Christmas Day British Style

Lauren and Chris came over to the spend the day and prepared a delicious British traditional Christmas lunch. We had beef wellingotn, a lentil and nut roast, roasted veggies, yorkshire pudding, plum crumble.  We also had some amazing red velvet cupcakes we bought from a Korean family that were selling them on Lilongwe Chat. They taste like Magnolia. We skyped with the Wildfires and the Gutniks. We opened our amazing Christmas presents on skype.

Merry Christmas to All!! Miss you!

arts and crafts disaster and christmas eve

i think anytime i get too close to the kitchen or in the kitchen for too long some disaster happens. We bought these really cool wine glasses, tumblers, and vase locally made from recyled wine bottles. Of course I had the vase in the car unwrapped and stupidly dropped it on another glass coke bottle and it broke. I decided I would glue it back together with superglue and use it as a candle holder in the meantime. so first I got the superglue all over my fingers and then spent the night trying to use acetone to get it off (thankfully its mostly gone by today). I also inadvertently super glued small peices of sharp glass to the counter which i discovered when i went to clean up and tore my finger on it, on my right hand no less, i'm still in pain today. Otherwise, we had a lovely Christmas eve with Lauren and Chris. We had salad, roasted eggplant, deviled eggs, mac and cheese, and cheese platter snacks.  Of course we did the Wildfire Family Tradition with watching Its a Wonderful life, on the projector.

My failed art project

My poor finger

Our cool new wine glasses

Potluck at my mentors

on Monday night we went to a delicious holiday potluck at my mentor's house. In my opinion, some of Lilongwe's top chefs were there. It was a delicious feast. Food included butternut squash soup, roasted root veggies, mushroom nut loaf, homemade foccacia, mashed potatoes, 2 different salads,  mixed berry tart, fudge, mango cake (we had margaret make)...

cool christmas tree at the wildlife center made out of wine bottles

the mango cake and berry tart at the potluck

New Mall in Lilongwe

Today, after sadly saying goodbye to Erica, we went to check out this new mall and the new Shoprite food store. Wow! it felt like suburban America. The supermarket was huge and well organized and stocked with all sorts of goodies! They also accepted credit cards. Of course in true Malawi fashion, the power and lights and everything in store went out twice, but otherwise it was a fun experience!

Remainder of Erica's Visit and Training with Clara

The week kept getting busier with less time for blogging! We had a great time with Erica, but sadly I didn't have much free time during the week. We did have dinner every night. Ben worked form home one day and had a half day on Friday. One day, I arranged for Vincent (our "cabbie") to take her on a day trip to Dedza where she had a great time. On Saturday we went to the Lake in Senga Bay. Of course it was raining half the day but it was still a nice trip. We sat on the beach and had lunch at the Sunbird Livingstonia hotel and then went next door to the Safari Lodge  to see some of thier famous baboons, but of course with our luck there were none when we were there, but there were just monkey and cute lizzards. We did have one night of latkes with Lauren and Chris over which was fun, although involved 2 frying pans being burned. We watched some good TV and had some great dinners out the rest of the time.

The week training with Clara could not have been better!  My team is absolutely amazing and I hope they continue to be that way which I think they will. They are so detail oriented and hardworking.

Second Day of Training

Again the team continues to amaze me. They actually wanted a break to study and review all the materials amongst the four of them as a study group. They asked so many great questions that Clara and I actually had to pause and look up the information. I also did my first core biopsy today with Clara. It was a typical sad patient with a huge neck mass. We were a bit nervous to biopsy the neck without imaging but we successfully did it. It was a great experience and I feel much better about doing more biopsies. Erica also came with me in the morning and had her first African medical experience which was really interesting. We went out to dinner with some other friends tonight.

Tonight wast he first night of Chanukah! Thanks to Judy and Tim we had a menorah to light!

Santa Erica arrives and first day of training

Our friend Erica who actually introduced us arrived! it was so great to see her and she also brought a whole suitcase full of presents for us from The amazing Wildfires! We went out for Indian! Erica is my only friend who has visited me in every place i've lived!

It was also first day of the real breast cancer training and was absolutely amazing! My team is unbelievable! they're so passionate and dedicated and incredible students! they want to learn so much we just keep breezing through the schedule!

Blandina, my friend is a breast cancer survivor and former Ms, Malawi, and Malawi's #1 breast cancer advocate came to share her story which was really powerful in galvanizing and motivating them. One of my team members who is also a survivor also shared her story which was so emotional we almost cried. Her family had to sell everything so she could go to south africa to get treatment! I think it was a great start to the program!

Movies and BBQ

Weekend continued to be fun but very busy and now feeling bit behind on work. Saturday night we had our first movie night. Ben was all excited about the projector but the sound was bad so we resorted back to the TV. We had all non-Americans over: Norway, France, Ireland, England, New Zealand, and Malawi. We watched a new movie about Stephen Hawking--The theory of everything. It was pretty good overall. Sunday we went for a BBQ at Lauren and Chris's. Ben made scones on sunday morning and my other mentor and UNC plastic surgeon arrived this weekend so we met sunday night to plan for the week!

prep for movie night

morning scones

Teddy being cute

BBQ

Ray Phiri Black Tie Event

Friday night we went to a black tie event with dinner and a concert from famous jazz musician Ray Phiri and Lawi. The food wasn't good, but overall interesting event. The concert was good. We even got gift bags.

Slumber Party

Ben was out of town Wednesday and Thursday night so I got lonely and decided to have a good old fashioned slumber party. My friend Olivia is one of the research assistants at work. She is an incredible person that is so hardworking and dedicated to making Malawi a better place---a rarity among the people I've met in my professional environment so far. She has 4 kids ages 7 months-8 years and works full time while sadly her husband is unemployed. He is incredibly supportive husband and father--another thing not typical of most Malawian men.  She is actually going to university in February to study law. I also encouraged her and helped her apply for this fellowship in DC this summer. I really hope she gets it! Olivia and her husband Joseph and youngest 2 kids (Praise-7 months and Divine 3 months) all slept over. We went out to eat at Ethiopian which was really delicious. Joseph had it before and really liked it, but Olivia never did and she really enjoyed it too.

Christmas love from home

We got our first piece of fun mail! a beautiful christmas card from my friend Ann! Now everyone else should follow suit...

Day 2 of Training

My team continues to be super awesome! I'm really blown away by how quickly they are grasping the information and how enthusiastic they are about everything. The trainers, on the other hand, weren't as excellent today. They showed up half an hour late. two of them went on a 2 hour lunch. But when they do teach they are very good. We also had another negotiation in the afternoon since we decided to cut down the days. VERY FRustrating!!

First Day of Training

December 8 was the official first day of my staff's contract! This week we are doing HSA (health surveillance assistants--like community health workers) training given by the ministry of health trainers. It was a good day yesterday. Of course we had to negotiate the fees which was entertaining, but ultimately came to a reasonable compromise. The training went well and I think actually useful too.

Weekend Fun

We finally had some of our UNC friends over friday night. We did the burrito bar again and it was fun. Saturday i tried a new nail salon and really liked it :) Saturday night we went to an EU christmas party with lots of Italians. We played beer pong and my all female team (me + Irish lady + Italian lady) won 2 games in a row! We also go the dogs again on Saturday so always happy to have furry friends. Sunday we had dinner at latitude and i finally finished reading a book! We also got a Chrismaka New Years tree :)

Game night!

lauren and chris and the pups came over for game night and take out indian! taboo, articulate, guess the person, duo,

Surprise Lunch Date

Ben brought papaya for lunch to work yesterday! More typical Malawi meeting cancellation frustrations and last meeting of day started at 5 15 pm.

Dinner Guest

Now that we are back and settled in Malawi for a bit in between travels and visitors we wanted to to start having all our friends who haven't been over to our house yet over. Yesterday we had our friend Anil who is also a fellow and doctor at UNC. Margaret did a lot of prep work and i found this great mussel pasta recipe I wanted to try. Of course i'm a terrible chef and it didn't quite come out like i want it to. but overall we had a decent enough meal and fun time!

Thankful for Kaya Mawa!!

truly a paradise! This is voted on of the top 10 resorts in Africa by Conde Naste among numerous other awards. It was an incredible weekend getaway and much needed after the stress of last week.  We got upgraded to an incredible premium room as a surprise, then when I said it was Ben's birthday present we also got a free champage bottle! The food and service was amazing. the lake was unbelievble, felt like was in the maldives and not a lake. We took a small 12 seater plane there with 6 passengers total and each had our own seat. then on the way back it was a tiny 4 seater and i actually sat in the co pilot seat! it was scary on take off and landing but rest of the ride was really cool and smooth. the food was amazing--Jaime Oliver trained british chef. We also got massages and went quad biking around the island!

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