January 9th

Happy New Year everyone.

Keeping resolutions is always a challenge for the new year but I’m keeping to mine at the moment. Kind of. As many of you will have agreed with yourself as the clock was striking twelve on that last day of the year. I decided that health was top priority. Yes, a good healthy diet and plenty of exercise.

Exercise has not been an issue since plopping ourselves into rural Malawi. In fact you can’t help but do it. We’re walking a 12km round-trip to the closest village to the lodge and anything up to 50km a week with all of our casual walks added. Now that I’ve added a daily run to my activities I can feel the pounds falling off.

However. I do have a bit of a bad habit. It’s more of a bad tendency that appears not when I’m at the lodge but when I’m in Lilongwe. And unfortunately we’ve been in Lilongwe more than the lodge so far in 2011. So it’s just a little wobble, a slight inclination that has affected the majority of my new year’s promise.

Western food.

Ah the bliss. But to walk past a fast food joint and not order some ‘flench flies’ for ‘bleakfast’ would be devilish considering our situation. It’d be like giving Lionel Messi an open goal and expecting him to miss. Not gonna happen!

So there’s this place in Lilongwe’s old town called ‘Ali Baba’s. It’s the central African version of Big Johns. A 12 inch pizza costs about 1100MK which converts to around £5 or a burger and flench flies from 800MK. Not only does it keep our meals down in price (as African cities generally charge western prices for food anyway) but gives me the taste of warm grease that I so crave.

I don’t want to create a false image in anyone’s mind. It’s not like we get fed badly at the lodge, the range is great. We eat anything from curry to shepherds pie to beef stroganoff, all cooked to a high standard. But pizza, burgers and chips, wow. I guess we yearn for what we can’t have.

Anyway, the other reason we went to Lilongwe was to plan a fundraising concert. After the success of our arrangement at Elmwood Church last year we thought why not do the same in Malawi’s capital, with a specific project in mind. That of Mzgambuzi school which we have mentioned at various times over the last 4 months. Unfortunately, after asking, telling, and pleading with people, it seemed like a project that was never actually going to get off the ground for various reason but most importantly because we weren’t going to make much money for a school that truly deserves some input.

We took our dejected bodies round to immigration for the actual real reason we went down south to extend our visa. No receipts again, surprise.
Anyway, what else have we been up to? I have had to read back through old blogs to see what I have told and what I haven’t. Everything’s becoming a blur.

Have I told you the one about the child with the swollen body and the nurse with a hundred bags?

No it’s not a lame joke but a story from sometime within the last few weeks. I honestly have no idea when it was within my merging memory. It may have been just after Christmas. Right, so … setting. No, this story can start with some dialogue, I should change my style occasionally.

I was sat in our room (Ah, started with setting anyway), I think I was planning a way to save the world or something but our wooden door the lodge office was open and the phone was ringing. Bbrrrrriiiiiinnnnng brrrrriiiinnnng (you know how a phone rings). I got up to answer but was beaten to it by George. As I was up, I went to join Laura, who was probably on her fifth or sixth red wine (I’ll exaggerate, it makes it more interesting).

She was swaying around on her stool, keeping herself vertical by propping herself against the bar top mumbling something about how brilliant I am (ok, I’ve gone too far, I’ll stick to the facts: she’d had half a coke and was able to sit up). George came in with hands on hips and let out a small huff, before looking up, seeing us and allowing a smile to grow.

“Would you guys like a mission?” he asked
“Eeer, yeah sounds cool!”
“Ok, great.”
“Hang on, what is it?”
“There’s a child at the forestry station that needs to get the hospital in Mzimba, they need a car.”

No problem. We jumped into the Toyota and bumped and jumped our way round the dam towards the medical unit. For safety and for translation we took Olyn with us, the head watchman from the lodge. He sat in the back and we made small talk until we arrived at the dark but reasonably busy Luwawa.

We reached our first destination and pick-up point at about 8pm. The sun had set and only the moon shone down giving us some sense of direction. We could see a few people outside the health centre and pulled over to see exact what the problem was and what we could do.

We were met by a whole troop of locals waiting anxiously for our arrival. The first to greet us was the maternity unit nurse who explained the problem. We had been working with her for a few weeks prior to this story, trying to renovate one of their store-rooms. She’d been barely helpful. Coupled with the fact that she’d previously asked Laura to give her money, made her slightly less than my favourite person.

Giving her the benefit of the doubt and looking past those problems for the sake of a child’s safety, we co-operated and got the child on-board. The child was clearly in some pain and visibly showed swelling to the stomach and lower limbs. It was definitely an emergency which the nurse had identified.

So in the back we had Olyn, the child and the child’s mother. As I was about to pull off the nurse called out,
“I will come too.” Why? I thought. “I can find the emergency nurses and take the girl into the ward.” Ok, that’s quite nice; perhaps I can like her after all.

So she jumped in. Next, I felt a bump in the back. Looking in my mirror I saw a man climbing onto the back of the truck. Who in the world is that? The nurse must have seen my face in the mirror.

“Oh that is the father, he will come too.” Will he? …Ok, ok. It’s a father and his daughter is unwell, that’s fine.
“I should take a bag,” the nurse continued to announce. “Can we just go to the maternity unit?” It’s about 50 yards away, why can’t you just walk there?
“Sure, no problem.” She’s doing a good thing, if she’s staying over with the kid, she at least deserves to take her bag.

So I rolled the vehicle over the maternity unit and put on the hand-break. She’ll need a few minutes to get her things together. To my surprise she had a bag ready, Albert, the handyman/gardener fellow, brought it over for her. Great, we don’t need to wait, this is an emergency.

CLUNK! One of the back doors opened. What now? The nurse walked over to her room and opened the door. Albert joined her inside. Hmmm. It was dark so I couldn’t really see what was happening, until they returned. Each of them came back holding two black bin-bags full of stuff. Cheek! I chimed in with “I thought you said baG,” emphasising the ‘g’ and therefore singular.

“Yes.” She replied with a smile on her face as if I had made a joke but I could see my sarcasm had blown over her head. Language barrier. A couple of expletives ran through my mind. George will kill me if he see’s the Hilux over loaded on these roads. They returned back to the house and brought yet more bags AND a box. She was struggling with hers. Don’t think I’m helping you.

She was taking advantage and she knew it. It was the end of her time at Luwawa and she would be returning to Mzimba any day soon, only this trip would guarantee her things getting back. My short fuse was near its end and we had a poor kid in the back that was blown up something like that blue character from Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. Don’t laugh, that’s not funny (the child was ok in the end).

Eventually we got away. I felt like Noah, only I had too many people on board. Laura and I shared a glance. Nothing is simple here. We set off just after 8:30. Emergency obviously has another meaning in Chitumbuka.

Driving at night in Africa is something I’ve always been told to avoid. When we’re taking public transport to get anywhere we leave straight after breakfast and get on the first bus that comes along. Journeys can take what seems like a lifetime and you don’t want to travel in the dark.

Reaching the tarmac of the M1 normally brings a sigh of relief when driving. No more blinkin’ bumps. This time however was different. Ah yes, there’s no lights are there. Oh and there are those rather large falls either side of the road and high-speed turns. Forgot about those. Not a problem, we had our lights. Now if I could just figure out how to turn on the main beams, we’d be fine. I didn’t want to try while I was driving, so came up with a bright idea.

“Laur, turn on the torch and have a look for the main beam switch.” Look at me, all responsible and sensible, maybe I am growing up.

Laur agreed it was a good idea, searched for the torch and switched it on. This is where the plan fell down. I don’t think she was quite sure which symbol she was looking for and within seconds we were indicating left, and then right and the window wipers were flapping like David Seaman at a Ronaldinho free-kick.

My frustration had turned into laughter but Laura was getting quite agitated and worried for that matter. She’d noticed lights in the distance and we knew what was coming up. A truck no doubt, who probably knew how to turn on his main beams. Brainiac. The problem with Malawian truck drivers at night is that they obviously know how to turn on their main beams, but nobody has taught them the manners to shut them off to avoid blinding people coming in the opposite direction.

So picture this. A road with quite a few twists and turns, nicely sized falls either side of the single lanes, no lights, no cats-eyes, a heavy vehicle and the piercing headlights slicing their way through your retina coming the other way. Awesome.

Any dare-devils out there, you want to try it! You get a instant of about 1 second where you literally have no idea what is where, which way is up or whether you’re journey is about to come to an abrupt halt. That second feels like an age. One of those moments in a film where everything goes into slow motion and the camera swings round to give you a full 360. Cool. Then bang, another second to adjust your eyes back to the dark.

Laura was having kittens next to me and our passengers thought that was funny. That nurse better not be laughing. I laughed, Laura scowled. Sorry.

With each passing truck, I got a little more used to the sightless panic and Laura’s mumbles until we made it to the hospital. It was then that I noticed my t-shirt was stuck to my back. Perhaps it was more nerve-racking than fun. My attention again turned to the child in the back who could finally get the real medical attention that she needed.

The hospital was very quiet but Laura noticed that there was a light on in the office behind the reception desk. I could see the face of a man in a suit looking out from behind a computer screen. I raised my hand to get his attention. Emergency. He waved back. This is a quiet hospital in a small town, someone pulls up in the Ambulance bay and you wave. What is wrong with you!?

The nurse, assumably (is that a word? M.Word doesn’t recognise it?) trying to justify her courier service, went inside to find somebody. Eventually she returned and helped the child onto a trolley before allowing the Mzimba nurse to take it from there. You didn’t convince me lady; I could have pushed a trolley from reception to the truck. We wished the family all the best as they thanked us for the help. Olyn translated for us.

The bags and boxes were still on the back of the truck. I’m not asking you what you want me to do with them. I drove to the gate of the hospital.

“Turn right before the gate” a voice came from the back. ‘Please?’ I’m not even sure she sensed my aggravated mood. I huffed. She’ll get the message. A huff says more than a million words, right? She directed the last few turns and we pulled up in between two decently built houses on the hospital campus.

“Could you move closer?” My eyebrows raised, mouth opened and without turning my head I looked across and Laura. Could have been a mirror image.
“No,” Oops, it crept out. “I won’t be able to turn it round.” Good blag. She dealt with her bags anyway with the help of some kids. I didn’t ask if they belonged to her.

Eventually we left the hospital grounds and made our way back through Mzimba to the M1. I found the main beams and used them. Flashing the oncoming vehicle even made them dim their lights. I’ll teach them some driving etiquette before the evening’s out. We reached Luwawa safely and dropped the nurse off at the maternity unit.

“Ah ok, see you!” That was what we got. I managed a smirk.
“Err, how about ‘thank you’” Laura responded when she was out of earshot. Olyn laughed again. I think he had enjoyed his trip out. We weaved our way back through the forest to the lodge and parked up.
“Yewo.” Olyn called on his way back to his watchman’s perch. Thanks.

Our dinner had a layer of skin over what was earlier some nice gravy. I felt like I’d done a good deed yet been used at the same time.

George asked if I’d like a beer.

“Whiskey please.”