Martyrs Day

So Wednesday 3rd was a public holiday to celebrate Martyrs Day. The local newspapers all had big supplements discussing Martyrs day and what was important about it. In essence it is celebrating the role of the people involved in uprisings in 1915 and 1957 or as quoted from the Daily Times "Martyrs Day honours the fallen heroes who lost their lives in the struggle for political and economic freedom of Malawi in 1915 and 1957. A lot of firms and individuals had placed notices in the paper which read on the lines of

Martyrs Day

The Chairman,

Board Members,

Management,

and Staff of

(Company name)

Join his Excellency, The State President

Ngwazi Dr Bingu wa Mutharika

and Malawians the world over in

commemorating the works of brave men

and women who carved our history

and secured our rights.

 

 

As volunteers we helped celebrate with a little cocktail party in the pouring rain on Tuesday night. It started raining just as we all left work and didn't stop until it was time to go home. This didn't deter us from enjoying ourselves though and being truly British we sat out on the veranda in the rain. Even those that weren't British joined us mad ones on the veranda, it was covered after all. Someone even brought pizzas!

I celebrated not working this day by buying myself a new umbrella, as the one that I brought out here is ridiculously small and does very little to keep any part of me dry when it is raining. It is a very fine umbrella to, and is very versatile as has a walking stick type handle.

When it rains it is not just any rain but Malawian rain, extremely heavy, and even with an umbrella you are better off taking cover as parts of you will still get soaked. The roads become rivers and often it is so intense that you can't even see to drive.

I also discovered the joys of one of the Hotels out here and spent a very pleasant 3 hours in their lounge using the internet and drinking coffee. The internet connection there was fairly quick and I even managed to eventually upload photo's, without entirely losing the will to live.

The rest of the week was spent working, yes I do do some work out here. This week was medical orientation. Apparently it was a quiet week on the ward, and only had between 68-76 patients. When it is busy they can have 90-100 patients on the ward. I spent the week looking after the patients in the HDU (high dependency unit) and treatment room. There were 6 patients in HDU and 5 in the treatment room.