It seems as though in my final few weeks, I am returning to the days of the bucket shower. Over the past 10 months, there have been days here and there where the water has refused to run from the tap, or the electricity conveniently gets cut just as dinner is about to hit the stove. But this week, the shower really put up a fight, relentless for 6 days, and leaving me, my bucket, and my red plastic cup to face-off with shampoo and conditioner. Fortunately, the electricity has mostly cooperated this week.
If you don't have the proper technique, bucket showers can be messy activities. Water gets splashed in all the wrong places, any efforts to shave your legs are in vain because you keep getting goosebumps from the cold, and you can find yourself stuck with shampoo in your hair and your bucket dry. You need a sizeable bucket filled 3/4 of the way with water (that you would have certainly been keeping for these emergency situations in large drums in the kitchen), and 1/4 with boiling water. At least you won't freeze. Then you're aiming for speed and efficiency - somehow get the shampoo out and the conditioner in, spread the suds, and conserve the water as you rinse off. Unfortunately, if you are reading this from somewhere in America, you probably will not ever get to practice. I'm sure you're thoroughly disappointed.
* * * * *
In other news, the houses are slowly filling up... On Saturday, Franklin arrived. Franklin is a pretty accomplished guy, undergrad and PhD at Harvard, med school at WashU, and now matched to Mass General Hospital for residency in internal medicine...all by 31. Things have been very low key since his arrival as Sundays in Blantyre tend to be. We did go by the trade fair, an exhibition type thing where several countries displayed their artisans' work and sold some great gifts.
On Sunday, "my boys" all came by - Yohane, Antony, Luca, and some new boys - Chisomo, Chikondi and Julio. Chisomo is an adorable 13 year old boy whose father has passed away and whose mother lives in a village where she has no land to farm or job to do. He came here looking for "ganyu" - small job that he could do for some cash- in order to buy fabric to sew his own school uniform a few months back. Yesterday, he came unexpectedly and hadn't eaten anything in 2 days. He is living on his own with his sister, in a slum area near Blantyre. Yohane and Chikondi helped me in the kitchen to prepare nsima, spinach relish and eggs to feed Chisomo. I also found some sugar, oil, flour, ground nut flour, and washing soap to give him, in addition to a clean shirt, a pair of flip flops (as he has no shoes), and 20 Kwacha (14 cents) for a hair cut. It turned out to be a fun afternoon, cooking, playing bawo, and practicing Chichewa.
It is now early on Monday morning, exactly 3 weeks until I come home. I am going to take Franklin to the Malawi Bureau of Standards, as one of his charges while he is here is to figure out a way to measure protein and fat content in RUTF in our own factory. Franklin is going to try to see what machinery is available in Malawi and how we could adapt it to run these tests. Additionally, he is going to assess the hospital lab to see if a blood-gas analyzer would be a relevant and useful piece of technology, or if it would be more of a waste of money with no real use. Blood-gas analyzers are routine in the US, but each test costs $9 to run and usually is done when you are going to ventilate a patient. Malawi would have a lot of trouble running a test that cost so much per person, and also does not really ever use ventilator machines.
Tomorrow two more guys are coming - one from Duke (business student) and one from UNC (MPH program). On Wednesday, Zach and Rachel will join me here as well. Zach will be running the factory so Liyaka may take a break, and Rachel will be doing a stool collection study for the summer. Daunting projects for both of them! Finally, we have Meg coming on June 10, and Dr. Manary and his son Micah coming on June 14. Hard to believe I am already preparing for all these guests (I bought bunk beds last week to stock up on sleeping places!).
21 days til I leave Malawi, 22 days til I touch down in America.
-dkm
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