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.