We stayed in a hostel that had cats running around and a giant pillow thing that could fit like 5 people, or one me and my cat sprawled out.  It was basically heaven. 

  

 The morning after the Zomba Plateau we went over to Lake Chilwa.  It's a little lake that is south of the big big Lake Malawi.  It has a little island in the middle and it all looks really pretty, but that is the magic of a far away photo.  The water smelled terrible, was only about 3 meters deep at most, full of mud and algae and is too salty and polluted to drink.  They do fish a lot in it still, so now I'm a little wary of eating fish here. 

 The island is supposed to have the most variety of birds in Malawi (? this is not an informational blog, I'm sorry, everything I "know" is just what I have overheard, forgot, and made up a little) and is trying to be a UNESCO site. We didn't see any birds (at least none that we know of, we didn't have a guide, we were just sort of aimlessly walking around the island), but we saw so so many amazing giant baobab trees. Here is Sol for scale, this was not even a particularly big tree, just a more accessible one. 

 When on the island there are two kinds of tours you can do, "homestay" and "hike." We opted for hike because the homestay option was advertised as taking pictures of villagers going about their daily life, and that felt kind of icky to me.  However, once we were out and walking around we were constantly mobbed by kids asking for us to take their picture.  They just wanted to pose and pose and then see the results.  I have hundreds of pictures, but I particularly liked this girl and her super serious pose, she was not about to be recorded looking a fool.  She was super animated when the photo wasn't being taken, but she wanted to look respectable.  

 This is a man on the little pushboats they use to get around.  Like the guys in Venice, big pole they stick in the mud and push the boat around.  Mostly people walked to get around the island itself because the water is super shallow, mostly marsh actually, so it wouldn't really be helpful to try to boat around to your friend on the other side of the island. 

 I dunno, this kid really wanted the picture here, I figured it must be an important spot and worth sharing with the world. 

 We sat for a long time and watched this guy make a soccer ball out of a whole kit of materials.  First he blew up an old surgical glove, wrapped it in plastic bags, then wrapped the whole thing in yards and yards of fabric pulled into yarn strip things, then wrapped it again in more plastic, and tied it down with more string.  It was amazing and created something that was basically exactly the same as a store soccer ball.  He was clearly the professional ball maker because everyone ran around doing what he wanted and fetching what he needed. 

 Took a trip up to Zomba Plateau, the second highest peak in Malawi.  We drove most of the way up because we ain't no fools.  I personally feel a beautiful view is better appreciated with the wind of a fast moving car and the radio blaring. 

 The biggest road hazard in Malawi is goats. Goats everywhere. They wander around free grazing, crossing roads, sleeping on roads, and generally scaring me to death thinking we will hit one and not only kill a poor lil goat but totally wreck some family's life and investment. 

 We did also hike, for around 5 hours.  I hike now, get over it.  (I hate it a little though) We mostly hiked along logging tracks or these tiny little footpaths along the edge of the plateau. 

 William's Falls (I think), I love waterfalls more than everything. 

 View from the top, there's a suspiciously volcanic looking mountain down there that our guide maintained was never a volcano... Also there are all kinds of other mountains out there in the mist.  The view was amazing as always, Malawi is freaking gorgeous people. 

 Hiked back down to this beautiful beautiful place. How does one caption things like this? It was pretty cool, the whole place reminded me of Fern Gully. Unfortunately this was because it was a mix of wild dense forests and clear cut areas where everything had been logged (is that the verb? harvested? Cut down by big ass machines and left looking ugly and brown and empty).

I am convinced someone placed this little boat here to make it the most picturesque view possible. 

Today I learned the word for SNAKE!!! Chiko was getting something out of the storeroom and suddenly she was yelling NJOKA! and running around screaming. Then everyone was running and screaming. And I am just sitting there looking around, wondering if I should possibly run.  Finally someone realizes I am not reacting properly and starts screaming SNAKE! Which gets everyone running and shrieking again.  So of course I just creep in and snap a picture. It was pretty skinny, about a foot and a half long. It's coiled on a head-high shelf which is a little disconcerting because I always figured that if I am off the ground I am safe from snakes.  Apparently this is untrue. 

So we ran outside and called a gardener man who came and beat it to death with a stick.  He then proceeded to tell us that it was a black mamba baby and that means that there is a giant black mamba also in the stockroom who is now probably very mad.  He seemed serious, but I don't think that makes total sense to me.  Anyway, we are calling in a snake expert, whatever that may mean, to fumigate or something? I'll keep you posted on SnakeWatch2017.

In the meantime, our office manager went around stuffing all the cracks around the doors with paper.  No one appreciated my suggestion that, if there are more of them, all we are doing is sealing them in. 

Moved into a new house! Got a room in a house with 2 other girls, I guess one day I'll post pictures of the house but more importantly, there's this puppy! She lives here too! And her name is Galu which literally just means Dog in Chichewa. She's perfect for me. On my first day here, no one else was home so we laid in the grass in the sun and read and snuggled.  We're best friends.

Outreach finally! So part of the job is going out to villages where people can't make it into the city to come to the hospital.  This was our hearing aid programming station, this kid was getting hearing aids for the first time. Honestly, he was not excited about the prospect, but he's a teenager so what could we expect? Anyway the outreach went quite well until the next day when...

I stepped on a shard of bone that went through my shoe and into my little foot.  I don't have a more clear explanation than that, I wish that I would have had that presence of mind to take a picture of both the offending shard and the yard around, which was littered with bones.  I don't know what kind of bones, cow? It was big and sharp and out to get me.  It bled terribly and the ENT that was with us was like, you will need only 2 sutures and you'll be fine.  Honestly, blood, everywhere, for like 2 hours.

But then we got back to the hospital and it had mostly stopped bleeding.  It was/is very deep but it didn't need stitches and I GUESS I'm fine.  Still debating on a tetanus shot though.  Apparently dirt covered bones are on the list of tetanus prone injuries. 

Awww look at this lil girl.  She was the tiniest and cutest.  We do newborn hearing screenings in the clinic now. So the moms who gave birth about 48 hours ago walk across campus to us to get their lil baby's hearing tested.  We are currently only testing high risk babies, so we have a lot of very teeny tiny ones who were premature and have been in the hospital for a few weeks.  This also means that we get many many sets of twins.  And this means that I sometimes get to chill and hold the twin who is on deck while the mom holds the twin who is getting tested.  It's the best. 

This is the Kabula Bus. It's the little shuttle that I take every day from my lodge to and from the hospital where I work. Since like half of the people that stay at the lodge work at the hospital, the lodge is nice enough to spare the world all of us trying to find our way on public minibuses.  It's an industrial van that has been outfitted with 4 rows of seats that each (almost) fit four people.  The pictures of the people burning tires? they were partially fighting for the right to continue to put this many people in every public minibus, instead of three people per row who can all properly sit down. So every morning 10-20 of us pile into this thing and are carted off to the hospital. 

 More elephant pics because they are the cutest.

 Look at his lil face! This guy (gal?) is about 5 years old according to our guide.

 So elephants are pretty much always eating.  Apparently this is because elephants just poop right out 60% of their food undigested.

Fifty points if you can spot the lions! Hint: they are a sort of blue/grey with an orange mane.

I accidentally got caught up watching the lions instead of taking pictures. No regrets. Go see your own lions and take better pictures. 

Safari! I went on a game drive in Majete game reserve about an hour outside of Blantyre.  I have about 200 pictures of elephants now so if you are interested in having a picture of an elephant of any age doing anything, I can probably fill any customized requests. Here is a sampling of what I saw. 

It's a zebra! He had a friend with him but I could only see his butt.  Zebra butt is cool but maybe not the most picturesque. 

So cute, fancy stripes, fancy eyes, fancy horns, fancy dude. I forget what he's called. 

 Everyone was taking pictures of the pack of baboons on the other side of the car. Meanwhile me and this lil buddy had a moment. 

 This is an eagle. A specific kind of eagle that our guide told us all about.  I don't remember anything about it, sorry. He was real big though, like big big, like probably 3 feet tall. 

 Look how cute her ears are. This is the lady version of the guy with the white under his eyes.  They are super shy, this was the only one I could catch standing still. 

This elephant was not super happy with us. She came running at the car and flapped her ears and stomped at us a bit. Then she went about her way. 

 We took an evening boat ride, with wine! I wanted to include at least the one picture I am in to prove that I was actually there. 

 Hippos! Our guide told us that hippos open up their mouths like that because they are proving to god that they are not eating any fish. I guess god was like, you all are very mean and aggressive, you can't hang with the other animals, and so the hippos promised to live vegan. 

 The sun set over the river. It was kind of pretty. 

Story time: After dinner, around 8pm, I realized I left my phone charger out in the car. There is a rule at the lodge we stayed in, which is in the middle of the game reserve, that you can't walk around without an escort. We had only parked about 20 yards outside the the restaurant, so I decided to go alone. I'm standing at the car, looking around at the pitch black, and thinking how scary it would be to be stuck out there alone. Then I hear some rusting in the bushes about 20 yards farther out into the woods.  I stop and stare, trying to convince myself it is just the wind. It gets louder, I decide it is just a warthog, it gets louder and I see the bushes shaking.  Finally an elephant just pops out into the opening. I literally run back to the restaurant, and into the light. I call everyone over to watch and a whole parade of elephants come out of the woods! They made their way past the cars to the watering hole that was 50 yards from the lodge.  Finally I thought to take a picture but they were far and in the dark. Anyway it was pretty much the coolest thing I have ever seen. 

Warthogs! Fun fact, they are called pumbas!

These were my favorite, and super hard to get a picture of. They are so fluffy and have the cutest ears. I love them.  I will find out what they are.

More pictures tomorrow. The internet could only sustain so many at once.  Also maybe I'll fill in some actual animal names. 

Ok good internet today since I decided to sleep in and everyone else in the lodge took off early to go on adventures.  Not me, I'm washing underwear and eating peanut butter toast! Actually tomorrow I'm heading off on a safari! So look forward to seeing those pictures in like a month because I suck at this.

Anyway, I got to sit in on this really cool workshop for people involved in hearing/ear health in Malawi. We were trying to figure out why so many people are lost to follow-up and never come in to the hospital to get the treatment they need.  The consensus was mostly transportation, not feeling like hearing is important, the prevalence of ear infections makes people think they are just normal (like everyone has had enough terrible infections to have perforations and constant draining), and a general fear of/bad experiences with hospitals.  And good news, we fixed all those problems in the meeting and now everything's fine! Ha, no but it was good to get a lot of important people on the same page, we will see what comes next.  

All this hard work earned me a weekend at Lake Malawi. This was the view while laying in my bed.  It was kind of nice.  We had a group of 15 or so and we rented out a whole bunch of pretty little cottages on a private beach. We fancy.  

 

Lake Malawi at sunset, it's beautiful. 

 Lake Malawi in daytime, it's beautiful. 

 There are around 30 people staying in the lodge I am currently living in (until I find an apartment, which is HARD), and we form a little makeshift family.  There was a birthday this week so we had a little party with banana cake (it's banana bread but everyone else insists that Americans call things bread that are actually cakes, because we are fat and gluttonous, whatevs). 

There was a minibus strike yesterday.  I haven't taken a picture of in a minibus yet, but for those of you who have not had the pleasure (my Peace Corps pals will remember it well) a minibus is essentially a minivan that has been modified with 4 rows of seats.  The strike (maybe, there are a lot of conflicting stories) is over some new regulations that say you can only put 3 people in each row. That is how many people really should be able to fit there, however, common practice is to put 4-5 per row, plus 2-3 squat/sitting on a little ledge facing backward behind the driver.  Road accidents are extremely common here and there have been at least 20 deaths that have made the news in the last month. Anyway the minibus drivers went on strike and shut down some major roads with tire fires. 

Since there were no minibuses running, there were no patients yesterday. Basically everyone takes the minibuses, there are not really any more formal means of transportation and very few people have cars.

To fill our no patient time, we went next door to visit the new Madonna sponsored pediatric ward.  They are almost ready to open and there are lots of cool murals and it's generally looking really good. I liked this girl best. 

These are two of the audiologists I work with. Regina is on the left and Chiko is on the right.  They are super sweet and funny and wanted to do a photoshoot "to send to Madonna so maybe she will adopt us." Chiko has been very patiently helping me to learn Chichewa and keeps me on a strict 3 new phrases per day routine.