(Lilongwe, Malawi) - It's Time for Africa

I have arrived! It was a long journey to get here, but the plane ride wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. My flight itinerary:
1. Raleigh to Washington DC
2. Washington DC to Rome, Italy
3. Rome, Italy to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
4. Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Lilongwe, Malawi
The reason that my flights weren’t so bad is also primarily due to the fact that I slept on all of them (even the short one from RDU to D.C.). On my super long flight I ended up sitting beside this really cool man who was on his way to Ethiopia because he and his wife were adopting a set of twins from the country. One of the twins is currently sick with bacterial meningitis (if you pray…) and he was going to go and be with “his son” during this difficult time. It was also the first time he would see his new kids. The couple already had an adopted girl and boy from Korea.

When I first saw my itinerary I was excited to have a layover in Rome, but much to my chagrin it was a just one of those things where we land and they refuel the plane and clean the bathroom. So, the only Italians I saw were the ones that cleaned the bathroom. (And yes, one of them was a little bit sexy even in his green jumpsuit.)
Okay, if you ever have to fly Ethiopian Air just know that they are a little bit crazy. Fun facts about Ethiopian Air:
1. If you are at the ticket counter, depending on their mood, they may or may not give you a boarding pass for all of your flights. If they don’t it is because “you’re just going to miss the flight anyway” or “you don’t need it.”
2. When you get to your destination and don’t have the boarding pass for the next flight, they will ask you why you didn’t get one (angrily) and then handwrite one for you on the spot.
3. The biggest thing was that after we got off the plane in Ethiopia there was only 20 minutes before our next flight was scheduled to leave. So, we were in a huge hurry to get to the next plane. We get off and there’s a guy that asks everyone where they are going and we tell him Lilongwe, and he immediately says, “STOP!” He continues to let other people go on and anyone going to Malawi has to just stop and stand in the hallway. He won’t explain anything to us, so we were all thinking that we were going to be detained or something. Then, 40 minutes later they escort us all to our plane.

We finally arrived and got to the guest house where I will be staying for the next 2 months. It’s a really nice house. (I will try and upload pics soon) It’s divided into 2 sides and each has 4 bedrooms and their own kitchens. We have a maid named Joyce, and she has a helper. It is, maybe, one block from the hospital where I will do my research project, but kinda far from everything else. I plan on learning to drive a stick soon because we have a guest house car and I don’t want to be stranded at the house all the time. It is pretty crazy to drive around here but I want to try it at least a couple of times before I go. There are no traffic lights or street lights, and so you have to be pretty aggressive.

Because of the huge time change (+ 6 hours) we decided it was best if we stayed up on Friday when we got in. This was hard!! I did eat some delicious Indian food at a local restaurant and we went to a bar because one of the Irish doctors was leaving the next day and had a celebration. There is a huge ex-patriot scene here. It’s sort of weird and I haven’t decided how I feel about it yet. At this Malawian bar, there were like 40 of us and not a single Malawian hanging with the group. They do have some fun activities like group runs, hashes, Frisbee, and a volleyball league. I think I might participate in some of this, but I think that I really want to spend some time getting to know some locals. I’m hoping that the guys that I work with in the lab will be really fun.

So today, I slept for about 10 hours and then got up and went for a run. The weather is so perfect (highs of 70-75 and lows 50-55). We also went to the open market to get fresh fruits and vegetables. I also bought two pieces of fabric called chitenge. It’s just fabric that women wrap around them as skirts. We also have a tailor coming on Monday and he’ll be able to make us really nice dresses. I have seen some of his work and I thought it was from a department store. I’m soooo excited about getting a dress made. We also went to the grocery store. To my surprise, it is exactly like Harris Teeter or Food Lion. The only difference is paying in Kwacha. I bought Kellogg’s Corn Flakes (the Special K was too expensive by my new Malawi standards), snacks and soda.

Getting kwacha from your U.S. dollars is kind of shady/exciting. You can go to the bank, but the exchange rate there is only about $1= 140 kwacha. If you do it on the street, you can get a rate of $1= 175 kwacha. Needless to say, I decided to go to a street seller. It’s kind of like buying drugs, but it’s sorta-legal. So, the proper custom to do this: you pull up in this parking lot and the guy comes over and asks how money you want to exchange, you tell him and he calculates the kwacha and hands you the money in 5,000 kwacha stacks to count. After verifying it’s the right amount, you hand him your American dollars. Now, I’m pretty sure that this money ends up on the black market somewhere but I think helping to improve the hospitals here is my penance.

Timica

This is a kind of old post because I'd already started on another site. I will get them all posted soon.