Six Months in Malawi

I read Six Months in Sudan, a book compiling blog posts from a doctor working for MSF in Sudan, in the summer of 2009. My parents had gotten me the book because I was interested in the elite humanitarian aid organization.

I remember reading stories of armed militias passing through, military checkpoints, victims of car crashes and patients with trivial illnesses as judged by first-world medicine who were nonetheless dying, all typed out with seemingly infinite patience on a satellite phone, without capital letters. I was living in a spare bedroom of friends in Philadelphia, with a mattress on the floor as my only furniture, dreaming of a life even more spare.

And now, four years later and many seas sailed and many miles traveled, many jobs held and many projects completed, I sit in the housing compound of the MSF Malawi mission, typing on my phone for an entry in my blog.

But I have capital letters.