Thoughts from a minibus (in Malawi)

It's sunny today, hot actually. The clouds have basically neglected the sky so the rays are hitting hard. I'm on a minibus at the moment, on our last trip back to Ekwendeni from Mzuzu. There's a woman standing in the aisle to my right with an infant (maybe a 1-year-old) affixed via a blanket to her back. Only his little head and curly hair and legs below the knee hang out. He's precious and wide-eyed. 

There's a lot of conversation surrounding me- Tumbuka. I just heard the word vimbuza. Do you know what that is? It's so second nature to me now I forget if I knew what it was prior to coming. It's a local disease/cultural belief that is caused by an evil spirit. It causes people to act bizarrely (people with vimbuza eat leaves, a focus group participant told us) and it is cured via a special dance. It's somewhat unclear but the dance that cures vimbuza is also called vimbuza. 

Did you see the tattoos on the woman with the ascites? Emily just asked, referring to a patient we met this morning in the hospital. Her abdomen was swollen -the size of a watermelon- and she had small black dots and lines on her skin. 

Yes. 

Do you know what tattoos are? When people go to traditional healers to treat disease, they're burned and cut and through these inflicted wounds herbs and medicines are rubbed. We've been told that some fifty percent of the patients seen at the hospital have these tattoos, evidence that traditional medicine practices were employed. 

We took a last-minute trip to Mzuzu this afternoon to meet with A.C.K, bicycle fabricator. We'd been trying to get in touch with him for days and finally did this morning from the hospital. A.C.K is the one who constructed the bicycle ambulance for Emily and Matt in 2010, and we met with him to discuss our upcoming plans for more. The meeting was littered with language barriers but with a combination of numbers and hand motions and photographs and smiles I believe we got the point across. 

Maybe tomorrow or the next day I'll update you on our upcoming bicycle ambulance plans. Tomorrow is our last day in Ekwendeni before we head to the capital very early Saturday morning. Over the last week, we've presented our research findings twice at the hospital (I mentioned that already?) and today had our last day on the wards. Last night was the last bible study which we hosted at the Guest House. I was pretty useless in the preparation, but did preread the bible portion with Em's guidance. It's interesting how much I've learned about Christianity here, right? Old Testament- I'll be back soon.

And USA, likewise. I'm perplexed my time here is coming to an end. I'm sure you know this is TBC....

Rebecca