Are you happy??
on Rachael's VSO experience (Malawi), 16/Apr/2011 08:08, 34 days ago
Apparently I haven't looked it this week as apparently someone said I never look like I'm having fun! I had to explain to said surgeon that possibly it's because the only time he sees me is when they are doing ward round and normally I'm busy concentrating on speaking a foreign language and trying to communicate. Czar reassured him that I'm fine... he said to said surgeon that we get through it and mainly live for the weekends!! Not quite the attitude but hey maybe it's true! I said to Czar it's sad that someone thinks I'm not happy because I am. It's a different kind of happy, it's very rewarding work and that makes me happy but I don't have the same camaraderie that I've had in other jobs. The language barrier makes it tricky and in Malawi nurses aren't meant to socialise with each other it's not the done thing!! It's funny how quickly you can slip into a Malawian way of life, I often find myself wondering what to do next whilst my colleagues are sitting around me speaking in a language that I don't really understand. I make everyone laugh a lot at work, it took me 20 minutes to ask for some cotton wool the other day. Everyone said I have a really strong accent when I say wool, that posh Cambridge accent don'tcha know!! Often people do that thing when you say something and they just smile and nod, people at work don't get my sense of humour. They don't use sarcasm and they don't say things that aren't true. I have got myself into problems by saying things like“Were you hiding the keys?” when someone loses the key to the store room and the response is “Why would I do that?” OK. The problem is I have to concentrate all the time when I'm at work and there are a lot of things to concentrate on; the language, speaking clearly and slowly but trying tomake it sound natural, trying to work out when people are speaking to me whether in Chichewa, Tumbuka or English, trying to use my nursing 6th sense to work out which children are actually really sick (I'm ashamed to share that we have a good way of doing this which is pinching the child's cheeks, often this makes them cry if it doesn't it's a bad sign!!)I'm not the same me that I am at home but you can't be you have to adapt yourself, I high five a lot here something I'd never do at home, any time young women you know greet you my boss loves it, any time people tell a joke, generally all thetime!! I have picked up a few very annoying Malawian habits which are going to really annoy people when I get home, I call everyone sista but it's a very cultural thing that's hard not to pick up when you can't pronounce most peoples last names and you don't call nurses by their first name at work.I also make a very annoying noise which is a kind of 'ey' noise which we use for a lot of things but mainly it means yes, there is another noise that is more of an 'ieee' sound that is a kind of stress noise, like if we suddenly get 10 admissions everyone is 'ieee-ing' all over the place!! I'm justhoping that I don't get too attached to the laziness it's going to be hard to go back to real work after a year of this, we do get really busy at times but guardians are expected to do most of the nursing skills that nurses would do at home so apart from giving drugs and doing observations or takingblood there isn't much else to do.Well it's a few short weeks now obviously it's good Friday this coming week followed by Easter Monday (I know people at home get the Friday off for the wedding but we aren't going to have that (there was a brief debate among the volunteers but really no one cares so we thought we ought to do a four day week!) Then 1st May is freedom day in Malawi so we get Monday 2nd off. Nice stuff and rainy season is heading to an end now, we haven't had any rain in the day time for 4 days, it had rained constantly in Mzuzu for about a week but we seem to be over it now. Bring on the winter!!!So I'm off to Kande for the Easter weekend, not really sure when I'll be back I think we are leaving Friday and returning Monday so I probably won't update the blog again until the end of the month hopefully I'll have photos too.My brother gets married today so good luck guys sorry I can't be there!! x