Rash golfing enthusiasm, symptom management guidelines and World Cup indifference punished by elephants. Kathryn Hamling is still living the life: Dear readers Thought it time for a quick update as I am sure its been a while, mainly because I cannot remember when I last did write. Days merge into each other and weeks pass, every day being as good as the last...or at least mostly! The sport injuries have improved and I am back doing a bit of gentle jogging along the sand with no issues arising as a result. We are also trying to up the ante in order to take part in a golf competition in two weeks! At the last golf weekend we attended as guests in Dwangwa, one of the golfers I met was arranging a charity golf competition in August. I was telling her about Ndi Moyo and she thought she would make the competition as a fund raiser for that next year. So enthusiastic and, after admittedly a couple of glasses of wine over lunch, I immediately signed Peter and myself up for this years competition! It seemed a reasonable idea at the time altho in the cold light of day I remembered I had not had a golf club in my hand since Sept 2012, before coming here, and had not so much as a club or a glove to hand here in Malawi. Then I also remembered how important it is for Peter to win at everything he does...this is not looking promising!! Peter may need sedating by the ninth hole if I play even as well as I normally do! Tanja, the organiser, has reassured me she has Valium for use with her dogs when the thunder storms are bad so she will bring some to slip in his drink if needed - she still thinks I am joking. Anyway, thanks to some friends we now have a rather ancient set of basic clubs to practice with before the day so we have been out many evenings pitching and chipping around our very large property, trying not to dig too many holes in the process. I feel a little better but can tell you Peter does not! The things I do to keep Ndi Moyo at the forefront of everyones mind in fundraising terms...I will report back post event....if I am not clubbed on the day! The clinic remains full on with lots of busy clinics, juggling with staff holidays etc but all is well with ourselves at the helm and Tony & Lucy now in the second month of their break in UK. Lots of good things to report in that all staff appraisals are completed and they have been a generally good experience. The clinical team are working at producing symptom management guidelines at present looking at the evidence base and applying to the resource restrictions we have in Malawi. Although I have electronic copies of the NHS Highland guidelines I was part of developing away back in 2002, its difficult to make them applicable here, so my good idea of using their template has not really worked. Still, they are slowly taking shape and the project should be completed in the next month. I am hoping they will be useful as an aide memoir and also as a teaching tool when we have others on placement. We are trying to make them as simple as possible in an algorithm so my computer skills are also being tested in trying to keep the info boxes readable and all on the same page. We have done them in colour so now need to find a colour printer and some money to complete! We have the auditors with us this week completing the 2013 financial audit, so hope all that goes smoothly. The new build makes slow but steady progress, with more emphasis on the slow! Peter keeps a close eye on that, trying to ensure shortcuts are not being taken which would compromise the longevity of the build...another new skill for him to learn but one he and Chimwemwe seem to be enjoying. We have also just completed placements from one of the private clinics on the boundary of our district so hope they will re-establish their palliative care services in the next couple of weeks. This will be the fourth such clinic if this happens and will allow some of our patients to be seen closer to home and also encourage others who cannot afford to travel to Salima to seek help when they so desperately need it. Our down time has been busy and good in recent weeks. Our friends from Vienna, who previously lived in Salima have been here the last two weeks and we have so enjoyed their company, including a great weekend to Liwonde National Park over last weekend. They stayed at the luxury end of the camp whilst we camped nearby but we did some of the game drives together which was fun, made even more so by having their little two year old daughter with them being able to identify the animals she has learnt from her Lego safari! We did a lovely river cruise with them altho saw relatively few animals bar the usual hippos but the bird spotting was magnificent which we particularly loved. On the second night there we had the World Cup Football match which as Germans they were keen to see. A widescreen projection was set up in the staff quarters and they went there. Not being a footie fan we skipped the event and headed back to our tent. We had hardly settled for the night when we had a visitation from three elephants entering the camp beside the tent -what is it with us and elephants?? Not a soul around as even the guards were glued to the match, as we first heard the sniffing just outside our tent. Given past experience we were a little anxious and did some ineffectual hand clapping and torch flashing, but in the end we just lay very still and eventually they moved on with the only damage done to trees and bushes round about, and the fence to the absolution block knocked down as they tried to access the swimming pool in the same part of the camp! We, and the tent, remained intact I am happy to report! Across camp we could hear the cheers as Germany scored their winning goal but the elephants were as interested as we were! Mathias and Francezca were off course delighted, being German! Currently we have Dan Schat stopping with us from Canada. Dan and his wife visited NM last July and he is back in Malawi this year to follow up some of their charity projects and look again as to how NM can be part of that. He has been staying at the lake with us and enjoying a few walks, chats, and generally the laid back existence we enjoy. He will have one more day with the team before he heads back to Canada and we are hopeful he will help support some aspect of the work we do here. So, think thats it for now....if it seems like we are having a grand old time its because we are! Living the life covers it! Still miss folks from home but if time continues passing as quickly as it seems to be doing, we will be back at the coal face before we know it. Sending all love to all meantime. Lets meet for another chat soon. Xxx
Posted on: Tue, 29 Jul 2014 09:42:52 +0000
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