New year new placement forgotten old blog
on Rachael's VSO experience (Malawi), 05/Feb/2012 18:00, 34 days ago
Well I'm pretty rubbish on the old blog front. I guess life has kind of happened and got in the way of writing a blog. I think some times life carries on and doesn't seem that exciting to me and then I talk to someone else about it and they are shocked I haven't written it into the blog.So Christmas came and went in a bit of a hectic manner, I visited Nixon's family in Chinteche and then had to be back at work on the bank holiday as the first lady was coming to visit the ward. Sadly she didn't make it to visit us and to be honest I think we all felt a bit let down but there were some lovely ladies in here place so it was fine.New year also came and went, slightly less hectic. Nick and I went to Nkhata bay for new year although I wasn't feeling too well so I decided not to drink which made the day prove to be slightly longer than it might have been had I been drunk. We eventually headed off to bed around 2am I guess and then left Nkhata bay at around 6/7am as we were both up and about. It was so long ago I can't really remember what else we did that day, think we just relaxed at home enjoying the start of a new year.So I eventually found out that VSO wanted to extend my contract but not for me to stay in Mzuzu at the hospital. Originally they gave me 3 options to extend; a paediatric lecturer at Kamuzu College of Nursing (Lilongwe), or a paediatric nurse tutor at either Zomba or Blantyre. Simplistically as I'm sure no-one really cares the difference is that a lecturer lectures full time and doesn't go out to visit the students on placement and the nurse tutor mainly visits with students out on placement. Or at least that is how VSO described it to me. So I said I would prefer the nurse tutor jobs as I felt that it would be a big jump to go from a full time nursing role to a full time teaching role, especially as I have never done any formal teaching before. Well about a week later I got a call from my boss saying it's not optional, KCN want a paediatric lecturer and you fit that role perfectly so you're taking that job. I explained my reservations to VSO and found out a bit more about the job. Actually KCN didn't want a paediatric lecturer they wanted a paediatric nurse who would work with the students in the skills lab and follow them out on to placement to ensure that they are able to put into practice what they have learnt in their lectures. They did say I can lecture if I want to, they'll give me a list of the lectures and if there is an area that I am interested in then I can discuss it with the person who is lecturing and either teach a bit or teach the whole thing depending on how I feel.Yes I know what you're thinking ..... this all sounds a bit too perfect to be trueThat's certainly what I was thinking.Things have been tricky and they definitely haven't gone smoothly. In general when VSO is creating a new placement for someone it takes them about 6 months to get everything sorted so that you just arrive in country and start your placement. I met with KCN at the end of December (19th) and so VSO had very little time to organise anything as my visa expired the 5th February. I set a finishing date at Mzuzu central of the 13th January as I was still owed some holiday. At the end of my two weeks holiday I heard from VSO that KCN had approval to hire me as a volunteer, this being just one week before my visa expired. Mzuzu Central wanted me out of their accommodation so I went in on the 31st January to discus them providing transport to Lilongwe. VSO said they didn't feel that there would be any chance to sort a house out between Friday and Wednesday when I was suggesting leaving Mzuzu so they said I could move myself into the guest house. The VSO guest house is just a house with maybe 4-5 bedrooms but about 10-15 beds I actually haven't counted so I don't know. There is a very small kitchen and a very large living room, a couple of toilets, 1 shower and two baths. People sound very impressed when they hear that I am staying in a VSO guest house they imagine some kind of expensive lodge and are very disappointed when they realise the truth. But it serves it's purpose and I guess if it had flashing lights and was very posh then people would probably want to rob it all the time.Anyway, So I spoke to the hospital on Monday to see if they could organise transport for Wednesday and they told me to return at about 4pm to find out if my request had been approved by the hospital director. So Nick and I went into Mzuzu as I wanted to get rid of some books and needed to sort a few other things out. We returned to the flat about 3pm and at 3:45pm I got a call from the transport office saying they couldn't provide transport on Wednesday but they could do Tuesday leaving at 6am. I spoke to VSO to see if they could book me in the guest house from Tuesday instead and they confirmed that was fine. Very quickly we started to pack up all our belongings and cooked some dinner, washed up and then packed all our kitchen belongings. It was very hard to pack as VSO were suggesting we could be moved into a new house on the KCN campus so potentially there would be nothing there, VSO/KCN have to provide furniture but that's about it. VSO don't provide you with any extra allowance despite moving to another house. Therefore we packed up everything we owned including pots and pans, buckets and well everything except for a mop and a floor brush as they were looking a bit worse for wear. I also had to pack up all my clothes. My plan was never to have to move to another city I figured when I packed it'd be to go home and I'd leave most of my clothes behind as I'd be sick of them then use the space in my bag for the souvenirs I've brought in my time here. Instead what I had to do was to pack every single thing, including all my photos, paintings, bedding ect ect. Unfortunately between the two of us we had 4 bags of varying sizes. We just managed to fit all our clothes and shoes into these bags with a few extras. So we had three bin bags full of kitchen things, 2 bags of bedding and 1 bag with my decorations. I made an agreement with VSO that I could store these belongings in the VSO guest house as KCN wanted me to attend a three week training course in Blantyre. So on Saturday we sorted through everything again as I didn't need to take all my clothes to Blantyre. Now we ended up with a total of 7 bin bags full of things and nick and I each took 2 bags of things to Blantyre.VSO told me on Tuesday that I was to attend a three week course in Blantyre that was to start on Monday. They explained KCN would provide me with an allowance but VSO didn't feel it would be enough for accommodation so we needed to figure something out quick. VSO have some health volunteers living very near to KCN in Blantyre so suggested I got in touch with them to ask them to let me stay for 3 weeks. So I ignored my English politeness and asked a married couple who I've met twice to let me stay in their house for 3 weeks. I felt awful but there was really no option a decent place to stay would cost 5000-10000/night and probably wouldn't be all that great and the allowance wouldn't have covered that. VSO reassured me that this couple are used to having people stay and that they wouldn't mind at all. Well I figured they might well object but they probably don't have much choice. If you have a spare room and another volunteer wants to stay you can't really say no. I don't feel too bad as I'll give them my accommodation allowance that KCN have given me and I'm providing all my own food and I'll probably stay with Nixon at his brothers house over the weekend to give them some space. I would like to think I'm not actually much trouble, I don't need to be entertained, I don't want to be cooked for, I am being fed a lot during the days on this course so am only having a light snack for my dinner so I'm not making much noise or mess, I'm very happy to be in bed by about 8pm reading a book or watching a film or TV ect. On top of that they are getting some cash