We finished data collection the following Tuesday. It was weird to be done with it, after more than three weeks of going to the villages as a daily routine. It’s funny how easy it is to adjust to a new routine and have it feel normal. Joe asked me if I would feel weird when I get back, and I think it might be odd for a few days. I have established several routines here, and I have absolutely none there right now, with summer upon us. But I’ll work one out quickly, and I’ll be adjusted to home just as quickly.
The last day I had the car hire, I ran a bunch of errands. I switched to the South Luangwa NP trip, since I was still the only one signed up for the Malawi southern experience. It was a good move, much better than trying to set something up myself, and it was an awesome trip, and I will write about. I mailed postcards, hit the money bureau, and then went to Central Hospital to try to do something about a yellow fever certificate. The tour company said that sometimes at the border they require some kind of stamped note saying you don’t have yellow fever. Neither Zambia nor Malawi requires vaccination, since it’s not endemic this far south, but the guy at the tour company said any doctor could write me such a note. So I went over to Central Hospital, which looked like mostly what you’d expect: a decent but not pristine place with a ton of people waiting around all over the place. I was directed to OPD I, whatever that is, where a nurse got me a nice photocopy of the yellow card for recording immunizations. She nicely filled out both the yellow fever and cholera pages as if I’d been vaccinated for them two weeks before, stamping the whole lot with the official stamp and charging me MK600 for the trouble. Fraudulent yellow fever certificates! Brilliant! It had the vaccine lot number on there and everything! Turns out no one asked for it at the border (I guess really it’s supposed to be Malawi immigration wanting it when you’re coming from Zambia), so I didn’t have to defraud any immigration officials. :/
The last two days of May were spent entering data at N’s house. She has a computer, so I brought the work laptop over there so we could do two entries at once. I finished the entire first data entry on Wednesday, impressing everyone with my mad fast data entry skills. And it was more accurate then the second data entry too; most of my errors were actually caused by errors on the form, either skip patterns that weren’t skipped or items that were accidentally skipped. Basically, I rule at setting up awesome Access entry forms and then rocking through the data entry (just throwing that out there in case anyone wants to pay for these skills with money or beer). While at N’s both days we had a nice lunch, with nsima and beef the first day, and nsima and usipa the second day. I don’t think I’d make it a point to eat usipa much if I lived here; it’s basically the smallest fish in the lake, and it is generally dried and salted. Sardiney, I guess. I prefer a big fish like chambo.
We finished Thursday, so I let the crew loose. They were a fun group, and they did a good job with the study.
That Friday I was insanely productive. I compared the datasets and fixed all the data entry errors. Then I made a survey with frequencies. And a bunch of other crap too. It was good. I had the strangest feeling leaving work that day. I was almost – sad? It’s just strange to have my seemingly never-ending trip wind down.
The next day I went with G and her husband to a wedding. The church part wasn’t super different than most weddings I’ve seen; I guess in the villages there are most traditional elements, but this was mostly just a typical Christian kind of wedding with choirs and some nuances that I think any wedding would have. I guess the preacher was funny, but it was all in Chichewa, so I only got the jokes secondhand. It was really long. Lunch at G’s house was very tasty: nsima, beef, greens in a nice sauce, salad, other stuff I’ve forgotten. It was quite a spread. The reception was incredibly less interesting than I expected. Basically there was a processional of the bridal party through this tent to a stage all set up with nice chairs and couches. Then there was music, and people would go up to dance and drop and throw money around. I thought this would be a short thing at the beginning before moving on to more interesting things, but this money collection business seemed to be the entire purpose of the reception. Everyone who was not at the moment dancing and tossing small bills about just sat in row after row of chairs watching, looking totally bored (so it wasn’t just me!). Eventually sodas were passed around, but I really needed a good MGT. There may have been some things at the end after I left, but I was there for several hours without any change in festivities.
Sunday I packed up my stuff for my trip and for storage. Everything fit, giving me a good feeling about the final packing. I went over to the Capital Hotel to check my email and discovered that I got my insurance claim back and they gave me pretty much what I asked for, which is quite nice given the big fat deductible. I should at least be able to replace my camera and glasses, and maybe a few other small things. I might try to get my passport done with leftover grant money if I can.
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