A week off sick

I have been off work sick for most of this week, with an unidentified virus. Symptoms included fever, diarrhea and general pathetic-ness, so I took myself off to the doctor's for a professional diagnosis. I had my first malaria test, but fortunately it was negative and I was sent home with instructions to rest for 48 hours. Actually it was necessary to stay at home for longer than that and I spent four days doing little but sleeping and reading. Now, six days and four novels later I am more or less fully recovered but have lost almost a week. Monday was my only working day last week. David and I spent much of it preparing a short course on Circle Time for the students to be delivered on Tuesday and Thursday, but unfortunately I was not able to be there on either day. Sarah stepped into the breach and helped David out, but I was very sorry to miss seeing the students. The previous week they were sent two letters, one from Vince confirming the opening date of the Children's Centre among other points, and one from David and me explaining how the third phase of the course, the practical assessments, will work. Sarah reported back to me that they asked a lot of questions. I should have been glad to be there to understand properly their reactions and to answer questions, but I am sure that David did an excellent job and at the time I was not well enough to be much use to anyone!

On Friday night Zoe and Lindsey combined to persuade me I was sufficiently recovered to be able to withstand an evening in the Liquor Garden. It is about half an hour's walk from Mitsidi and by the time I arrived I felt like a wet rag, but an hour and two bottles of water later I felt much better and was very glad to have begun to be sociable again. Zoe, with my welfare at heart, persuaded me to allow her to slip a sachet of Malawian brandy into my last bottle of water and I think that marked my return to the land of the healthy!

On Saturday I took the minibus into Blantyre for no better reason than that I needed to get out of Mitsidi. I pottered about the city centre for a bit and then met Chris and Rita for a coffee. Rita and I then did a bit of desultory shopping and then went to the market bus station to catch the minibus back to Sigregge. We piled in to the most dilapidated looking bus in the bus station together with twelve other passengers, an extra child, two sacks of maize, several cans of cooking oil and about four bales of sugar. I never did identify who it all belonged to. Minibus fares have been rising rapidly since the supply of diesel has been reduced. After a long period of being steady at MK80, they went up to MK90, then MK100, and last week Chris was charged MK110. I watched carefully as other passengers handed over their fares and concluded that the going rate was MK100 so handed over a MK200 note for the two of us. It is always prudent to offer the exact money, sometimes as an azungu it is difficult to get change. The bus rattled and banged its way out of Blantyre. The catch on the side door was faulty and only latched after about one attempt in four, so at each stop there was a lot of crashing and banging. All the way along the untarmacked, Chilomoni ring road the bus coasted downhill, presumably to conserve precious diesel. The driver appeared to know his route very well and managed to get all the way to our stop at the bottom of the Mitsidi drive without using any fuel at all. Rita and I were squeezed into the back seat with a couple of others and I was glad to ease my way out, over the bales of sugar and into the relative comfort of a light breeze to walk home. We made a salad lunch and the afternoon disappeared into reading, making Christmas cards and I don't really know what else, it just melted away! Hugh, Linda, Chris and I went for a curry at the Bombay Palace in the evening.

Today is Sunday and it is pretty hot again. I fancied a walk until I realized that with no access to transport it would be necessary to go a kilometer or so at least to the beginning of most walks and in the heat it seems a bit intimidating, so I am still here.

I continue to be concerned about the joint impact of the diesel shortage and Krizevac's new vehicle policy. When I first came here there was a clear understanding between volunteers that all of us had a need for transport and that it should be shared out as equally as possible. Of course there were occasional disagreements about priorities but on the whole it worked well. Now individual key holders are held personally responsible, and financially liable, for the cars allocated to them. Under the circumstances one cannot blame them for keeping them to themselves but unfortunately it seems to be leading to a situation where some volunteers have complete freedom to go where they like at weekends and others are quite restricted. The diesel shortage means that this difference is not too pronounced at the moment, but if things improve it could lead to a situation where there is a significant difference in quality of life between those who have access to transport and those who do not. There are lots of problems with the vehicles at present. One or two seem to be out of action altogether, and a few have been in and out of Torrent for attention. I suppose that is just the way of things when you use old cars. Charles does not always have a car to shop for the volunteers' food and although there is always plenty to eat, key ingredients such as eggs and margarine or butter are sometimes absent altogether.

All is quiet with the hammerkops, although Chris reported that father-hammerkop was still adding to the nest following the storm that brought lots of strips of blue gum bark to the ground a few days ago. I suspect that the turacos also are nesting as they are repeatedly flying in and out of the same dense growth, flashing their scarlet flight feathers as they do so. I have been trying to get a photo of them, but no luck so far, they move so quickly and my khonde is just too far away for them to be much more than a black and red dot on a photograph. The brown-hooded kingfisher seems to have taken up permanent residency in the trees near the river in direct view of the khonde at the main house. A flash of kingfisher blue is a common accompaniment to our meals. This morning as Chris and I shared a pot of coffee a tiny blue waxbill settled on the path only about three feet from our chairs.