January 18th, 2012:
Finally, we have arrived in Mongu! We left Cheshire house at around 0630 and arrived by bus at 1630. The bus had a very rough time avoiding the huge potholes on the way here, the whole things tipped to one side when it did try to avoid them. We drove through the National Park but didn’t get to see any other animals besides antelope and hogs (like Pumba). On the way to the bus station via taxi, at a stop light we were stopped by a few men selling rabbits on the side of the road. It made me sad to see at least 20 piled into little crates stacked on top of eachother. My friend Denee wanted to take a picture and they said no, you can’t take a picture. A few minutes later, he asked her, okay, snap it!? So she replies with “great! Yes!” thinking that they meant the picture. My friend and I caught on however, that the man meant the bunny and we politely refused the offer. The taxi driver said that because there are not many jobs in Lusaka, many young adults out of high school are forced to do jobs like that. We also saw a man holding a chicken by its wings while riding a bike, the chicken did not look impressed. So it has been shocking coming here and seeing how different cultures value animals. There are also many wild dogs but it seems as if look all the same, brown, bigger and very cute. I keep thinking of the Wizard of Oz, “Toto, we aren’t in Kansas anymore!”
There are a few main streets to Mongu. Along these streets there are many shops. I find it interesting that Airtel, Zamtel, MTN (all cell phone providers) have painted their buildings red, green or white with their logo on them. It is different here versus Lusaka in terms of the amount of white people that are here. In Lusaka there were a few makuwas. In mongu, I have only seen 3 other white people! Children sit at our gates and stare at us, shouting “Makuwa, how are you?” We get “how are you” a lot because that is the first thing that the children learn in school. I felt horrible because one little extremely cute girl took one look at me and just started to bawl she was so afraid of me. Fay says that most children have never seen a white man up close before and that is why we scare them so much.
The place we are staying at is called the “Sister Presentation House” and consists of a large house which houses 13 of us, 3 small private huts which house 2 people each and one hut that holds 5 people. I was so surprised by how beautiful it is! My friend Denee and I were lucky enough to get one of the private houses. It has a large living room with a couch and table, a kitchen with an electric stove, a fridge, a toaster and such. Just no microwave. There are two beds in the bedroom with a little bathroom attached. It is very cozy and about the same size compared to my basement suite so I don’t mind at all! Lots of bugs like our house, a little black gecko lives in our room, as well as many little nats, jumping spiders, crickets and huge nasty cockroaches. We are so lucky to have a laundry service here and a van that we can use as long as one of our instructors is driving (they drive on the same side as london).
January 19th, 2012:
Today we spent the day relaxing and settling in to our new home. It felt so nice to unpack, the first time in over a week. I am learning to eat instant oatmeal and things that do not require power, because the power goes out on Monday, Wednesday and Saturday from 7am-6pm roughly. This makes it very difficult to blog as the café is only open Monday to Friday. So the only days that I can blog is on Tuesdays and Thursdays after work, if the power is working (the thunder storms here are so crazy and they knock out the power quite often). We left Melengwa today (our part of town) and went into town into the ShopRite to get groceries. It was so crazy spending K630,000 at the grocery store! People here bike a lot and carry so much on the back of their bikes. Mostly you see mothers carrying babies on their backs using a shetanga (big piece of coloured cloth) and something on their head as well. Lozi people are very proud, you can see this by the way that they walk.
I have learned that the laundry service is not “one day”. It is more like 2 days. So I will be doing my laundry by hand I think from now on because I didn`t bring very many clothes! We are eating really well here when the power is working, much like I would eat at home. The nights here are a little long, it gets pitch black at around 7pm and then we sit in one of our houses and play cards, etc. We are usually exhausted by around 9 pm with the heat here and from being on high alert all the time.
January 20th, 2012:
“Take off your shoes when you walk on our ground. For the ground you are walking on, is holy.”
Today was challenging but good. At 10 am we had a culture talk with a sister from a neighbour Cheshire house. I learned many things from this lady who came from Ireland but has lived in 23 years. I learned that women here sit on the ground and men sit on stools because woman are seen as the only worthy sex to sit on the ground because they are the only ones who can bring life into this world. Men used to have to carry stools around everywhere for this reason. Many people here ask you for things (money, food, marriage proposals) because if they don’t ask, they won’t get. I discovered that the Lozi people here only answer what you ask. So for example, today I was chatting with the lady that braided my friend’s hair and I asked her if she had family. She answered “yes”. So I had to ask about 10 questions to get the full story. So we were reminded that we can never assume we know the whole story. It is important here to always ask how the person and their family is before asking people for anything. Also, people come first before tasks which is very different coming from such a task-orientated society at home. For example, if someone is supposed to come to a meeting and their neighbour shows up to talk, they will talk to their neighbour and then to go the meeting, even if they must miss the meeting.
I am practising my Lozi more and more and the locals here think it is hilarious but they say they appreciate it. I have learned a few Lozi words. “Metozi chwane” means good afternoon how are you. “metozi hande” means I am good. “Muzuhuile chwane” means good morning how are you. “nitumeziahule” means thank you very much. Clapping your hands here is a sign of respect, a greeting and much more. Women clap with their hands cupped and men clap with their hands flat, because it was believed that woman are trusted more than men so when they clap flat you know there is nothing in their hands.
After the culture chat we visited Lewanika hospital! I will never look at KGH the same again. I was surprised to see that the entire hospital is solid concrete. They have an emergency department and all the different wards like maternity and such, the only difference is that there are male and female wards here that have both medical and surgical patients on them. I found it interesting that the patients need to be referred to the hospital by a doctor in a clinic, they cannot stop in like the emergency department at home. There are private rooms but they are much more expensive than the cubes that the other people get. Their hallways are outside, so I hope I am not outside in them when it pours rain here! The OR here is also referred to as the Operating Theatre and C-sections are referred to as “cesars”. We met the nursing students that we will be teaching. I have never felt so welcome in my entire life until we entered that classroom. They clapped, slapped their desks, shouted, cheered and jumped. They wanted to meet all 23 of us, so we went one by one and they laughed at how we pronounced our names and repeated them. They would make us laugh by saying ‘wooow’ after some of our names. I am a little nervous to teach 40 high energy students but I know it will be an awesome experience.
We ordered 10 bikes so that we can choose to bike instead of taxi into town. I decided to ride one of the 10 bikes home from the hospital after our tour. The first thing I saw when I got to the bike place was a man lying in the dirt with flies buzzing around him. It was like the pictures off the TV of Africa. When I tried to leave the bike place, the locals were trying to hop on the back of the bike and buy the bikes off of us. I felt like I was in spin class in the sauna, biking in 27 degrees for 40 minutes! The roads here aren’t straight edged and are full of pot holes, so when a car comes behind you, you have to get off the road onto the sand. It makes me appreciate the bike lane in Kelowna! It is hard to ride the bike because everyone waves so you try to wave back and almost fall off the road.
After dinner, I biked to the Flood Plains. On the way, my friend``s bike broke! The seat was completely vertical. So I rode that one standing up all the way, it was a huge thigh workout especially after biking 40 minutes home earlier that day. The Plains are stunning. Very flat, so green, many trees. You can see where the floods would come. Traditionally, people who lived on the plains homes would be destroyed by the floods and they would rebuild them. So ‘maintenance’ here does not exist because of this history. We watched the sunset on the plains which was beautiful. After we got home I was sitting in my house eating dinner when I get this frantic message from one of my friends saying “help”. So my friend and I ran over to her house worried someone was hurt or something. Turns out, one of the really big ugly looking cockroaches had flown right through the window pushing through the net and flying into their room. I thought my friend was going to have a stroke. My brave friend got it outside. Needless to say, the bugs take getting used to, that’s for sure. I have only been bit a few times by bugs. We were told we will have days where we love Zambia and we will have “I hate Zambia” days. We decided that for my friend, she was having an “I hate Zambia” day. We had to talk my friend down from booking her flight home right then and there after the cockroach incident! After the cockroach scare, we sat outside for a while and looked at the beautiful stars. They are crystal clear here and I like knowing that everyone at home is looking at the same stars as me.
January 21st, 2012
Today was very hot, very sweaty and a little scary with a great ending. We started our day by unpacking and repacking all our medical supplies to ensure that we use them in our practicum which we will be starting on Monday. We went to the Black Market after this, which sells clothing, radios, sunglasses and that kind of stuff. We had an unfortunate experience today on our way to the market. Everything here is accessible only through taxi and mini bus. After waiting for 10 minutes with no luck, we decided to start walking until we could hail a taxi. A man started to walk with us and asked if it was okay if he ‘escorted’ us to the market. He was making us uncomfortable but we were trying to be nice. It is a hard place to be, because we are representing all of Canada in the way that we act, so I wanted to be nice. But this man who was very drunk, followed us around the market and refused to leave until we paid him. He was very angry when I told him I would not pay for his taxi home. I now know, that ‘escort’ here does not mean the same thing as at home. And I will be much more careful from now on. I was having an “I hate Zambia” day at that moment. He scared me and I just wanted to be home in my familiar surroundings.
Later that day though, we went out dancing which turned my day back to good. We went to a restaurant called Oasis which turns into a night club at night. We sat with the locals and watched the soccer game and cheered with them when Zambia scored against Senegal (they won eventually!). Then we danced and danced. They dance and dress much the same as a Kelowna club but I find they are much more energetic. The people were so friendly, at first it was 4 makuwas dancing by themselves but then one nice lady approached us and began dancing and soon we had so many people dancing with us we lost count. They would form a big circle and then we would get in the middle and do a little dance. They thought our dancing was hilarious, so I showed them my moves like the sprinkler and the shopping cart and they just laughed and laughed. Our taxi driver was very nice, he offered to stay in the club with us to make sure no men bothered us but we were just fine. We danced until one AM and then decided to call it a night!
January 22nd, 2012
Today was a relaxing day, our last before we start our clinical practice tomorrow. I washed my clothes by hand which was a lot of work. I stayed in the shade today, to give my body a break from the constant 28 degree weather. It hasn’t rained in a few days so I will like that when it happens. I have been very careful and have been so lucky as not to have burned or become sick like so many of the people here. There is a nasty cold going around recently and lots of people have got stomach bugs. Luckily we must have purchased half of Walmart’s medicine between all 23 of us so we have everything we need. I am wearing my shetange (used as a skirt which 98% of the women wear here and also to carry babies on mothers or father’s backs) which turns out is about 5000 degrees. I have no idea how these women wear these all the time in this heat! It is so interesting living here where power is so unreliable. For example, just now we were making a big supper for all 23 of us and the power has just gone out. I will definetly appreciate power at home more than ever. I am already appreciating home so much and I have only been here a week and have not even started my practicum! I have learned my rotation for my practicums. Week one is at Lumalinga village, where I will be teaching and helping to run the clinic that is there. Week two will be working in the female ward. Week three will be working in the children`s ward. Finally, week four I will be working in the HIV clinic. I am very excited!
January 23rd:
Today I went to Lumalika with my friend Julet. The in charge doctor didn’t show up, so we spent 3 hours walking back and forth from the health clinic to the school that is there. By the time we settled into the school, we only had time to work with the 3 year olds and the 4 year olds. I helped them write the letter “B” using little pieces of chalk on wood. My friend Julet helped them with their alphabet, their numbers and finally they got to listen to their own heart with the stethoscope she brought. I almost passed out from the heat. In scrubs it is like sitting in an oven. I have heard that a few students passed out today as well so I don’t feel quite so silly any more. Taking the mini bus is interesting, you and 12 other people are shoved in this very old bus that only has 2 windows. I will never complain about the kelowna transit system again! Going to the ShopRite, so I will talk to you soon. My cell phone number is 0962219471. It is expensive if I call you, but if you call me it is cheap for me. It is about 40 cents per text so I am not texting much and would rather you contact me through here or facebook. Love, Amanda
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