October 2012 it gets hotter and hotter………….

Hello everyone

We got back from London just as it was starting to turn cold there bang into the hot season proper in Malawi and straight back to work. Joshi turned 18 months over the mother’s day bank holiday weekend, and we went back to the self catering cottage in our favourite tea plantation, Satemwa for a long weekend of relaxation and catching up on much needed sleep after our hectic whirlwind around the UK from where I published last month's update. We enjoyed high tea with the MacPherson’s at Huntingdon House and a lovely lunch with new friends Georgie and Micky with their two girls Saskia and Emilia with the best view from any friend’s house to date. We have been hanging out with old and new friends in Blantyre as everyone continues to arrive and leave in true expat lifestyle style. We have been here for 2 years now, how that has happened so quickly I am not quite sure.

Joshi fabric shopping and loving all the colours

Mr cool



New favourite hobby

 

We had Gav's friend from the Royal London Chris come to stay followed by a visit from another nephrologist Prof Neil Turner, it was lovely to have them both and thanks so much for all the support given to the dialysis unit.

Towards the end of the month I went to Uganda to teach for a week on the East African Diploma of Tropical Medicine and had a wonderful time visiting old haunts and making new friends, as well as enjoying up market living and fabulous food. KLA has changed so much since I was last there, the only thing the same is the infectious friendliness and enthusiasm of the Ugandans and the traffic. Sadly I didn’t have time to get back to Mbarara, but managed to see speak on the phone to some old friends. Next year………………………


Chilling at the Sheraton with new friends in Kamapla

Gav has just left for his teaching week there and I hope he will have as much fun as me.

My study has come to the end of phase 1, and we are starting to move into phase 2, which is very exciting. I can’t believe the study I spent years plotting and planning to do is already half way through. I took my team out for lunch to thank them for all their hard work, even they didn’t manage to eat all their food. Gav has also been celebrating a work milestone, the dialysis unit has been up and operational for a year now, which is an incredible achievement. To top this he has  persuaded the minister for health to sign a contract with a South African dialysis supplier to sort all the machines and equipment he needs, which is fantastic. He topped this by going on MBC (Malawian national broadcaster) with his senior nurse as the lead item on the news, shaking set not withstanding he did a brilliant job. Click on http://youtu.be/tm6GWW6O7To to watch the video.



Malawian lunch with my study team to celebrate end of Phase 1 - even they couldn't manage to finish their plates

The hospital is currently in dire straights with severe drug shortages, even TB drugs which are free and paid for by the global fund are out of stock, and insulin on world diabetes day is also out of stock. The poor patients are the ones that suffer and we feel totally helpless making diagnoses but not having access to any treatments. We also hear rumours that the fuel crisis is going to make a return, we are all hoping not before Christmas as we have trips planned.........

Desperate situation at the hospital makes the front page

Joshi has managed to grow an inch in a month, must be down to all the delicious fresh eggs he is eating. He is so chatty now, trying to learn to sing and continues to be relaxed sweet and adorable, he can say thank you in two languages and recognise the numbers 1-8 and has started to draw on everything in sight.



First day at nursery in the sandpit

Joshi loves the sort of start to the rains

November means mad azungu trying to recreate UK festivals here, so we had the fireworks at Thyolo sports club (which Joshi totally loved - "more mummy bang bang more!" and the St Andrew’s ball to come. We hosted the first deckchair cinema in Blantyre - a projector, Gav's guitar amplifier and a sheet strung between two trees. First showing was star wars which was a great success, hopefully the first of many.



Fireworks at Thyolo



Checking out preparations for the deckchair cinema

At work we have an international team of scientific advisors coming next week to appraise all our work, fortunately I am not presenting this year, and the team is being joined by David this year, who is Stephen’s cousin and so nice to see him. The rains still have not started properly and it is roastingly hot - 30 degrees most nights in Joshi's bedroom, and we are spending most of the weekends in friend's pools, thanks so much all!


How to cool down at babygroup - Lisa and Ruth

our new outdoor day bed - cost: £80, copied from one from John Lewis price £2700!

Much love and rain dances to all

Emma Gav and Joshi

August-October – Malawi gets hotter

 

We are very sorry that our blog has fallen a bit behind times with everything that has been happening over the last three months. This update is a short summary of some of those things as we have pinged between Malawi and the UK balancing family, work and friends.

August

After all our travelling and parties in July, August was relatively quiet. Our chickens finally decided they were ready to lay eggs, and Elias proudly presented us with our first one at breakfast one morning. The weather got steadily hotter as the winter ended and work consumed both of us. Joshi started to run around naked in the heat Malawi style and his vocab passed 100 words. We welcomed back lots of friends who had been away for the long school holidays and sadly said goodbye to lots of good friends here including Roshina and Aisleen who all had to get back to the NHS after a year here. We have enjoyed meeting new friends including Isobel and Stephen and Georgie and Micky, and Joshi has loved hanging out with all the new additions to baby group.

Elias with our first egg

Joshi learns to drive

Too much cake at Georgie's birthday party at Huntingdon House

Fruit buying day out to Zomba plateau - 16 jars of Jam made for the year

Emma jumps in the freezing waterfall on Mulanje mountain to celebrate the start of the hot weather

Joshi learns to paint everything and everyone

 

September

We were gutted to say goodbye at the start of Sept to Helena and Nick who have been such an integral part of our life here in Malawi - they have permanently moved back to the UK now, but are settling back in really well.
We spent most of September in the UK for a  mixture of work and holiday. I had to present some of my early research data at a meeting in Chester and Gavin had to see his supervisors here to ensure his research and clinical work in Malawi was being recognised. We rushed up and down the country trying to see as many of our friends as we could in three weeks, and it was so lovely to catch up with everyone, and we are so sorry we didn’t get to see everyone we wanted to, time was just too short. Joshi travelled around amazingly well, and was so chilled out meeting so many people and just getting on with socialising with all his new and older friends he met. One day we had breakfast leaving Cheshire with Jules and Rob and their children, lunch in Bristol with Al and her new baby, and supper in Tiverton with Cat, Helen and their children. Thanks so much to everyone who squeezed us in at short notice/came out of their way to see us/fixed up meet ups, it was brilliant to see you all, including Georgie, Charlotte, Claire, Ruth, Cat, Jules, Lou, Hel,all the JAGS and DC posse :) and everyone who made it to steak night and to the BBQ in Wembley. We are gutted to have not seen everyone we wanted to in such a short time.

 We spent a lot of the time in Clapham with my family, as there are lots of ongoing problems with Dad's health. We are all hoping he will recover soon and everyone enjoyed having Joshi around to laugh and play.

Georgie and Roger with Miri

Joshi checks out his first ever haircut

Garden centre with Grandpa Stephen

Cousins in Wembley

 

Beautiful Bella with Claire

Joshi is outdanced by Orla Dancy

Jules, Emmie, Joshi and Gav walk Poppy the dog

Al reads Joshi a lunchtime story while Ned snoozes

Will, Ben, Martha and Joshi collect Devonshire eggs, good life style

Bristol flatmates 10 years + on

Joshi learns to dunk

Daddy and Joshi check out the Devon wildlife

Charlotte and Joshi charm each other

Gorgeous ladies with gorgeous babies

Gardening in Wembley

Ta-dah!

hours of fun with a reliable water supply in Wembley

'Look mummy - fish garden!'

Clare and Lou with Max, Izzie and Alec

JAGS posse- fun and very noisy lunch

Joshi hangs out with Mini who is due to be 102 next year

October

Now we are into October the hot season in Malawi has really got underway, and it was lovely to step off the plane at Blantyre into hot sunshine, although everything is very dry and dusty. Amazingly my study and the dialysis unit suffered no major disasters while we were away, and everyone here welcomed us back after our trip. Joshi’s vocab grew with his height while we were away and he is now chattering away in 3-4 word sentences, can say ‘please’, knows his primary colours and can count to five, age 18 months.

The only way to feed the chickens in 30 degree heat

Joshi shows Cal how its done

Back to Skype to chat to Granny and Grandpa

Helping out building the outdoor cinema

New friends Joshi and Saskia in the tea estates

 

We are spending his 18 month ‘birthday’ and Malawian mother’s day in the Satemwa tea estates, one of our favourite places to come to relax away from Blantyre. I am typing this on the huge veranda of Chawani bungalow, listening to the birds and watching the monkeys hopping from tree to tree while Joshi and Gav snooze in the shade. We have a busy few weeks leading up on Christmas now with trips to Uganda for both of us to teach, and more nephrological visitors from the UK for Gav, plus hopefully a trip to the lake or two.

More soon

Lots of love to all

Emma, Gavin and Joshi J

July 2012 Lovely Lake Malawi and Mulanje Mountain

Hello there

July 2011 was a very chilly foggy cold (in Malawian terms) month, and Blantyre was built on the high plateau to be cool in the hot season, and therefore very chilly in the winter. So this year we decided to escape as much as possible to warmer parts of the country.

The first July weekend we went to the lake, ostensibly for a party to say goodbye to our paediatrician friends Surita and Andy. We rented a newly renovated cottage belonging to our friends and landlords Jane and Mac Mallewa on the lake shore and set off with Roshina, Jen and two psychiatric colleages of Jen’s who were teaching here. On Friday afternoon as we arrived, Andy Murray was playing Jo Wilfred Tsonga in the men’s semi’s at Wimbledon. Jen amazingly managed to tune her i-pad into radio Wimbledon, so we drank G&Ts by the beach listening to the match. In true Malawian style, the coverage was very sporadic, and cut out at all the vital moments. Towards the end of the match the power went out, so we sat by candlelight, cheering Andy on, missing all the vital shots, and I think Joshi thought we were quite mad. He joined in all the cheering thinking it was all hilarious, and practiced pointing at the candle saying ‘light!’.

tennis and scrabble by candlelight

Jacaranda at sunset

The next day we spent in typical lake shore fashion – doing nothing except lying around reading chatting and dozing. Joshi finally managed to let go of Gavin’s hand and took his first steps, which were a sprint towards the lake, so pleased with himself for finally managing to walk/run and spent the rest of the weekend with one of us chasing after him, and cheering him on. The party on the Saturday night was lovely – set on a beachside bar with the full moon reflecting in the lake, with great music and lots of silly dancing in the sand. On Sunday we all rushed back to BT to make sure we saw Andy in the final at Jen’s house, as she has DSTV(South African Sky), however Joshi hated it, crying everytime the crowd cheered, so Gav and I negotiated rapidly, and watched two games each while swapping running around the garden with him.

and he's off................

and is very pleased with himself afterwards

beach party Malawi style with Sarita, Aisleen and Andy

Roshina Gav and Joshi watch the Fed beat Andy in the Wimbledon final

The second weekend in July was the porter’s race, which is a massive race consisting of all the Mulanje mountain porters, plus some crazy mazungu runners running up and down Mt Mulanje over about 26 km – imagine a vertical marathon where you ascend about 2000m and then come down again, starting at 5am. Joshi and I joined the posse of people watching everyone come down at the end, and we were so proud of all our friends who managed this amazing feat in a variety of 3-5 hours. We all went for pizza afterwards – bizarrely at the bottom of the beautiful mountain is a pizza restaurant with a wood-fired oven, which gets all its business from hungry hikers. The after-party that night at Karen’s was amazingly lively with runners drinking and dancing until 2am. Yours truly crashed at midnight, outstripped by all the runners who don’t have toddlers to wake them up……

Emma and Joshi set off to watch the end of the race

Nick crosss the river on his way to the finish line

Rob and Emile find the best way to cool off after the race

The following weekend was my birthday weekend, and we headed back off to Mac and Jane’s cottage again, this time with Helena and Nick (very sadly our last weekend in Malawi together with them), and our mutual friends Nic and Dean with their kids Sophie and Samuel. More lakeshore relaxation ensued with Pimms at lunchtime by the pool, and a lazy trip to Club Mak, which is a fancy hotel up the road. After a failed birthday trip to the spa in true Malawian style, we hung out by the pool with Joshi and joined the others for a round of golf on the club Mak course, surrounded by baobabs and the beautiful sunset. We ate fabulously with Mozambiquan lobster braai one night and roast filet the next, cooked on charcoal under the stars by the lake by Lloyd the fabulous housekeeper, such gorgeous surrounds with good friends – I could not think of a better way to turn 35, thanks guys.

Joshi enjoys the golden sand at Lake Malawi

Josh and Gav enjoy the Club Mak pool

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Baobabs at sunset

Golfing stars Dean Nic Sophie Samuel Helena and Nick

Pimms at lunchtime at the poolside bar - its a hard life

Joshi tries out Sophie's scooter, and loves it

I am also getting into home food delivery - Malawi style. So far we have had home made bagels and cinnamon rolls, freshly roasted coffee and free range eggs delivered regularly to the door, as well as passers by selling strawberries, fish, pots, cloth and pretty much anything. Luka who makes the bagels has bought a Royal Mail bike - Blantyre is awash with these after a delivery from the UK, and they make me smile everytime we see one in the street.

Luka delivers hot cinnamon rolls on his Royal Mail bike

This month in Malawi not much has happened apart from the ongoing downstream economic ripples from the devaluation – the waterboard went on strike with no notice, cutting water to the whole city including the hospital, followed by the postal service. Power, water and fuel is set to double in cost this coming month and everywhere it is the average Malawian who has to meet this cost. After her first dramatic 100 days in office, Joyce hasn’t done much more, or said where she is going to take the country over the next 12 months. Malawians desperately need a strong leader who can move things forward, let’s hope Joyce can live up to her promise. 

Work continues as per usual for both of us, and now he can walk, Joshi is rushing about everywhere and enjoying hanging out with his baby friends. As it is the school holidays this and next month, most of his friends are away, they all come back mid-August so we are all looking forward to regular Wednesday and Monday playgroups starting up again. Joshi’s vocabulary now stands at about 25 words, and he is growing into a strong, happy confident little person, it is a real delight to see.

We are all excited about our trip back to the UK in September and hope to see as many of our family friends, and their new arrivals, as possible, along with eating as much cheese/sushi/Chinese/tyaabs as we can manage!

Lots of love

Emma Gavin and Joshi J