Checking in at the Blantyre airport this morning, I was asked a simple question, “What is your address?” “In Malawi or in the United States?” “Both.” Simple question, difficult answer.
I started with my USA address, dutifully reciting the number, street, city, state, and zip code. Then the hard part. What was my address in Blantyre?
Outside of Malawi’s towns, no one has an address. Most of our hospital patients come from villages. When children are admitted to the Pediatric Research Ward and once it is clear they will survive, we cannot get their address to follow them up after hospitalization, as they do not have one. We gather a Verbal Map. A verbal map is a story of how to reach the patient’s home, full of landmarks.
A verbal map is a story of how to reach the patient’s home, full of landmarks.
We discharged a patient the other day. Before their departure I verified that someone had taken their verbal map. It said “When going from Blantyre to Chigimula, turn right 100 meters after the large tree. Go 3 km until there are vegetable sellers in a market. Turn left on the track just after the market. Ask for Mr. Nyambula who works in the maize meal factory (diesel)”. This is typical. Obviously, the map only functions if the driver identifies the large tree, the vegetable sellers are present, and Mr. Nyambula is around that day. But it works! Once a child goes home from the hospital, it is rare for the people who are trying to find these patients to get lost. The pursuit of patients after discharge from the hospital is charmingly referred to as “chasing”, as in “Today I will be chasing the patient who did not show up for their follow-up visit.”
In cities like Blantyre, most people have addresses. Streets have names and there are usually numbers on the front of the entrance to the home. But I don’t have any numbers. I know I live on Staffordshire Lane, because there is a dilapidated sign at one end of my street that tells me so. None of the houses on my street have numbers. Consequently, when I invite someone to come over for a visit, I provide a verbal map. I tell them to “Go down the street with the big trees parallel to Mt. Pleasant Road. My house is the one with the silver corrugated metal gate across the street from the sign for the Mt. Pleasant Inn.” Know what? No one gets lost.
Giving a verbal map at the check in counter at the airport this morning was probably not going to work. Instead, I told the woman checking me in for my flight that I lived at 10 Staffordshire Lane in Blantyre. Ten is my lucky number. Accepting this without question, the airline agent typed my address into her computer, handed me my boarding passes, and told me to have a nice flight.
