Perils of life

  

Er... there are crocodiles in this river. And all for scraping a living.

District work

Special facilities at a district hospital in Mangochi.

New bicycles for village workers (and an old bed frame).

Isolation facilities for examining suspected cholera cases

Official advice

Maternity ward

More or less potholes

Two posts below, I discussed the state of the roads. I am happy to provide an update, and even happier that there are fewer potholes to report on. (I know the title should be fewer, but it's a pun...)
I am hoping that this will be the final episode of a trilogy and not part of a quartet.

Not elegant but effective now they have bedded down a bit.

Much better!

Grit on top of mud. When spread out it looks OK but hasn't been rolled and has cut the road to one car width instead of two. We'll see what happens when it rains.

An inflationary tale

Slow punctures are common here; mostly nails in the tread that are fixed by Kwik-Fit for about £1.80 a go. When I filled-up with petrol at Zomba, an hour from Blantyre, the front left was looking a bit floppy but not too bad. The Puma garage didn't have a working airline but they did have a boy with a stirrup pump, a bit of hose-pipe and a plastic bag to make a seal. He gave the pump some wellie while his friend held the pipe on the valve and the tyre reinflated to some unknown pressure.

He then pronounced that the valve was leaking and dribbled some water on it to prove the point; I was a bit dubious and decided to head for Liwonde and then Mangochi where there might be air-lines and pressure gauges.

All was well when I arrived and so I felt justified and parked-up for the night.

Next morning was another story; one clearly deflated tyre too soft to drive on. I was with colleagues and decided to do our work before coming back to change the wheel and get the valve replaced in the afternoon. But at noon, when we came back to change the wheel, behold there was a fully-inflated tyre!

A university driver emerged from under a mango tree where he had been waiting for someone, and claimed the credit. His car had an air pump powered from a car cigarette lighter, and he had seen the problem and decided to deal with it. 

Now, if I'd believed the man in Zomba, I'd have missed the low of deflation and the subsequent greater high of reinflation. Discuss.

   

Potholes

I get a bit blase about potholes (chuck holes to my American audience) but they certainly can be irritating.  Now the army/council blew up the bridge to my road, the only way out is a twisty road with an impressive pothole count.



Potholes start roundish (but with sharp edges which makes them worse for the car than dirt tracks).








Occasionally (just once actually) one might find an African Land Snail (foot for size comparison).

Periodically, enterprising people fill holes with mud or with brick bits and then hold out a bowl for tips. The benefits are welcome but not long-lasting.












Today, official repairers started by making the holes square and then they poured in grit and tamped it down.












This is when it started to rain again, so I guess there will be more stages tomorrow.














Meanwhile, The road right next to the house hasn't had much tarmac for some time.
















Indeed one car got completely stuck in the mud when trying to visit us. It was about this spot, but this photo was in dry season.












But maybe the arrival of heaps of grit is cause for hope...

Under a Baobab

It seems David Livingstone was fond of camping under Baobab trees. This one is where he contemplated the Kapichira falls he couldn't pass.
  

Greater Kudu

And who are you looking at?

Roads and quagmires

Once upon a time there was a badly rutted dirt road across the campus and so a grader was brought to make it smooth(ish). Sadly, it rained the next night, and it rained a lot! The freshly smoothed road became a quagmire.

Car leaves the mud-covered tarmac to enter the quagmire.

Two days later, there is sunshine and the mud has dried, so the grader comes back.

That very afternoon, it rained....

Pelekani pelekani

After 6 children and 12 grandchildren, the man who sells me tomatoes has married his wife, 38 years after "taking her from the village".

Most of the reception is taken up with pelekani pelekani, the giving of money to the couple. This is an extended affair where a DJ and master of ceremonies exhorts people to give generously, calling up small groups at a time (neighbours, wife's relatives, church friends, etc etc) to dance up and throw a lot of small denomination notes in the general direction of a collecting bowl.

Since no-one has enough small notes, those that are thrown are collected-up and re-cycled through money changers at the side.

Collecting the small notes
 and trading large notes for small ones

        


 Everyone can dance; young, grandparents, but babies stay asleep.

The MC welcomes the couple

I think I'll wait

When I eventually got to my haircut appointment, I asked after Ann, the old lady who used to do men's hair. "She's had a stroke", they said, "but she came in last week to see us and she can stand upright now. She should get better in a few months and then she can come back to work".

"Isn't she getting old enough to retire?", I asked.

"Why would she do that?, she's only 73!"
  

A burning issue

Surely I am not the only one to find the idea of an incinerator being in a burnt-down building somewhat amusing?

Actually not that amusing, on account of the smell in adjacent buildings, and a possible health and safety issue or two.
Today the building is being demolished. A proper incinerator is being built elsewhere.
  

Germany, by Malawians

We sent four students on an exchange visit to Germany. They remarked on four things:

1. The food was very varied

2. Even though there was plenty of power, people still turned off lights. (See next post below)

3. There was no litter.

4. Germans are time-conscious.

As a blog-writer, I am reminded that what we observe may say more about ourselves...

Too much for Livingstone

From both sides, here is the Kapichira hydroelectric power station. David Livingstone tried to get up the waterfalls in his boat (before the dam, when there was water!) and failed the first time but went around it a few years later.
Now the River Shire (pronounced Shirree) is the source of 98% of Malawian electricity and this is one of three power plants on it. Only 12% of the country are connected and even those of us who are, have a rota of  8h of power followed by 24h of nothing.
So why, at work, does no-one switch off the lights when they leave the room??!!

Clean black rats, see how they run

There was I, on the surgical ward, talking to a few students about cleanliness and surgery, and saying in Oxford we would use fewer antibiotics because we were happy with the cleanliness... when I was interrupted by a large black rat running across the floor between the mats of the patients' relatives. You couldn't make it up !

P.S.  I mentioned this to a midwife who said she too had been bothered by rats running across the delivery ward, but then she came to realise the other problems in obstetrics and rats had moved way down the list, to about number 11.

To save you checking, Malawi has a maternal death rate about three times the world average.
   

Another bridge too far gone

You may recall my encounters with a pedestrian bridge on the way to work, but here is a road bridge on the under-populated eastern lake shore.

My car is on the other side; this is after I drove across it, for the first time.

It crosses a dried-up river bed but locals are digging for water. (Click picture)

 The whole area is dry.

But, talking of my pedestrian bridge, the Malachite kingfishers have had a brood! Here are a proud parent (red bill) and a child (black bill). They do slow down my walk to work.

 

Tell it like it is!

A computer bug

And yes, it's a German machine, and it's dusty.
  

Cooking

I went with a colleague to inspect a training college outside Blantyre. Amongst other things we saw the kitchens where they have to provide all meals for up to 400 students.

They had some reasonable equipment but the brick fire boxes are collapsing and unusable:

Therefore they cook on an open wood fire (front left):

When I used flash it showed the smoke:

To get firewood, you need to chop wood:

No wonder deforestation is so bad.

Flame trees

Throughout Africa, almost any tree with red flowers is referred to as a flame tree.
These two are on the main dual carriageway in Blantyre. They are just coming out and should be a great display in a while.
I didn't realise the first one (also called a Tulip tree) had such lovely golden hues. Previously I've seen them with only the slightest of golden rims.