July 5th -- Hospital Theater and night out at the bar

I failed to mention that my day starts with mass at 6 am!!!! The sisters attend mass in there chapel in the convent on the weekdays and then on the weekends attend mass in the parish church at 7am. I am still recovering from my jet lag.

Again today, I did the rounds seeing many of the same patients and even releasing some of the Malaria patients who showed improvement. But in the afternoon, Sister Bernadatte wanted me to come with her and the hospital drama group. The hospital drama group visits various villages and performs a few dramas that are funny, yet informative. They include stories on the importance of expectant mothers to come in for a prenatal checkup early, rather than show up at the health clinic when they are in labor. Or in another play, they tell mothers in labor should not go to traditional midwives because they sometimes used dangerous traditional medicines. The picture shown, shows the actors in front of a large audience.

The power of these plays became evident to me when after the plays were completed and Sister Bernadette held a brief discussion with the audience; asking them what they thought of the play. One of the women in the audience responded by saying that what happens in this plays occur in real life because they happened to her; in particular the play with using the traditional mid-wife. This women was previous pregnant with twins and went to a traditional midwife instead of a health clinic. Her first child was born with no complications, but problems developed when trying to take the second child out. The traditional midwife responded by giving her traditional medicines to try to induce the second child to come out. When the mother eventually passed out due to the loss of blood, the midwife finally decided to take her to the health clinic. At the health clinic, the clinical officers recognize the this woman and her still unborn child are beyond their ability to help her, so they send her to district hospital for more professional care – who knows how much time has elapsed since her complications started to develop. Finally at the district hospital they were able to get the second child out and within an hour the child died……but they were able to save the mother.

That night the clinical officers wanted to take me to the local bar since it was Saturday night and the next day neither of them had to work. There was a new type of beer called Carlsberg Elephant that wasn’t here when I was in Peace Corps. I didn’t think there would be any problems about me leaving the convent so late. But unbeknownst to me when Sister Bernadette found out from Mr. Stima about me coming with them just for a few drinks she decided to consult the rest of the sisters at the convent. After much discussion they had decided that it was ok for me to go with Mr. Stima and Mr. Mshanga for a drink BUT only on the condition that I be home at 9pm. I could only laugh because I felt like I was back at home during high school or something…..does this sound familiar to you mom???

Anyways, I had no problem coming home at 9pm because I didn’t want to stay out that late. I also really appreciated their concern for my safety. However, you should probably know that the bar is about 100 meters from the convent entrance so I wasn’t going that far from the convent.

So I have dinner with the sisters at 6:30pm and then Mr. Stima and Mr. Mshanga come to meet me at the convent and we headed out to the local bar. As usual there are only men there as no village women would be caught there for fear of being thought as a prostitute. Culturally speaking too, Malawians tend to separate by gender in all aspects of life – women eat in separate rooms during supper, at church men and women sit on opposite sides of the church, etc. It is quite the shock to my own culture.....I was happy to have the excuse of having to be home by 9pm. The picture shown is the night I was with Mr. Stima and Mr. Mshanga.