I have a week off before I begin my ten week class of Nyanja so I went with Ruth to Chikumbuso Monday (Miriam stayed home with a cold). The grounds used to be a bar and brothel but have been transformed into a school, housing, kitchen, sewing room, workrooms and salesroom. While Ruth did art and read books with the children, I sat with the women and watched them make purses out of recycled plastic bags. 
During the morning a grandmother arrived with a week old premie girl of about 4 pounds. The mother had AIDS and had died of hemorrhage from what I could understand. The grandmother had taken the infant to a local orphanage and they had insisted the baby be evaluated in the hospital before they would take her. The grandmother did not want to take the infant to the hospital for evaluation since the elections were the next day Sept 20th and she feared if the child were admitted she would receive no care. We reviewed the importance of taking the medication (to prevent AIDS) and how to make up the formula, how often to feed and the signs of dehydration. The baby was well bundled in about 6 blankets which makes sense if you know that babies are born "cold" and have to be slowly made to become "hot." Productive adults are hot and a baby must avoid exposure to many adults when they are first born. I don't know if this unspoken cultural reasoning had anything to do with refusing to take the baby to the hospital.
I am learning many local beliefs about disease. My tour guide at Chikumbuso informed me about the stye on her left upper eye lid, "In my culture this happens when you or someone in your family is pregnant.We treat it by cutting it open and draining pus. But this one just came back so maybe I am going to get pregnant." I told her "In my culture this happens when you are under stress, don't get enough sleep and get this type of infection. We treat it with hot packs for twenty minutes 4 times a day and sometimes antibiotics."
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