Monday was crazy, long, wild, colorful, memorable.
Up at 4:30 AM. Quick breakfast and early morning organization. Left for "Nkhate Market," a rural clinic in Southern Malawi, about 5:30 AM.
It started to rain about 7:00 AM. By 8:30 AM, it was pouring. Then, it poured some more.
Light brown, clay-like, dirt roads turned to soft, dark mud.
Water began to pool up everywhere.
We moved the clinic from an outdoor area under a large tree to a small concrete and brick structure that serves as classroom part of the week and a health clinic part of the week.
Our normal location is currently being used as a cholera isolation area. Not a comfortable "zone" for us to work in.
In the first several hours of our clinic, about four hundred mothers came to "present" their children.
The image above was produced in the mid-section of the morning.
As you can see, women are packed into a small, dark room.
It is very, very muggy, hot, and uncomfortable inside.
Babies are wrapped on women's backs or held tightly by the hand as mothers push to move forward in line.
Breasts are exposed everywhere to support infant feeding.
Many mothers left home early in the morning.
Some mothers walked for over four hours to arrive at this location.
Hundreds of children cry continually.
Some women sing and chat with their friends.
Every mother seeks attention and an assurance that their child is safe.
The doctors and nurses work continuously for five to seven hours.
Hunger Season is now in full form.
Unfortunately, many of the children who arrived at this clinic were extremely thin and "wasted" or swollen with edema.
In most cases, there is absolutely no food in a mother's home. The mothers of these sick children are doing the best they can.
Twice, we had to stop the clinic suddenly.
Both times, a large, dark red, African scorpion appeared on the wall above the doctor's head.
Not a nice surprise.
We were told these frightening creatures are quite poisonous.
One was about eight inches long and the other was about ten inches long. Each scorpion had about forty black legs moving in rapid fire.
I am not sure how the scorpions grew so big or learned to move so fast. Perhaps, they had a secret supply of "Chiponde" hidden somewhere near the roof.
Each time a scorpion appeared, one of the male staff members removed his right shoe and had a rather violent conversation with our intruder. That was that. Not pretty.
At the end of a long clinic, I began a series of follow up interviews with three children I met during my first trip to Malawi. Rough.
One child encountered a bad case of cerebral malaria and lost weight during the first two weeks after the "Chiponde" treatment began. This child's health is now greatly improved, but the arc of his therapy with "Chiponde" will take longer than a typical case.
A second child recovered from edema and severe malnutrition and gained about a kilogram of weight since my last visit, but now suffers from what the doctor believes to be TB. He had a cough that sounded terrible. His father is TB positive.
The third child encountered a severe bout of diarrhea from some type of infection a few days after starting "Chiponde" treatment. Here too, there was great improvement, but the path was bumpy.
We spent about three hours attempting to locate one of these children in his village. One must get comfortable with patience in Africa.
We traveled to the hospital. We drove all over the country-side.
As we left to travel home, the fog rolled in. Very thick. Very damp.
After all the rain, several river crossings were almost beyond our reach.
We returned to our apartment around 7:30PM.
The medical students and other project staff had several hours of additional work to prepare for the next day.
I went off to download and archive images and video from the day, reformat my storage drives, and recharge my video and still camera batteries.
I scarfed a plate of rice and beans and took a quick shower.
Late night. Early wake up call the next day.
This trip is just starting to roll.
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