As I was leaving for Lilongwe to meet up with a group of American Doctors for the next leg of my trip, Peter Minjale the clinical Officer, approached me (one hour before I was to leave) and said he had a problem. Initially, I thought it had something to do with communicating to the American doctors, but he did the typical Malawian way of beating around the bush until I realized that he was asking for money....

During the planning of my Malawian trip, it was at least clear to me that accomodations would be essentially free and allowing me to make contributions to food. Over the course of my four weeks stay I consistently gave gifts, both monetary (MK4500 = $40) and otherwise, to his family. In addition at the beginning of my stay, I asked him up front about offering to help pay for food and any other expenses and responded by saying that the hospital had a budget for visiters like me. So you can imagine how surprise I was when he mentioned for me to pay him one hour before I was to leave....he put me on the spot. When I asked about previous visiters he said the one visitor paid about MK10,000 (~$85) for one week. Since I stayed for about 4 weeks I decided to give him MK20,000 ($175) for a total monetary contribution during my stay of about MK24,500 ($200).......Now to put this in perspective, the starting Clinical Officers salary is about MK29,000 ($225) so I essentially I just paid him an entire months salary for my stay there.

I didn't mind paying him the money, but felt rather put off by him approaching me literally one hour before I was leaving asking for money. Why couldn't he have just been up front at the beginning during the emails or even when I asked him if I could contribute money for my stay? At least I would've been able to plan to give him the money.......

When I look at the overall experience that Peter and his family gave me, the money was well worth it. I had a wonderful time and learned a lot. I got to assist in draining abcess, burn and wound cleaning, helping with 5 baby deliveries, and finally get some clinical experience. I couldn't complain.....so for $200 it was worth it. However the way Peter approached me really put a damper and sour note on the experience. As you can see rather than write a blog about my expereinces at St. Andrews, I find myself immeadiately thinking about being ask for money.....I probably think twice about visiting St. Andrews Hospital again.

PS -- I didn't have time to proof read so I am sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes:-)

Two more weeks left

So i have about two more weeks left in Malawi. It has been such a great trip here. As you will see I have posted some pictures on the link below that show some of my experiences.

http://picasaweb.google.com/daklane/MtunthamaStAndrewsHospital?authkey=Gv1sRgCO6vmZ_hg-SnwwE&feat=directlink

Next week I will be going back to Ludzi on Wednesday, where I did my first clinic rotation. I will be spending the last of my time there before i head home.

Hope all is well back in the States.

Yendani Bwino,

Dakotah

New Post and Pictures

Hi Everyone,

I have finally been able to put on some new posts on my blog as well as some new pictures. I have spent most of my time at the Anglican mission, but this past weekend (July 17-20) went to Monkey Bay to see how my Peace Corps site is doing.

Copy and paste the link to my picasa web album. They contain pictures of my time in Monkey Bay.

http://picasaweb.google.com/daklane/MonkeyBay2009?authkey=Gv1sRgCMnXgfvakJLErAE&feat=directlink

Now I am back at the Anglican mission working at the health clinic under the Peter Minjale, the clinical officer. This morning I saw a underweight baby being delivered. Deliverys are always amazing to watch and witness......It was a complicated pregnancy as the placenta had to be manually removed, rather than naturally......The mother is now well and recovering.

I will write more post when I can:)

Hope your summer is going well.

July 9th – Anglican Village in Mtunthama

Today, I caught a ride with Liza, a 38 yr old white South African, to Kasungu. Liza was born in Southwest South Africa (now Namibia) and grew up on a farm there. Then during the independence, her family fled the violence to South Africa. She grew up under the Apartheid, went to Switzerland where she received a degree in education and visited Malawi for a holiday, loved it so much that she decided to stay and start a life here. We arrived at Kasungu and she dropped me off at the Malawi National Bank.

Then I called Peter Minjale, the Clinical Officer at St. Andrews hospital, to come and pick me up in Kasungu. The hospital is about 25 minutes outside of Kasungu and is part of an Anglican Mission which also includes a Church, a primary school, and a secondary school. When I first arrived I was quite surprised to see many azungu’s (African for white people) there. In fact I was slightly bummed out that I wasn’t the only azungu in the area – I wouldn’t necessarily be the center of attention anymore…..what a selfish feeling to have. In addition, with all of the support the Anglican village was getting I couldn't but help wonder if my support would have done more back at Ludzi Mission......

The first azungu I met was a 19 year old guy named James from England. He is on his “gap” year, which is basically a year sabbatical that English students take after graduating from secondary school before heading off to the university. James was planning on attending medical school this fall and decided to spend three months of his gap year in Malawi at the St. Andrews hospital.

James has had string of bad luck with his health while he was in Malawi. When he first arrived his right lung collapsed and he was bed ridden for the first two weeks here at St. Andrews hospital. Following that he got a viral infection in his throat that quickly became infected with bacteria leading to multiple ulcers that made it hard for him to eat and even talk. Despite all of this he refused to fly home because he loved his experience at the Anglican mission. He would struggle with these ulcers during my entire visit in Kasungu. We later found out that the Malaria prophylaxis, Doxycycline, was known in some individuals to cause these ulcers.