settling in....

So, where did i get up to? Sunday?

We pottered about in the morning, i felt very grown up all of a sudden as i tuned into the BBC world service and listened to the news as i did my washing in the sink!

In the afternoon Mrs Nhkoma came to fetch us and took us on a walk to the other campus, called Chiwale i think. The students had organised a welcome party for the new first years and us. It pretty funny - after prayers and some welcome speeches alomg with a lot of screeching from the PA system, the specially roasted goat was dished out - we were offered the choice bits of intestines and liver but as Ali and Mrs Nhkoma are veggies they politely declined but i felt i should - i took the nearest meaty looking bit and had a bite! I was still chewing 5 minutes later when the warm sprites were handed round so thankfully managed to wash it down only to be offered another bit! As i hesitantly hovered over the plate not sure which bit to choose next the president of the students called me up to the microphone to give my thank you speech - i popped a bit in which i think was liver but i can't really be sure and trotted off to the front not sure if i'd be able to swallow in time!

I've not done much work yet, mostly observing this and that and planning our objectives and things...there is a lot of paper shuffling to be done you have to understand! On Monday we were shown to our offices - very excited about that! I had a cute little note from my office mate Mrs Sundu welcoming me, and as most of you know with my fondness for stationery i was pleased to see a couple of pens and folders in the drawer too!

As with most things, timing out here is pretty approximate and likely to change very quickly - so this is why were weren't all that surprised last saturady night to get a call to pack ourselves up and be ready to go to Blantyre to start our orientation even though we thought we were doing our 2 weeks at Malamulo first. it doesn;t much matter really and we've been really lucky as we're staying with another VSO person in a house that is more spanish holiday villa than malawi mud hut! Its really great to be with the others to off-load at the end of the day.

We'll be here till the week after next, working on the wards - well i say 'working' in the loosest possible sense! its all very different from the NHS, as i knew it would be, but somethings i just don't have words to describe...will try next time though!