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The big Indaba

So I started the day as normal 5am, but this time with no strange animals or creatures in the house.  Even my dog Ellie had gone on her weekly walkabout for a day or maybe two.  A nice coffee, a beautiful sunrise and some paperwork and emails.

At 8am we had the big staff meeting/indaba to discuss the year ahead, tell everyone an update on Nick’s condition, and tackle any concerns that anyone might have.  Was a great time to have everyone together in the same place, and closed with a nice prayer by Church elder Mr Banda.

We saw a few patients, and then lept into a series of meetings with senior staff, tax consultants, drivers, and cataract case finders.  Finally we met with Stefan, CBM National Coordinator for Malawi and Dr Ter Haar the Nkhoma General Hospital Medical Director.  It was a very productive day  and we got a massive amount of issues sorted.  I’m not a fan of having meetings for meetings sake, but find it a pleasure to sit down with all the staff and people involved with Nkhoma Eye Hospital, to really hammer out and resolve important issues.  A real blessing to be able to do this now, as in 2 weeks time we will start to screen patients in the villages and bring them to Nkhoma for surgery or other help; and that is when we start to get very busy.  Looking forward to it.

It is great to have to weekend ahead to try and find my prodigal dog, and sort through some more work.  What astounds me always is the view from the hill here of the valley beyond.  Just to give an idea about the changing seasons:

Dry season

Dry season

This is a photo last August in dry season, after the maize has been harvested.

And this is the exact same view from the house yesterday morning, some two months into the rain season.

Rainy season

Rainy season

The landscape now is a real garden of Eden.  The great thing is that the rains have been good over the past two months, interspersed with sunshine, and the maize crops are flourishing.  Crucial really as this one harvest will sustain villagers for the entire year.

I’m off to go and find that prodigal dog.

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