Day 19. Mon 28th August.

Cape Maclear

The plan for this morning is to visit the Billy Riordan Memorial Clinic, mainly just to see it, but also to pick up some Praziquantel, which is the treatment for bilharzia (AKA schistosomiasis). Whatever anyone tells you, Lake Malawi is not free of the snails that transmit this unpleasant disease. However, the treatment is straightforward and virtually without side effects (some people feel a little nausea). I have spoken to Leon's wife, who is the doctor at the clinic, and she has confirmed what I have read before, which is that the best course is to wait 6-12 weeks after leaving the lake (the treatment works on the worms, not the unhatched eggs) and then take the Praziquantel whether you have symptoms or not. By all accounts, once the symptoms start things are already getting serious, and it's better to nip it in the bud. Billy Riordan Memorial - new building

I am joined for breakfast by Wofgang, a retired police detective from München. He also needs Praziquantel, and also Larium as he has had his medicine bag stolen. His English is about as good/bad as my German so we chat away in a bit of both.
The clinic is behind the village about 10 minutes walk from the lake, and we walk up together. The correct dosage of Praziquantel is dependant on body weight, so we are weighed, and then I am supplied with 5½ huge tablets, which are to be taken all at once with a good meal. These set me back the princely sum of MK500 (about £2.00).
Wolfgang heads back to the beach, but I stay and look at what is going on at the clinic. The current clinic is only open 9-5 on weekdays, but the next phase is to build a proper in-patients' hospital, and building work is already in progress.
Billy Riordan Memorial - workers' tea break

Billy Riordan Memorial - workers' tea break

This is being built using hydroform bricks. These are made of cement and sandy soil dug from the ground around the site, which are mixed with water and compressed in a hydroform machine to form a shaped brick, about twice the size of a normal brick. These require no baking, but are simply left to set for several days. This has a number of advantages: the amount of cement used is less than in a normal brick, making them cheaper to make, because they do not need to be baked no firewood is needed, a significant point as deforestation is a major problem, and, due to the way the bricks are shaped, they do not require mortar, but can simply be laid on top of each other like Lego, and then the whole wall rendered. The downside, of course, is that a hydroform machine is required, plus the diesel to drive it. These guys have required a secondhand one, and have manged to get it going. At full tilt it will turn out 4 bricks a minute, and they have already made 20,000 full-bricks and 2000 half-bricks and have nearly all they need for the new hospital building. They have a team of a couple of dozen dozen Malawians plus several volunteers from England, America and (especially) Ireland. I don't know how much the Malawians are being payed, but they certainly seem to be working hard. I think the fact that the white guys are not just overseeing, but also getting stuck in, encourages them.
My camera is full, so I am forced to head back to Fat Monkeys for my other card. Then I walk across the beach to the dive shack, but there is no diving today. Maybe I should take one of the local boats, but I don't really want to go by myself, and the boats really don't look too reliable, and who knows when the snorkels were last cleaned, and anyway their constant hassling gets on my tits.
Carl and Cynthia are still around so we swim and go for some lunch (more pancakes, with honey). I'm obviously not going to get a snorkel, so I walk up the beach towards Otter Point. There are several dinghies and a Hobie cat beached, but they turn out to belong to the exclusive Danforth Yachting, and only available to their guests, so I mosey back to FM's. On the way back my phone goes - it is Mum ringing on Telestunt from home. I can't get used to all this modern technology, somehow it doesn't seem right in Malawi.
I run the gauntlet of the traders and young kids, whose stock greeting (and possibly only English) is "give me money", and spend the rest of the day dozing in a deckchair with Wolfgang. The evening is spent with Rob and Ruth eating spag boll and watching MTV - more modern technology!

The Hydroform Process

1. Mix the sand and cement,
2. Add water,
3. Pour into the Hydroform machine,
4. Push the lever and out pops a brick,
5. Check the size and pop it on the pile to dry.

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