And suddenly it's over. The Zambian's have 14 day visas, Malawian
airlines decide that Jane's flight will leave a day early, we teach
for one last day, have our graduation ceremony, pile back into the
kindly provided car and Sidney, who is an APPALLING driver drives us
at TERRIFYING speed and danger the 300 km to Lilongwe in the dark and
the freezing cold. We left in hot sunshine at five, our warmer
clothes are in the boot, Sidney must have the window open because he
did not sleep last night and he is having trouble staying awake and
none of us want to prolong this horror by asking him to stop to get
our cardigans. Each time I leave Malawi I say never again.
All of us have given too much. The widows, two great women who
have done all the cooking and cleaning and food buying and budgeting
have been underpaid by Lameck who does not value them. He thinks of
them as charity cases and although he has been given money to pay
them he feels that as charity cases we will also give them charity so
he does not have to pay them the full amount. This is as plain as day
to him and he sets them up to beg from us. We have no way of
understanding the situation, we don't feel that if you have no money
you should not be paid and we are angry at Lameck which is
ridiculous. He in turn is confused and baffled by us. And hurt.
Lameck himself has given too much, he has been so busy wheeling
and dealing that he has missed many of the classes and he does not do
as well as he might have done in the exam. He is distraught yet he
had to wheel and deal, he had to make money out of the kudos of
having us here, where else will money come from? There are layers and
ramifications beyond our comprehension.
Jane and I have given too much; our students tell us we have been
provided by God, which is the nicest and highest compliment they
could possibly have given us and probably true! But our Western souls
have been slogging it out and working at an intense pace as our
personal contribution to students we believe in. We didn't realise it
was God's contribution. We come from a culture where you choose to
make a huge effort like this, where effort is valued and has some
chance of success, and we are faced with a culture where everybody
works incredibly hard all the time but only luck can bring you money
to feed your family.
The students have given too much. They have given the studying
their all but we have covered too may difficult concepts and in too
short a time. We have wrecked their heads. They go away feeling they
know less than when they came. They were at the end of learning acute
prescribing and they were confident in it, they are now at the
beginning of learning chronic prescribing, a much bigger thing. It is
like reaching the top of a steep hill, glorying in the king of the
castle view and then looking round and seeing the mountain. It will
fall into place for them over the next few months, they have a great
spirit for learning and knowing more will help them to help many more
people which is what is driving them but for the moment they are
drained. And all of us are facing long journeys now we are turned for
home.
In my next blog I will write about the patients which is, somehow,
too big a subject to talk about but the reason we are all here.
No comments:
Post a Comment