Last drop in session

Today was the last day for me in the villages doing disability assessments.

Yet again there are a few stories to tell....

A 58 year old woman presented with a sore foot.  At the age of 2 her mother had a dream that her daughter's foot was being taken away.  The mother believed that the child was possessed and so sent her to an African Witch Doctor who proceeded to break her foot right across the ball of her foot.  She has walked on her toes ever since and has quite a significant crease across her foot.

Another 18-19 year old boy has epilepsy and can be quite violent. He however turned up today in a dress as he like to put his shorts and things in the toilet!

There were 2 girls in their 20s who had never been to school.  They had a history of feinting. When asked if they could learn a skill (for example sewing, craft, basket weaving etc) what would they like to learn, their response and their mother's response was no they can't they haven't learnt anything it wouldn't be useful.  It is stories like these however that the new training village that Landirani is in the process of building, is specifically designed for.

Now what we need is donations to continue to build the facilities and provide the tools and elements to teach people such as these new skills to enhance their quality of life.

Friday 18th May

We spent the day at Mbang'ombe maternity clinic where we assessed 21 people with varying disabilities.
One young 12 year old girl, complained of a burnt right heel that happened when she was 2 years old.
She was extremely ill and her parents thought she'd been possessed.  So they had a witch doctor perform a ceremony but no one realised that the young girl was standing in the fire.  She burnt through her right heel and even 10 years later it is evident where the flesh and nerves would've been affected.

Another young girl of 14, named Judith,  I think had mild cerebral palsy.  Her primary complaint however was of sore feet and knees.  She had stopped going to school in standard 2 (age 8-10) because her clothes were too tatty.  When asked if we could find a uniform for her or clean clothes would she go to school her answer was a resounding yes.

Saturday 19th May

Landirani had a fund raiser today at the international school Bishop Mackenzie's school fete.
School fetes are no different country to country!!  There is still a child asking for money, there are still children eating excessive amounts of fairy floss and there is inevitably stalls still setting up when people started to arrive. We did however meet some amazing organisations.  One of which is based in our area in a refugee camp where the women make jewellery to sell - absolutely beautiful.  Another charity next to us, called Joyful Motherhood, were selling extremely tiny baby clothes, to try to raise money to continue educating pregnant women and during childbirth on the importance of their health and of the babies health.

It was however surreal to be in an azungu school with many of the items being azungu prices.

Sunday 20th May

Went to an azungu church today held in a Chinese restaurant. The service was run by a Malawian born pastor who had lived in Bahrain as a child but spoke with a very American accent.  Multiculturalism is alive in Lilongwe!

It was definitely an azungu day as we finished off with Jazz by a Malawian band at a bar called 4 seasons.


Tomorrow is another planning day but then my last day in the villages will be Tuesday.  Looking forward to another great day!

Disability Assessments - Day 1

The morning began with hot chips from the side of our first dirt road out to Chibwata.   Hot salty oily small potatoes - cholestoral heaven!!

Whilst waiting to for our chips to be cooked a man rides past on his push bike with at least 10 egg cartons with at least 24 eggs on each tray tied to the back of his bike.  If only I had been quick enough to whip out my camera!!  If you have ever seen Malawian roads just to stay upright on a push bike with nothing strapped to the back is a feat in itself!

We travel along for almost an hour along the red dirt roads until we arrive at Chibwata school where our first lot of disability assessments were to take place.  As soon as my long and very white leg hits the ground after crawling out of the 2 door pajero we are surrounded by what seems like 100 primary school students staring into my very blue and mzungu eyes!  It's times like these that I feel like Darren Lockyer, Angelina Jolie, Justin Bieber & the Queen all rolled in to one.  Quite frankly - undeserved!

We are then ushered into the principal's office which is the size of most Western people's bathroom.  Looking at his walls and taking it all in the school services 879 students, with what appears to be 4 to 6 classrooms. 

After a typical Malawian introduction and wait we are finally able to start our disability assessments.
Today we (the Landirani committee members and I) did basic assessments on 14 individuals.  The majority today appeared to have polio.

One of the more interesting cases was of an older woman by Malawian standards in her mid forties who woke up one morning when she was about 10-15 years old with a swollen lower right leg.  She managed to get to the hospital where they proceeded to operate and take out her right tibia.  For those that know a bit of anatomy, without your tibia most of the population wouldn't be able to walk.  Her parents died approximately 10-15 years ago and since then she has not been receiving any pain medication as she can't walk the distances to get any.  A simple case of someone going to market, or the closest clinic for other medications could get some for her, but it is the stigma and lack of understanding associated with disabilities has prevented this from happening.  She walks in an amazing fashion considering her condition with a stick she made herself.  Just one of the many stories we heard today.

I drove home today back along the challenging roads - managed not to kill anyones dinner of chicken and apart from sending my fellow passengers flying once over a misjudged out of the blue speed bump got home safely via the chitenje (material/cloth) shop.

Overall a successful and eye opening day.

Donations

Thank you for those that have already donated.

Your money thus far has supplied food for our committee members assisting with the disability register, transport out into the villages and will also be involved in assisting with the transportation and referral process post our assessments this week.

Thank you also to those who have donated things like pens & papers which will be delivered to the schools this week, childrens clothing which will go to our pre-schools, handwash and gloves which will go to our maternity clinic.

Photos will be uploaded hopefully soon.

Remember there is still time to donate now until the future :-)

www.landirani.org

Arrived!!

Well I arrived in Lilongwe after a true travel experience.
Silly me forgot to do the time conversion and what I thought would be a bareable 24hr journey ended up being a long and somewhat unbearable 36hr trip!!

My first plane trip was 9hours to Bangkok next to the wriggliest and not the most well behaved German 3 year old girl.  I offered to take the window seat so they could get up and down as needed but no - I had to compete with outbursts of screams, kicks & falling limbs.  Needless to say not much sleep occurred.

Managed to have a nana nap on the arm chairs at Bangkok (wasn't going to ask how clean they were) and then boarded the 8 hr journey to Nairobi Kenya with a rather drunk Kenyan woman - at least I had leg room.

Arrived in Kenya - bleary eyed and there was a short wait before my next flight.  I went through the boarding gates - got caught up in my book and realised that there weren't many people left in the boarding lounge and they were calling names for my flight - I got on it with 5 minutes to spare.

The next 2 flights were only about 2 hours each but each time I didn't get to finish watching War Horse so still in suspense.

Finally touch down in warm Malawi to one broken conveyor belt for bags for 3 flights.  The interesting scramble out the back of the airport to find your bags with 100s of other travellers - an experience.

Was finally greeted by Heather and Gift and went to transfer money at the airport.  They don't recognise Australian currency and my special 'worldwide' card doesn't work.

Into Lilongwe we go and find an ATM that does accept it - hoorah.
My phone doesn't work, my laptop doesn't connect to the internet which provides an interesting scenario when trying to create databases and forms for the disability register days.

In the scheme of things and what I'm about to undertake the little voice of conscience and reason pops up and says it's ok - these things are materialistic and what you are about to do is bigger than that.

Lost in thought and jet lag I try to make myself a snack when I cut open the top of my thumb - at this point I realised that it would be better that I curl up under my mosquito net and attack the first day tomorrow.

The first day is predominantly planning and I firstly go out to visit the new training village that Landirani has started to build.  The first mud hut has been erected and despite a slight termite invasion has started the potential for something wonderful.
Following a typical Malawian meeting .... not a lot said in a lot of time.....  we move down the road to a little village where I do a brief assessment on a 10 year old boy with what appears to be cerebral palsy.  He has no ability to sit let alone walk and his 12 year old sister is his primary carer during the day so that mum and dad can work in the field.  She doesn't attend school either.  Again I am brought back to reality about how much we have and how much we take for granted and caught up in our own lives.
We then progress back into Lilongwe where we meet with I think an orthopaedic surgeon who runs a clinic for the disabled.  What they are doing there with no money and sometimes no pay is incredible.

Today is a big planning day to establish a disability register process to enable me to do 3 drop in sessions.  It is uncomprehendible how much stamina these individuals and their families have in order to have me and the Landirani trust assess them and give them some potential help and hope.

Tomorrow is day one of these registers ... it will be a big day.