As well as the trip to Philadelphia to present his research work from
London (which went down very well and lots of support was offered to the
dialysis unit) he went to London for Ben’s Bar Mitzvah and then onto Uganda to
teach kidney medicine for a week, before flying through Joburg to see family
including Min who turned 100 this year and looks amazing for it, then coming back
to Malawi.
Joshi is
now 8 months old and weighing in at 9.4 kg this week – he is as big as a 17
month old at mother and baby group and heavier than her! He is getting ready to
go on the move – he can rotate on his belly to get objects but can’t crawl yet,
but it won’t be long. He eats everything put in front of him and loves his
finger food – especially now he has two bottom teeth coming through. He is so
smiley and funny and loves games and is getting on brilliantly with Annie his
permanent nanny which is fantastic and means I don’t worry about him at work at
all – every time I come home he is playing with Bempero (Annie’s daughter) and
having a lovely time.
Work for me
has been going well and getting steadily busier as I get ready to start my
study in January. My team have started work (sorting the equpiment in the pic) and are doing brilliantly so far in
the new A&E which is very glossy and shiny, and very busy.
We are piloting
the study procedures and data collection this and next week, and then will
start collecting data after Christmas all going well.
I had a fantastic
weekend while Gav was away going to the St Andrew’s day ball – where the very
few scots in Malawi and the large numbers of south Africans with Scottish relatives
plus all sorts from Blantyre’e ex-pat society meet to drink whiskey, eat
imported haggis and dance a ceidlh (sp)- lots of fun with mates and an excuse
to dress up, but am not sure what the Malawians thought of it! (pic on the left below is of the very eminent Prof Liz Molyneux, OBE, enjoying the dancing and on the right is Miguel (R)and Steve McKew.
Peter gave the
speech and did a stirling job in his kilt. We also said goodbye to Miguel and
Aranxa who work at MLW and their Spanish flair for parties and fun will be much
missed L
To escape
from Blantyre while Gav was away, Joshi, Roshina and myself to treated ourselves,
found some petrol for her car and drove back to Norman Carr cottages for the
weekend to relax and unwind.
It was hot and beautiful at the lake, and we had a fantastic
time as always doing nothing but eating, swimming, sleeping and relaxing – we
had a bit of excitement when a bat flew into the room while Joshi was feeding,
but apart from that it was event free, just gorgeous. Joshi enjoyed the fine dining and gave baby-led weaning a new dimension at dusk on the beach.
The rains
have started here slowly but have really started to get going in the last week.
Joshi is fascinated by the downpours and the garden loves it – as do we as it has
cooled down, and the light is amazing as you can see from this pic.
The diesel
(and now petrol) saga continues, queues are an everyday occurrence but we have
enough stockpiled we think to make our Christmas trip with mum, dad and Ros
which we all can’t wait for! Bingu apparently needs to devalue the kwacha to
enable the forex to start flowing (it is over valued) but this will cause
everyone’s living standards to fall as the cost of living will rise.
Lots of
love and happy Channukah and Christmas to everyone
Emma Gav
and Joshi J
