Never did I think that riding in the back of an old truck, through an hour of bumpy roads, sitting in chicken scat the whole time would be worth it.

But let me explain before how I got to this point.....

We arrived on Saturday at about 7:00 pm and did not have much to do.  Our plan was for the next day to run a clinic at the new Health Clinic which we had put so much effort to restore.  The minister from the government came and inspected the clinic and was very happy with it.

Saturday night was spent in preparation for Sunday's clinic, but as we saw over the next three days, we were never prepared enough.

Sunday started with mass at 7 which was very nice.  The Malawian's have a unique ability to sing, without having professional singing lessons.....and all of them can do it.

So mass is always an adventure, waking up to the songs sung by the Malawians.  I think that it has something to do with the way in which their language and phonetics are set up.  Their words are very drawn out, a theory though.

We started the clinic and I was surprised because the whole day we did not have as many people as we thought.  But we treated and such, we had the entire pharmacy there so no problems.  We treated a total of 78 people.

Sunday went by pretty fast and then it was time for dinner.....chicken.....rice.....and beer.

We had already packed everything for Monday where we were going to drive out to a village and set up a clinic there.

Monday rolled around and mass was at 6 this time...and the same routine with the mass with the wonderful and extremely enjoyable singing.  After this we prepared to leave to a village.  It was about 30 minutes away but 20 of that was on a very bumpy dirt road, which was not very fun.

When we reached the village we set up 2 rooms.  One room was for the triage (spelling?) and the other one was for the doctors and the pharmacy.  We started work and Tom and I someone got into pharmacy duty.

All people come in, go through the triage and get their basic information, blood pressure, weight and age taken.  Then they see the doctor and they are diagnosed and what medicine they needed and the amount is written down.  Then it is passed on to the pharmacy.

I am not sure about the other two positions but it seems like insanity in the pharmacy (which is set up on a storage box).   But throughout the day Tom and I were backed up on orders but we had a damn good system down working with each other and burned through all of them.  We ended up running out of medicine once and Scott and Big E had to drive back to the village to get more medicine(this would not be the case for the next day).  In the end we got through 178 patients, which was a great deal for us because we helped those people a lot.

We packed everything up and then headed back to Bowe and had dinner......chicken.......rice......2 beers.

The next morning it was the same routine but this time the village was 1:19 away but most of that was on a bumpy dirt road which was not very enjoyable.  We got to this village with plenty of medicine because we were not going to drive back for more.  And this time we had the same setup, Tom and I were pharmacy and the doctors.  Kristi was running triage.

This time (today) we got through 138 patients.  It took longer because there were more extensive tests which we had to run through.

In the end though there were some serious people in a lot of pain which we helped out a lot and, fighting back the tears sometimes, we helped a lot of people out.

So we packed up, Tom was given a chicken by the village chief and then we took the ride back.  and as unenjoyable as that ride was, it was worth it for all that we accomplished that day.

Monday and Tuesday when we returned the power was out and did not come back on till half seven.

We are continuing to do clinics for two more days and then on Friday we are heading for a safari.....how could I complain.