Well we have been here for approaching one month. The last couple of weeks has seen us start work properly and begin to get a picture of some of the tasks and issues that face us. However the most pressing thing on our minds has been the non-arrival of our airfreight luggage. As I write on Wednesday evening, our belongings sit in the airport at Lusaka and we have been living from a suitcase of clothes since we arrived. We are hopeful they will arrive at Chikankata this week and we both are of the opinion that its arrival will help us settle in even more.
Heidie has completed her two-week AIDS Management course this week. She has enjoyed the course but found it very hard work. It started at 8am and finished at 5pm every day for 12 days. She has had homework to do, two essays to write over the weekend, a community project proposal and three-hour exam. I am so pleased to report that she scored 87% overall. I was very very proud of her. I think she was attending with a view to delivering the same course in future so she has had to concentrate extra hard. She has now left me to undertake a week’s course in gender based violence (theoretical rather than practical, I hope!) and is currently living it up in a swanky hotel outside Lusaka. I don’t think she was looking forward to it so much as she would be away from me for sometime – she’s only human!
I hadn’t realised until this week but basically I am often called on to be in charge of the hospital and health service, when my boss Elvis Lennon Simamvwa is not around. This has become apparent on consecutive Friday evenings when I had to stand in for Elvis (thank you very much) as guest of honour at the graduation ball of the nurses at the Nurses Training School and a meeting with a group of German donors from an AIDS Charity. Elvis is a popular, clever and high profiled guy so is rarely travelling off the mission. Having left work in the criminal justice sector in the UK, last Wednesday I found myself in Mazabuka Police Station negotiating the release of one of the drivers. Whilst driving to Lusaka he had caused a four-vehicle crash and was charged with careless driving. All I am saying is that I would not like to be locked up in Zambia. Oh my word!
On a more serious note, I have also attended my first funeral in an official capacity, once again deputising for Elvis at the burial of a nurse. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is reflected in the local community here, with an estimated 25% infected with the HIV virus. Last week ten adults and three children died, either staff or patients, of AIDS related illnesses. Malaria and TB are other conditions which people tell us are causing major problems. The department where Heidie is working also has an Orphan and Vulnerable Children, seeking to register, treat and vaccinate children with no parents. It is estimated that almost 80% of Zambian households have at least one orphaned child living with them. It is clearly going to be interesting for both of us as we get to grips with our employment and the associated tasks.
Our domestic situation is rather more entertaining. There are frequent electricity cuts, culminating in no electricity and no running water for two consecutive weekends. However, the locals are looking after us well and I have been taught how to cook properly without electricity on an outside coal stove. This led Heidie and I to reminisce over some of the lovely meals we shared in Scotland and London the few weeks before we left. However the water situation has called for what we would consider desperate measures. We have a container, which is in place for such emergencies, and we had to wash in freezing water and manually fill up the cistern of the toilet in order to flush (only occasionally though - ming!!!). This was certainly a new experience and you don’t realise how much you rely on these things until they are not there. By the second Sunday we had to walk to a neighbouring village and collect water from their borehole. As I struggled back with my medium size container, I was full of admiration for many of the native women who were balancing a large containers on their head, carrying another bucket in one hand, all while transporting a baby or small child on their back. There was much hilarity at my plight as I was constantly encouraged by the women to put the water on my head, which could only have resulted in a severe drenching and even more humiliation.
We also have frequent visitors in our house and back garden, perhaps not the kind we were used to in the UK. We have seen snakes, giant (according to Heidie) spiders, grasshoppers, chickens, dogs and goats either in the house or the immediate surroundings. However on Wednesday we returned home for lunch to find three big bulls, with huge horns grazing in our front garden. I was right behind Heidie as we ran past them to the door.
Following from our first email home, you will be pleased to hear that we have found a shower attachment that just about reaches our midriff. Whilst this is held on with string at present, it does mean that washing is a little bit more elegant now. One of the pleasant surprises of the week has been our discovery that the house has a working chimney and having purchased some wood, we now have a real fire regularly going. The days have been boiling (to us!) but the evenings are quite chilly indeed, so the log fire has been a welcome addition. The main bonus has been the e-mail contact and it really does make our day to receive e-mails. The phone situation, by contrast, is very erratic. There are no landlines and we can get a faint signal on our mobile phone if we venture up a nearby hill but it is far from reliable. The e-mails we have received have been greatly appreciated and have really kept us going through this time of great adjustment. They have cheered us up when we feel homesick. Please, please kept ‘em coming.
The Zambians continue to be very kind to us and we have shared a number of meals with people over the last two weeks. The local cuisine is not too dissimilar to ours, although the Zambians consume a lot of maize, which we are getting used to. Heidie is however longing for a chicken curry and I am still looking to locate the nearest chip shop (I think it might be in Gibraltar). We haven’t quite got the hang of shopping for a month and having no convenience stores nearby to fall back on. It’s only a week since our shopping trip and already supplies are low. Hopefully we might be granted an additional ‘novices’ shopping trip and we will read ‘Shopping for Dummies’ next week (Clark, maybe you can sort this out for us!). Like most people at the hospital, we have also been allocated a cleaner, Angela and a garden boy, who’s a name I can’t pronounce and we are now living in a world with no ironing!
Heidie has completed her two-week AIDS Management course this week. She has enjoyed the course but found it very hard work. It started at 8am and finished at 5pm every day for 12 days. She has had homework to do, two essays to write over the weekend, a community project proposal and three-hour exam. I am so pleased to report that she scored 87% overall. I was very very proud of her. I think she was attending with a view to delivering the same course in future so she has had to concentrate extra hard. She has now left me to undertake a week’s course in gender based violence (theoretical rather than practical, I hope!) and is currently living it up in a swanky hotel outside Lusaka. I don’t think she was looking forward to it so much as she would be away from me for sometime – she’s only human!
I hadn’t realised until this week but basically I am often called on to be in charge of the hospital and health service, when my boss Elvis Lennon Simamvwa is not around. This has become apparent on consecutive Friday evenings when I had to stand in for Elvis (thank you very much) as guest of honour at the graduation ball of the nurses at the Nurses Training School and a meeting with a group of German donors from an AIDS Charity. Elvis is a popular, clever and high profiled guy so is rarely travelling off the mission. Having left work in the criminal justice sector in the UK, last Wednesday I found myself in Mazabuka Police Station negotiating the release of one of the drivers. Whilst driving to Lusaka he had caused a four-vehicle crash and was charged with careless driving. All I am saying is that I would not like to be locked up in Zambia. Oh my word!
On a more serious note, I have also attended my first funeral in an official capacity, once again deputising for Elvis at the burial of a nurse. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is reflected in the local community here, with an estimated 25% infected with the HIV virus. Last week ten adults and three children died, either staff or patients, of AIDS related illnesses. Malaria and TB are other conditions which people tell us are causing major problems. The department where Heidie is working also has an Orphan and Vulnerable Children, seeking to register, treat and vaccinate children with no parents. It is estimated that almost 80% of Zambian households have at least one orphaned child living with them. It is clearly going to be interesting for both of us as we get to grips with our employment and the associated tasks.
Our domestic situation is rather more entertaining. There are frequent electricity cuts, culminating in no electricity and no running water for two consecutive weekends. However, the locals are looking after us well and I have been taught how to cook properly without electricity on an outside coal stove. This led Heidie and I to reminisce over some of the lovely meals we shared in Scotland and London the few weeks before we left. However the water situation has called for what we would consider desperate measures. We have a container, which is in place for such emergencies, and we had to wash in freezing water and manually fill up the cistern of the toilet in order to flush (only occasionally though - ming!!!). This was certainly a new experience and you don’t realise how much you rely on these things until they are not there. By the second Sunday we had to walk to a neighbouring village and collect water from their borehole. As I struggled back with my medium size container, I was full of admiration for many of the native women who were balancing a large containers on their head, carrying another bucket in one hand, all while transporting a baby or small child on their back. There was much hilarity at my plight as I was constantly encouraged by the women to put the water on my head, which could only have resulted in a severe drenching and even more humiliation.
We also have frequent visitors in our house and back garden, perhaps not the kind we were used to in the UK. We have seen snakes, giant (according to Heidie) spiders, grasshoppers, chickens, dogs and goats either in the house or the immediate surroundings. However on Wednesday we returned home for lunch to find three big bulls, with huge horns grazing in our front garden. I was right behind Heidie as we ran past them to the door.
Following from our first email home, you will be pleased to hear that we have found a shower attachment that just about reaches our midriff. Whilst this is held on with string at present, it does mean that washing is a little bit more elegant now. One of the pleasant surprises of the week has been our discovery that the house has a working chimney and having purchased some wood, we now have a real fire regularly going. The days have been boiling (to us!) but the evenings are quite chilly indeed, so the log fire has been a welcome addition. The main bonus has been the e-mail contact and it really does make our day to receive e-mails. The phone situation, by contrast, is very erratic. There are no landlines and we can get a faint signal on our mobile phone if we venture up a nearby hill but it is far from reliable. The e-mails we have received have been greatly appreciated and have really kept us going through this time of great adjustment. They have cheered us up when we feel homesick. Please, please kept ‘em coming.
The Zambians continue to be very kind to us and we have shared a number of meals with people over the last two weeks. The local cuisine is not too dissimilar to ours, although the Zambians consume a lot of maize, which we are getting used to. Heidie is however longing for a chicken curry and I am still looking to locate the nearest chip shop (I think it might be in Gibraltar). We haven’t quite got the hang of shopping for a month and having no convenience stores nearby to fall back on. It’s only a week since our shopping trip and already supplies are low. Hopefully we might be granted an additional ‘novices’ shopping trip and we will read ‘Shopping for Dummies’ next week (Clark, maybe you can sort this out for us!). Like most people at the hospital, we have also been allocated a cleaner, Angela and a garden boy, who’s a name I can’t pronounce and we are now living in a world with no ironing!
Despite all our difficulties and interesting experiences, we continue to be amazed at the resilience, happiness and resourcefulness of the Zambian people and their children at this great place. We feel very privileged to be here (save the times when we feel homesick!) and hopefully we will be able to make a positive contribution during our time here.
posted by Charlie Chikankata at 8:22 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home