Grant and Johnny in Zambia December 2005 to March 2006

Around Christmas time in Zambia

Sunday December 18.  Today is Johnny's day off.  Rogers our No 1 housekeeper came back today so we decided to take Davis, our alternate housekeeper, home to his village about 20 km away so that we could meet his family.

          He has just bought a brand new bicycle, so we could take the bicycle in the back of the car as well.  The route is about half on the tarmac and half along an excellently built and maintained gravel road.  It was great to meet his wife and kids, and we were the centre of curiosity for the extended family and neighbours.

        We also went along the road a bit and met up with Charles and Sofia whom Grant had met at Johnny's clinic.  Charles is doing a course to be a carpenter, and Sofia wants to be a nurse.  Charles is very shy and Sofia is anything but!  She is very full of herself and not at all lacking in self confidence.  She is teaching Grant Nanja the local language.  Grant is not a very good student at the moment because of pressure of work for Signora Giulini in Milan.

        We couldn't stay long as Johnny's radio was out of range where we were (he is on call 24 hours 7 days - even on days off, so to speak) so unfortunately we couldn't spend long.  On the way back we stopped at the bridge over the Luangwa River at the entrance to the South Luangwa National Park and watched the hippos.  There is an average of 40 hippos per kilometre of River.  There is a lot of hippos!

        The main electricity power supply has been down for 2 days.  There is a local diesel generating plant for the camp, but it is not powerful enough to pump water up into the water tank.  Donald the gardener decided, just after the power line went down, to water the manager's lawn.  There went the whole tank of water didn't it?  So we've all been going around a bit unwashed and unshaven for a couple of days.  There is a reserve tank for the campers showers (called 'A Blution' or sometimes 'The Blution') but the water is cold - and feels quite cold in in this heat.

        But tonight ZESCO (Zambian Electricity Supply COmpany) came back on, the water tank was soon filled again, and we all had a shower.  Whew!  nice to feel clean again!

Monday December 19.  Only six more shopping days till Christmas!  Damn!  Nowhere to shop!  Great!  Nowhere to shop!  Doesn't feel much like Christmas in the heat and sun.  This morning we went for our usual fruit salad at the bar.  There was the most amazing troupe of monkeys went through outside where there are tables in the shade.  Lots of little ones jumping about, playing in the trees, swinging in the branches Tarzan style, and playing hide and seek with one another in the trees.  A great display!

The bugs.  The bugs and insects aren't nearly as bad as once feared.  So far we haven't seen a single scorpion.  There are some big spiders which are beautiful to look at but whose bites have yet to be tested.  In the evening when we're sitting around reading and listening to music in the cottage there are loads of flying insects attracted to the lights - they do seem to get in despite the screens in all the windows (all of the windows are open but screened - hardly anyone has glass windows as its far too hot - so there's always a breeze through the house - sometimes a hot one!).  The flying insects are a nuisance although they don't bite - they just crawl down your shirt or get in your hair (of those who have hair!).  The only biting insects are the mosquitoes and tsetse flies.  There are far fewer mosquitoes than in Canada by far.  And, thank goodness, there's nothing comparable with the Scottish midges here.  Grant has only had one or two bites so far and Johnny a few more perhaps.  Grant has been bitten twice by the tsetse flies - they are like a Scottish cleg or a Canadian horsefly.  You don't feel them land and you're only aware of them when they start to bite.  If you get them quickly their bite doesn't hurt or itch.  So far no symptoms of sleeping sickness which the tsetse fly can carry.  There are the most amazing millipedes about 16-17 cm long and 1cm in diameter.  They are wonderful to watch.  They don't bite but they do rattle along the floor hoovering up the dead and not-so-dead smaller insects.  So we step gingerly over them and let them get on with their business.  There are fantastically-shaped hornets.  I'm sure they have a good sting too, but they are very rare.  The one in the photo below was quite small compared to some we've seen.  There are also the 'Kalahari ferraris' - a kind of cross between a scorpion and a land crab.  They are harmless and can dash around with the speed of a Ferrari!

        So basically the insects of the biting variety are much, much worse in Canada which is followed closely by Scotland.  Zambia comes way down the list although it is a very buggy place in the evenings. 

We've got a good mosquito net around the bed, so if the flying bugs are too much of a nuisance while we're sitting around in the even, we can always go and lie on the bed and read or listen to music there instead of in the sitting room.

        I know they aren't bugs but we do enjoy the geckos and little lizards that dart about the house and screens - also doing a good job of keeping the tiny bugs in check.

Tuesday December 20 - A close encounter of the elephant kind!  This evening we heard some rustling in the trees just behind our house.  Then one of the boys said, "Doctor have you seen the elephant?".  So out we rushed to see what was going on.  At first it was hard to see where it was, but then gradually he moved out into the open and then closer and closer.  Johnny got very nervous, but big macho Grant wasn't going to let a photo opportunity like this go to waste!!  And a great photo opportunity it was!  Then the bloody guy started to come closer and closer and Grant's discretion rapidly overtook the bravura valour!  Rapid retreat into the cottage!  The elephant got ever closer and closer.  The boys identified him as Gilbert the Elephant - a known trouble maker.  Anyway he was soon about 30 feet from our door, casually munching on the new tender leaves on the trees just starting to come out with the onset of the rains.  30 feet was close enough for such a big beast!  The spread ears, normally means aggressive behaviour, but elephants also fan their ears which have blood vessels very close to the back surface in order to keep cool.  So every time he flapped Grant snapped.  Thus the impressive 24 Gilbert 2 photo.  The 'Johnny and Gilbert' photo gives some idea of how close Gilbert was to us and our back door.  Johnny isn't 100% in favour of elephants at close range and it even shows in the tension visible even from behind in photo 26.  Gilbert was then only about 15 feet away and he's a very impressive beast!

Wednesday December 21 - A close encounter of the baboon kind!  This morning Donald the gardener came by to plant some nice, bright, hardy (but ephemeral) flowers in the two flower beds beside our front door.  It had rained almost all night last night, so the beds were nice and damp and perfect for transplanting.  It was cool and I had left the door to my 'office' and the front door (we only have one door!) both open.  I was beavering away on the computer when I heard a "Slurp, gurgle, gurgle, slurp" sound.  I looked around the corner and expected to see Donald with a bottle watering the plants. No one!  I then thought, "Donald has already watered the plants.  And they don't really need any more water anyway!"  "What is making that strange sound?".  I got up and went out the door of my office.  There, a metre away from me sitting on the bookshelves was a big alpha male baboon calmly eating our ripe mangos!  "EEeek!"  I bravely shooed him away, clapping my hands and shouting at him.  He scampered out the door without releasing the half-eaten mango.  Back in the house for the camera for another photo opportunity.  The house was surrounded by baboons so I got some more photos and a good video of them eating.

Thursday December 22 - Johnny speaking.  Clinic update.  The local language here is Nyanja and I hear it all day at work.  It has elements that are the same as Setswana that I learned to speak in Botswana - the prefixes for case and plural and the interrogatives at the end of the sentences - some words are so close that I can understand what's being said in Nyanja.  But I still use an interpreter for most consultations as a lot of my work is dealing with the relatively complicated stuff using words I don't know.  Most of the illnesses are diagnosed as malaria - and I bet most of them are - but the challenge is knowing which aren't and then thinking of a practical way of dealing with them - there are no medicines other than the ones that are the most basic and cheap, and no diagnostic facilities like x-rays and bacterial stains. I hadn't expected to have the facilities of a fully-equipped land, but I didn't have them in Maun either so I am not too phased by not having them.  I have got the microscope clean and working and the absorption spectrometer calibrated and once we have got the stain made up we can get those things done ourselves.  It's a bit sad to see the state of things at the clinic but it is already improving.  We had a threatened visit from the local eye hospital - they travel to outposts such as us and see eye problems and even do cataracts.  I came to work on Wednesday to find them cleaning the labour ward.  Now that's a good thing in itself but............ shouldn't it be done in any case?! 

        It's difficult to find a balance between criticism and encouragement and example. 

        We have an autoclave, a pressure cooker for sterilising instruments, and we have good instruments although they have been soaked too long in solution that has been left to dry on them and boiled too often when the autoclave wasn't working with the result that they are encrusted with salts (like a kettle in London, UK). If surfaces aren't smooth they harbour germs and autoclaving is less effective - remember we are in an HIV-riddled area so that cross-infection becomes a problem.  So we sit on the stoep of an afternoon and clean them, one by one, lemon juice + scouring powder + ten minutes elbow grease is usually long enough to clean a bowl.  Then we oil them and they can be used again.  Is there anyone out there reading this who knows how to prevent the problem of salt accretion? - what do they do in London? - is that why salt is added to water in dishwashers? - A suggestion that we use distilled water would not be practical - it is possible to get it for batteries but it costs 80p for 750mls and that is too much for us to spend on a regular basis.

        As it is the beginning of the rainy season and the planting has started and schools are on holiday lots families have uprooted themselves to the land where they are far enough away from the hippos and elephants (more in the next day's notes) and the clinic is quiet.  A good time to work on the staff and relationships and standards. Most of the really ill patients have AIDS-related illnesses, there is much less TB than I am used to.

Grant's unrealistic shopping lists.  Grant offered to help put up and jazz up the Christmas decorations in the camp - there are three barn-like buildings that are public with ledges under the thatch that could be colourful.  So I was sent to get ribbon from the village.  Not a hope.  The shops are very basic and the request was met with the blankest of stares.  I can and do get fruit from the market on a regular basis - 40p for a hand of tiny sugar bananas (they're absolutely wonderful), 12-20p for a mango, 60p a pineapple and 40p for four tomatoes - and I plan to get my hair cut there soon.  I have bought flex for the house and matches and light bulbs but ribbon! - forget it.  In the end he did miracles with some cardboard and Christmas wrapping paper bells, and some 'stars' made out of plastic filing cards left over in our cottage medical notes.

A Japanese tinge to the accent. You know how Japanese and Chinese speaking peoples have problems with l's and r's?  Well we have the same problem here too.  Re-fried beans in a Mexican dish were le-flied, climbing a tree can be crimbing and ribbons are libbons.  This, together with the ritual "how are you?"s,  are the main language differences that persist even after translation.

Friday  December 23 - My elephant morning - was it a dream?  I got up at about seven to do some work on the computer and also because I had heard some strange huffing and puffing noises in the sitting room.  I saw two snake-like objects waving about and pushing at the mosquito netting above the bookcase on the top shelf of which are the mangoes, pineapple, bananas and tomatoes - about £2 worth in all.  It was a couple of elephants - Wonky tusk and her number 1 son - trying to suck them up!!  But they were frustrated in their attempts by the height of the wall and they couldn't get their tusks up high enough to rip the netting open.  There were four in all - Wonky tusk and her family and one of them was so young he could barely walk and couldn't use his trunk at all to eat.  He teeters around and bumps into trees.  He is only two weeks old and besides being poor at his co-ordination, elephants are very short-sighted.  They made their stately way through our yard eating as they went and now there are only footprints - and some lovely 'souvenirs' which they kindly left - to show for it  (and they didn't eat the newly-planted flowers at the front door). 

I am going to move the fruit!

More baboons!  Guess what? - Grant had to be rescued from the doorstep where he was sitting peeling mangos for breakfast.  A baboon had smelled/seen them and came galloping up from afar to steal them.  Grant shooed and stamped and shouted, but he couldn't come back into the cottage for fear of leaving the un-peeled mangoes behind, not enough hands.  Grant 1 - baboon 0!
 

Grant again:  The wonderful thing about being here for a long period is that we're getting to recognise the animals.  Wonky tusk - who tried to help herself to our fruit (see just above) - is easy to recognise for obvious reasons.  Her new little son is only 2 weeks old and the combination of the two is absolutely charming.  But Wonky Tusk always travels with two other offspring with about a two year's difference in age between each them.  It is Wonky Tusk who regularly passes through the bar at Mfuwe Lodge, and who was featured in National Geographic of a couple of month's ago.  Gilbert who is never far away is probably the father of Wonky Tusk's offspring and he is easily recognised by his enormous tusks and his other masculine attributes.  Similarly the big alpha-male thief baboon is also a regular visitor, is much bigger than any of the other baboons in the neighbourhood, and he and his troop pass several times a day looking out for our cast-off fruit skins and peelings.  So we're all starting to get to know one another!

Christmas Eve, Saturday December 24, 2005.  Christmas Eve is traditionally spent here on the bridge over the Luangwa River at the entrance to the Park.  Johnny was free in the afternoon, so we went out to Wildlife Safari Camp to see where we will spend our last two months here and to get to know our hosts there a bit better.  Lovely place!  And we had our first mince pies.  We'll have another thatched cottage, but this time perched right on the bank of the Luangwa overlooking the River.  Nice bar, another good restaurant and really nice people - Patsy and Herman.

        On our way back we went straight out to the Bridge to see if we could help out with setting up.  The choir was rehearsing and all of the Camps were setting up their own table for their clients.  Although Flatdogs is supposed to be at the bottom end of the market - mostly backpackers and individuals and individual families - I really think they provided the best spread.  It was great!  Lots of people, the choir was just fantastic - singing lots of traditional Zambian songs with one or two arrangements of Western carols in the haunting harmony that they seem to do naturally.  The traditional Western carols seemed incredibly bland and feeble by comparison.  They included "In the bleak mid-winter" - I wonder what "snow on snow" brings to mind in a Zambian??!  Firstly it's summer here, its anything but bleak, and snow seems a long way off.  Lots of people brought candles, but there was a bit too much wind to keep them lit.  It would have added the magical touch to what was anyway a wonderful Christmas Eve! 

Download a short video clip (226 Kb) of the choir on the Luangwa Bridge.

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