Ben is Back!

Ben returned to Malawi after fun week filled with family and friends. I was sad to have not been able to join the fun in NC, but very happy to have Ben back! I surprised him at the airport then prepared a whole weekend of lounging around at our house and me cooking his favorite foods for a change! I made meat twice! yuk! if that's not true love, I don't know what is!

friday night dinner: garlic butter shrimp, steak for Ben, mac and cheese, tomato basil mozzarella salad, montes wine, blueberry crunch

breakfast for ben: french toast, bananas, grapes, orange juice

lunch: mac and cheese burger!

Prepping for Ben to get back...

Life wasn't too exciting with Ben away, but i still hung out with a bunch a friends. On Thursday night, my friends Lauren and Chris and their visitor Fleur came over for dinner and so that Chris can teach me how to make steak so i can do it for Ben when he's back as a surprise!

Adventure to Blantyre

Blantyre is the other major city in Malawi, also known as the economic capital. My friend Vanessa is from there so we went on a fun weekend trip to stay with her family and check out the place. She and her best friend Tadala gave me the Blantyre grand tour. Her family is really nice. Her mom is actually freshly retired chief justice of the supreme court in Malawi, so it was an extra honor to meet her. I've taken many photo to document our adventure as shown below.

We left Lilongwe at 6 AM and by 7:30 we were passing through a very hectic markeplace!

more of the saturday market

ah Mozambique, so close yet so far...

a very nice rest stop with pretty garden and good bathroom and the cube hanging out

we stop at another market and Vanessa picks up some baobab frutis which we later make into juice 

and so we arrive in Blantyre, this is a land rover turned into rental wedding truck (akin to U.S. wedding limo)

the famous carlsberg brewery! only one outside of Copenhagen apparently!

Finally arrive at Vanessa's parents house and get a great Malawian lunch

so the tour begins...the famous private hospital..

one of the many churches, this one is famous original missionary

the independence monument

puppies i almost adopted, they were Tadala's

the famous public hospital

and the one and only college of medicine

Vanessa's church

went out to dinner to interesting food court type place, but you actually sit and order from a waiter. This looks like "menu" but its actually written in Russian!!!!

we had quite a feast that was delicious, the first was prawn spring rolls. they were excellent but didn't have peanut sauce sadly

crab and shrimp sushi! actually really good!!!

the rest of the feast!! thai food, had really amazing shrimp pad thai

then we went out for drinks, first place was a cool lounge

tried my first rock shandy which was really good..will order more now

next drink place was called basement, which was funny, bit dodgy, but gets to be a cool dance spot, we were bit early for that

so we actually stayed in a different house than where her parents currently live, as chief justice her mom had a beautiful house given as a perk of job, but she's too attached ot their current house as she built it herself with her hard earned money and not just had it as a perk. it's used for when guests stay over because it so spacious. it's very lovely. the whole place is carpeted--something i haven't seen in a house abroad! This is Vanessa getting her hair braided with extensions by Tadala.

beautiful view from the house

anyone know what this critter is?? its sparkly blue!

I wanted to see what it was like to get braid extensions

so Tadala put one in my hair

added some braids to the front

and cool bun to the back

portrait of Vanessa's mom in the house

remember the baobab we bought...now its cracked

then pieces are peeled out, added to water and let it soak for couple of hours, then add sugar and drink

so we actually ended up being delayed in Blantyre and had to spend sunday night there. While driving around Blantyre on saturday, we got pulled over by the cops (no real reason, random check) and then discovered Vanessa left her driver license in Lilongwe. So her brother put in on a deliver coach bus to Blantyre. When we went to collect it, they said it wasn't there and began searching for it. Hours later, we convinced them to go to another branch of this company in Blantyre and low and behold it was sitting there. By the time all got sorted, it was going to be getting dark soon so we'd be driving a lot in the dark which isn't safe, especially in the evening with lots of traffic. So we spent the night and got up at 4 am to drive back. This is a picture of sunrise. Oh and most exciting thing is I got to use my credit card to pay for gas!!! whoohoo

morning fog over clouds 

They cycle of Life

It has been a short, but very eventful week! Tuesday was back to work and went fine. Ben and I went to our favorite Indian restaurant for dinner. On Wednesday Ben flew to the U.S. to surprise his sister as she was due to have her second baby! I'm really excited he got to do such a lovely thing for his family, but it also meant that now he's not coming with me in May for Carly's wedding and moving/etc. His new contract is hopefully starting at the end of the month so its not good to leave so soon.

Thursday, I got to work and found out one of my close colleague's (see previous post of us in matching Chitenje dresses) mother died. She had been sick with hepatocellular carcinoma and also had a recent stroke. I went to the first part (of what i learned there are many) which was at the mortuarty in the hospital. Family and friends and supporters are in an outside common area while the body is being embalmed singing prayer songs. I saw Agnes and hugged her for a long time. She was sobbing in arms. It was so sad. You just feel so helpless. In my personal and professional life, I've dealt with death plenty of times, but here all i kept thinking how unfair it all was, that if her mom was in the U.S, she probably would have at least had a longer and better quality life. The coffin then came out with the men carrying it out, and a bunch of nuns were there and said prayers. A priest with some other men from church also came and said some prayers. Then the coffin was loaded in the truck and we walked it out of the lot. then it was taken to the home village for the burial. I didn't go to that part.

Since 2007, I've hated the month of April. Even though, I have many friends who have April birthdays, it was also when 3 of my closest family members have died, including 2 10 days apart in 2007. In fact I have a memorial candle burning now.

Thursday night, i went out to one of my favorite places: Korean with Lauren and Chris and their visiting British friends. It was fun!

Today, Kayla was born! a few days earlier then planned so Ben's timing was perfect! Although, I do think that she was excited and wanted to come out and meet her uncle :)

My clinic went really well! All, but one patient actually showed up and I even saw 2 non-study patients. One was from a ob/gyn colleague and another was a nurse in the dialysis clinic someone heard about my breast clinic (really for study--but somehow that detail was left out) and sent her sister there who I agreed to see.

Ben leaving at the airport

Remembering one life...

Celebrating the birth of another..

No Means No / Ujamaa

I've not felt the need to post in quite a while with Lily doing such a brilliant job of keeping you all up to date on our adventures but I did want to share a bit of what I've been working on here. I finished up my original 6 month contract with UNICEF last month when we launched the Violence Against Children Survey report and response plan. I'm now off for a few weeks, and assuming no unexpected complications, I'll be extending my contract for 9 months starting sometime around the end of April.

For my new contract, I will be mostly working on implementing the VAC (violence against children) response plan. One of the main programs we are really pushing here in Malawi has been making the rounds on social media for their amazing work in Nairobi.

First there was this reuters story about a Kenyan boy saving a girl from being raped. And now it's made its way to upworthy.

No Means No started as a girls empowerment and self-defense program and has now begun training adolescent boys as well. The results have been amazing ... and just as promising for me, verifiable, which unfortunately I've learned is quite rare in this line of work. There isn't always a lot of evidence evaluating the actual impact of the types of programs we are recommending to reduce the prevalence of violence against children and women, meaning at times I feel like we're working blind-folded. No Means No / Ujamaa is the shining exception -- they've done extensive research on its impact in Kenya and the results have been astounding -- published papers showing a 50%, 60%, 70% reduction in girls being sexually assaulted, etc.

Anyway, we've now brought them to Malawi and they are training thousands of children across the country. And assuming all goes according to plan, I will be proudly working a lot with them in the next 9 months.

Apologies for the lack of pictures / surplus of text. I suggest you read this post alongside the glorious picture below of me dancing with the Kenyans ... plus one Australian (my awesome boss Brendan), one Italian (our good friend Giulia), and one Lily ... at Norman's going away party last week. This was at the house where all of the people really implementing Ujamaa are living (nearly all came down from Kenya after working with Ujamaa there). It was a great time, minus the mishap where I embarrassed all Mzungus (white people) trying to open a beer sans bottle opener (I have the scars to remind me of my shame). Along with their company, I found I really enjoy the Kenyan dancing style -- basically get in a circle and follow the leader (i.e. copy what Norman is doing). ... And in my case, avoid at all costs getting pulled into the middle of the circle for a solo performance.

Will post again in 6 months! Miss you all.

Long time no Blog

It's been about 3 weeks since I last updated the blog! Sorry! its been very hectic, but i'll try to take you through the highlights in pictures...

On March 19 afternoon, I left for the U.S. It was my first time back since I left in July. I went for 2 weddings and a bridal shower of 3 of my best/closest friends. I also spent time with family and some other friends and had a great couple of days in Boston where I saw mentors, friends, and have 2 talks on my work in Malawi. All were fun and a great success!

I skyped with my team every day and overall everything went well while i was gone--at least not major issues. The only problem (which also happens when i'm here is data entry errors). We fixed those! the study is moving so fast! we are almost done with enrollment!

I was happy to be back to Malawi. Overall, I like our life and adventure we are having! i also missed Ben!Once I was back we went to a fun Kenyan going away party, had a breakfast club, and then went with a couple of friends for weekend away at the lake. It was all great fun and now we are sunburned but relaxed.

dinner out in one of my new chitenje dresses on last night before i left for nyc. we had dinner at latitue.

a very cold and snowy NYC! I couldn't believe in snowed the first day i got there!

once I was back, we went to this awesome Kenyan party. It was the going away part for Normal, one of the Kenyan staff for the Ujuma--No means No, preventing sexual violence in children. It's a really cool organization Ben is working. The party was awesome. i danced non-stop. Ben drank a bit and actually started dancing too as shown above.

On Friday, our friend Andrea wanted to have us for breakfast club. She made an amazing breakfast. We went over there, but then as she was starting to cook things the electricity went out so we shifted to our house where we had power to finish the cooking. We had a delicious meal. I worked the rest of the day into the night. The next day we were off to the lake,

sunset at the lake at blue zebra lodge. Ben's parents came there too when they visited. I thought it was nice enough but too overpriced for what it was. The one thing that was very well priced and amazing was the spa. I got a body massage and also a complimentary foot massage. All were amazing!

Us swimming int he lake.

After weekend in the lake, we had dinner at home (some trader joes's goodies i brought back) and watched the first episode of Mad men!!