Last letter from Malawi
Dear All
6th September
Sitting at Lilongwe airport waiting for my flight to Joburg then HTR.
Huge chicken lunch for $9 which I think is expensive. There is a 4 hour wait but I am quite happy as I have a book but smokes finished, you can smoke at this airport in the open air bar.
Good final week Ruth came to Blantyre from her village on Friday evening and we went out for an Ethiopian meal with Chris ENT as I had managed to borrow a car. Then on Sat after doing touristy things like buying presents and getting money at last out of the cash point, very few work, we went to lunch with Eugene [microbiologist] and family in their newly rented house very nice and a good lunch to boot. Then I drove the 66 kms to Mulange on a reasonable Robert Mugabe highway to get her back to work for Monday, their last day of building .The school rooms look wonderful, one newly built all 4 rooms painted plus remade/ mended furniture.
The girls seem to be dab hands at the smaller jobs and the African men brought out their women to see them be carpenters. Not that African women don’t do all the hard work anyhow whilst the men sit around. The Ruthin boys did all the building and a fine fine job it looks to be. Chris drove back from Mulange I asked him to come with me in case I broke down, as car a little decrepid and the gears a shambles. We did not get lost or mugged and bought a bootfull of sugar cane from a roadside vendor for Eric Borgstein’s horses. The view of the mountain was magnificent as we could see the top at 9.000 ft today no cloud.
This is a stunning country.
We got back as getting dark driving, after dark a tad hazardous here as many cars don’t have headlights and mugging more likely. . The final group of 4th year students bought me a present of a cup and saucer in native design, apparently presents to teachers are unheard of so I feel honoured.. So far this visit I have seen 4 cases of Fournier’s gangrene [that is the tissue eating disorder, called necrotising fasciitis, which occasionally hits the UK press. photos available] it is like an epidemic here. It is all to do with the HIV /Aids as they are immunosuppressed and genital infections rampant.
HIV said to be 30% but I suspect much higher. I have been asked to go back and teach next year and I am very tempted. I did say to Eric that I was past my sell by date but he said as Urology was 30 years behind in Blantyre and Malawi it did not matter !!
Ruth will be back on Friday I am really looking forward to seeing the Raven in its new glory and I am happy to loo clean as my contribution.
After the last 3 weeks I realise yet again how lucky I am to live where I do. It would not do any harm for the scroungers in our midst to see how people live in abject poverty. Even nurses, part subsidised here from the UK, get only $ US 50 a month. Booze expensive here too and no one smokes.. Also life expectancy here is 40 years for both sexes, so they cannot even enjoy old age together..
Love Christine XXXX