Hello from Kabula Hill!

After a delightful first two days on Kabula Hill, I decided it was high time I posted about life here in Blantyre! I realized I could have just piggy-backed off my last blog and called this ‘Highlights from Kabula Hill,’ but alas, the title, which is named for the peanut-based ready-to-use food we distribute at feeding clinics (Chiponde), will have to stay.

Although I will hopefully begin my studies soon, I will also get to spend a good part of my time here working in the PPB feeding clinics, which I am beyond thrilled about. Yesterday was my first day at clinic, and I went to Namasalima, a smaller clinic about an hour and a half from Blantyre. We were met by many smiling moms with little smiling toddlers tied tightly on their backs with chitenges. Admittedly, the kids all stopped smiling and started screaming when a mzungu like myself tried to measure their MUAC and height, but they were precious nonetheless. Everything I’d heard about it being hard to measure a 3-year-old’s height horizontally on a height board? Absolutely true. But it was so wonderful to see kids who were healthy, especially those who had been cases of severe acute malnutrition and were completely recovered!

We distribute packets of Chiponde, and return to each of the clinics every two weeks to check the progress of the enrolled children and enroll new kids. The commute to and from the clinic was beautiful – we passed Mt. Mulanje, and there were tea fields in every direction as far as the eye could see – it was gorgeous!

sunrise over the outskirts of Blantyre!

In the afternoon (since our day starts at 5am, it also finishes relatively early!) I had a chance to run around our neighborhood a bit, and whew is it hilly. Think downtown Seattle without tarmac. Or sidewalks. It’s been perfect weather though, so I hope that over time I’ll adjust to the hills (Williamsburg did not prepare me for this…) and get to explore more of the city.

The team I’m living with is a really fun group- including the guys who are building the new chiponde factory (we went out to the site today and got to water some bricks in one of the walls, so I feel like I’ve made a worthy contribution to the building!), another PPB volunteer (who also served as my unofficial clinic teacher on Friday!), and two girls who are here to work in clinics and run everything up at Kabula Hill. It’s a really fun bunch, and they have all been incredibly helpful and patient with all my questions!

In addition to living with a great team, getting to eat great food both at home and out (best Indian – almost as good as Mahak’s!), learning SO much about PPB, and going to clinic, today we got to go to a Malawi v Zimbabwe football match! It was SO much fun. Despite half the stadium seats being condemned from being structurally hazardous (it was no Ndola stadium…), the seats that were open were perfect, and the boys ran into all sorts of people they knew from the factory. It ended in a draw, but was a fun match.

So far I’ve already crossed 2 items off my bucket list, but as I think of more Malawi adventures, I’ll add them to the list! If you have suggestions, let me know! More pictures to come when I have a stronger internet connection!

Blantyre Bucket List 2013

Go to a Malawi Flames football match

Watch a sunrise (turns out I’ll get to do this every day on the way to clinic!)

Lake Malawi trip

Go to a Malawian church

Climb Mt Mulanje

Back to Malawi...for the first time

Sitting in the Joburg airport Mugg & Bean café, I am jittery with excitement about being back in Africa. It’s either that or the jetlag-and-cappuccino combo I’m working with right now. I am, in the words of my mother, an "African-hearted girl", and I'm thrilled to be back!

This time, instead of returning home to Lusaka, I’m on my own, heading to Blantyre, Malawi for 9 weeks to work on child nutrition research studies – specifically on maternal social support and infant feeding, and a new ready-to-use-therapeutic food used to treat child malnutrition. I’ll be living and working with the folks at Project Peanut Butter.

Traveling to Malawi has a special place in my heart, and here’s hoping the rest of my travel to Blantyre is less eventful than the last time I tried to go to Malawi in ’09. Forever in the books as the greatest Craig family vacation adventure (followed closely by Zanzibar ’10 and Ascension Island ’13…), our trip to Malawi was something no seasoned traveler could have anticipated. Our extensive packing and preventive checkup on our Prado left us assured that it would be an uneventful drive, but a jack-knifed truck blocking the road, some guys’ homemade toll collection to let cars around it (which, as I recall, my dad avoided by acting like he only spoke Spanish), and then finally our car deciding not to start after a pit-stop in the bush suggested otherwise. 

The great part about being stranded in the bush with no cell service in 92 degree October sun is that it’s not raining. The downside is that there is no cell service and it’s 92 degrees out. Long story short, after a full day on the side of the road, we rode in the back of a flatbed truck to a little tiny town called Nyimba with our Prado in tow, stayed in one room of an equally tiny guesthouse without running water, and made our way back home the next day, taking the last 5 seats on a bus to Lusaka. 

I learned two things on that trip. First, I have the best family. How many families do you know that would have a total blast being lost in the bush in October and still love each other after a night in a boiling hot room all crammed into 2 small beds? Love them. Second, I learned that despite the most meticulous planning and preparation, things just don’t always go according to plan. Thank goodness we have a God who’s bigger than all that who's ultimately in control. I hope I can remember that this summer through all the challenges and adventures this trip will bring!

More to come soon!