Hello! Moni!

Hello!

UNC guesthouse (note the volleyball net)

Sorry for the delay – I’ve been getting situated. For example, I was at the bank for 3 hours one day opening an account (I should have brought lots of cash…). Lilongwe so far is great but COLD (its winter)! There is currently a fuel crisis (Lilongwe is practically dry), making getting around town a little difficult and our weekend plans are now up in the air since we might not have enough gas to leave the city.

My room (Mom. I know it's messy.)

I’m staying at the UNC guesthouse, which is right on the Kamuzu Central Hospital campus where I will be working. The guesthouse is great – I have my own room, there is hot water, satellite tv, wifi, and since we are on the hospital power grid our electricity isn’t always subject to the rolling blackouts (plus we have a generator just in case). If I’m going to be here for a year, might as well be comfortable. There are also 4 other students/fellows here at the moment. They are leaving soon, but the year-long trainees will arrive sometime in August I think.

A glimpse of Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH)

The PI (Eric) on the study I will be working on (to be discussed next week) is on vacation, so this week I have been tagging along with one of the study clinicians, Mada. I sit in on the outpatient and inpatient check-ups, which pretty much consist of taking the baby’s temperature, weight, blood pressure, and counting pills to determine adherence. To weigh the baby, the mother first stands on the bathroom scale (weight is recorded), then she stands on it with the baby. I was in charge of determining the difference (I’m so useful!). We also see a set of preemie twins in the nursery – my new favorite place since its really warm.  Today I went and checked out the STI clinic, I loved it! The clinic is pretty much run by UNC Project staff and they are doing some really neat studies on acute HIV testing (antibody vs RNA tests) and social networking.

Other fun tidbits:

• I went RUNNING the other day for like 5 minutes and survived (sort of).
• I’m back on a honey craze
• I’m back to being called Maddy (ahem Edinburgh people) since Madeline is kind of hard for people to say
• I need to learn to check expiration dates. The grocery store doesn’t…