Easter Break with a Little bit of Work

Happy Belated Easter During the Easter I had the oportunity to take a little break and go to Zambia and Victoria Falls and briefly in to Botswana and the Chobe National Park. On the roadtrip to Victoria Falls we stopped over in Lusaka to visit the Beit CURE hospital which is the closest hospital to ours, outside Malawi, where they perform Neurosurgery. The Beit CURE hospital in Lusaka has been running since 2006 and as far as I know they have been performing Neurosurgery since then. As of now they are mainly operating Hydrocephalus patients and performing VP-shunts and Endovascular Third Ventriculoscopies, this after 10 years of practice. This is very hopeful for our Project and very New practice at Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital where we also perform mainly ETVs and VP-shunts. This is after having a neurosurgical ward and dedicated theatre for only 1.5years. We are also operating craniotomies and have done some spinal surgieries. What we have to remember is that this practice is still in its' pionering stage so every Surgery apart from ETVs and VP-shunts are considered Major Surgery. Anyway, we had a lovely visit and were very well taken care of at Beit CURE, so thank you very much ladies for takng care of us. After Lusaka we drove to Livingstone, Zambia for a quick stopover before we took a pontoon Ferry over the mighty Zambezi River to Botswana. We stayed for 1 night in Botswana and squeezed in a brilliant dinner of Eland, Kudu and Impala meat and an Early morning Game Drive in the Chobe National Park. Mid day we took the Ferry back to Zambia and our lodge in Livingstone. Our Mission in Livingstone was Clear, to see 1 of the seven natural Wonders of the world: Victoria Falls... it was Absolutely Magnificent!

I ofcourse had to jump of that Bridge, twice, doing a a Bungee jump and a Bridge swing. We all did a zip line across the gorge from Zambia and in to Zimbabwe. If that is not the coolest way to travel in to a country I do not know what is.

Have fun and live a little!

Back to Malawi!

Dear friends After quite a long break (6 weeks) over the holidays I am back in Malawi since a few weeks. The trip back was a bit of a pain. The plane was delayed out of Oslo and I landed in Stockholm as my plane for Addis Abeba took off. Scandinavian Airline System (SAS) put me up in a hotel, fed me and I was quite comfortable for the 20 hours I was in Stockholm. 24 hours late I arrived in Blantyre on a Sunday istead of Saturday, atleast I came with both my suitcases (with all the Medical equipment). One thing is for sure, it's a heck of a lot warmer here than in Norway. The Monday before I left it was -27C. Here it is somewhere around 25-28C every day now at the end of rainy season. I did not only have vacation while in Norway, that was only about 2.5 weeks, the rest of the time I worked. I gave a presentation at my ward about the Project, I also gave a presentation for HR at Oslo University Hospital and wrote some reports. I also worked on the New Project application and round 1 of that application that we are about to hand over to FK Norway, crossing my fingers. Every 3 years we have to Write a New Overall Project Application, every year we Write a yearly Application, every year we also Write a Budget Application and a report for the past year's work and budget. Sometimes I think I am more coordinator/organizer and social director than nurse. I was the kind of student that hated writing papers with a passion, now I actually enjoy writing applications and reports. If I ever get my thumb out and get my masters it should be a breeze compared to this stuff... ;-D So, what's the plan forward? I honestly do not know. I may stay in Malawi until August to get the nurses in the New Project settled but after that, I do not know. What do I want to do? I want to continue working on Projects. I feel that it would be difficult going back to my ward in Norway, with all the resources we have after having been out and seen what is happening elsewhere. I am officially a mission junky now. Either way I would love to continue working in Malawi on this Project or maybe going somewhere else working on another Project. Maybe working in Norway on these kinds of Projects... We'll se what the future holds. Big hugs