Livingstone, Vic Falls, and more Medical Mayhem

I have so much to write and so little time. The more I get engulfed in life here the harder I find it to sit down and write things, and the longer I leave it the more I forget. But perhaps that means you only get the really great stuff that lasts in my mind for a long time :-)

So I'll try and pick up from around where I left off. It had been a pretty full program for the group visiting from overseas so we decided to organise a trip down to Livingstone which was absolutely fantastic. Like I said before, I hope that eventually I will be posting up photos to go with the words so check back on old posts to see some more. Thankfully in the meantime some of the group who are now back in America have posted photos with me tagged so you can see some stuff :-)

After a 7 or 8 hour bus ride, almost leaving one of our group behind at a toilet stop, we arrived in Livingstone and a quick taxi rider later we were at Zig Zag hotel, a beautiful little place owned by a friend of the church. We felt prettty spoilt having big comfortable beds and high flow showers. We didn't hang around long though cos the majority of the group had to leave the next day so we went straight to Victoria Falls. It seems like the obvious thing to say, but the falls truly are a magnificent sight. It's pretty mind-blowing to be standing next to such an awesome creation. When you walk closer to it, it's as if it's a hurricane downpour but all the water is the spray from the falls. It also makes a pretty amazing rainbow. After seeing it from the top we took the trail down to the river at the base, which was also brilliant. The whole way down, there were baboons everywhere :-). After all that we were pretty wet and pretty exhausted so we went back to the hotel for a quick rest and wash and then out to dinner for our last big meal together as a group. The majority of the group had to go back to Lusaka the next day to meet their flight to America.

The next morning we got up at 5am to go back to the falls to see it by moonlight. The time of year we were there, there was a chance to see a rainbow caused by the full moon, but unfortunately it turned out to be really cloudy, but we did get to watch the falls as dawn broke. The next actvity for the day was a chance to walk with lions and cheetahs. They were fairly young, but still, words can't really describe what it's like to see a trio of young lions bounding out from between the trees and then being able to walk with them and pat them. I think it's something no-one in the group with forget.

After we saw off the main group, the four of us that remained went and had a late lunch at an Italian restaurant that is part of an orphan training program set up by some Aussies. The orphanage system tends to fall apart once a child passes 12 years old, so this organisation was set up to take them on and train them in a vocation, like working in a restaurant. Brilliant place.

Then we went to a crocodile park, where the guide kindly provoked the 850kg crocodile named Godzilla with a stick so that we could see what he was like when he was angry. TIA (This Is Africa) has become our standard response to crazy random things like that. Then he invited me to exit the railings and come and stand next to another 1 tonne croc, reassuring me that as long as his back feet were flat on the ground, he wouldn't attack. I know I said I'd post photos later, but this one I had to put up now.

That evening, an Aussie we'd met called Michael took us to the 5-star hotel on the Zambezi river to have a drink and watch the sunset. It was a really beautiful place inside and out and one of the group who is an interior designer from Egypt was so exciting that she spent about an hour taking photos of the place. Michael's actually a really interesting guy. He used to play for Carlton in the mid-90's (for any crazy Carlton fans, I can't remember exactly but I think his last name was Ravino). After he tore his achilles he went into business and IT design and then met a guy who was starting a conservation project in Africa. Basically they encourage local farmers to use chilli pepper smoke instead of violence to keep the Elephants away from their crops. The company sells the seeds and infrastructure to the farmers, teaches them how to make the elephant deterrant and then buys back the remaining chillis to make into sauces etc. that they sell around the world.

Anyway, we had dinner back and Zig Zag and Michael organised a boat trip for us down the Zambezi river for the next morning. It was a great way to end the trip, floating down the river between Zambia and Zimbabwe, drinking tea and eating cake and biscuits. Our guide was great and took us down to see a big pod of hippos as well as a croc, some impala and a few other little creatures. And then we hopped back on the bus to Lusaka, and thus ended the nice relaxing holiday.

From then on, it's been absolute mayhem, and I've only just now found the time to sit and right this. Essentially the whole government health network in Zambia is on strike, and since we are one of the better private hospitals in the area, we have been flooded with patients. Our little in-patient unit has been constantly full and during on-calls I've found myself looking after critically ill patients on my own in spare rooms in the out-patient building. We also been stretched because one of the more senior doctors has been away doing a course, and another one has just given birth. At the same time, we've also been doing one of the main data collection sessions for an Africa-wide HIV study that we're taking part in. Finally to top it all off, one of the Electricity substations in our area exploded so the power and phone networks have been incredibly sketchy.

And that's basically summed up my recent times here. Today, all of the doctor are back and the study is over for now so I have time to get away from medical stuff and get back to helping out the church with some things, which I've been missing. I'm also hoping to get more involved with the youth group here. There's a plan to set up a youth centre for the area, which is really exciting. The one thing I've learnt through all the busyness is that the more things are feel out of my control, the more I have to rely on God and other people for support, and the great thing is that both have come through in a big way.

So, now I'm going to get back to work and also start preparing for the next group coming here, also from the States. In a couple of weeks there is a big international mission conference at the Coptic church in Kenya so I'm planning out how to get there. I may ditch the flight and instead go overland through Tanzania and explore a bit on my way. If anyone has been through there and has suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

God bless you all, I miss you :-)

Congo & Medical Madness

Hi everyone,

It's been a long time since I've posted and it's been an amazing time with lots going on so i'll try and give you the juicy bits. I should preface this post with a few things.

Firstly, I miss you all a lot and love hearing your news so please stay in touch. I have been reliably informed that some of you have been sending txts to my zambia number and I can tell you that I receive none of them. I don't know why. Thank you so much to those of you that have sent msgs. If you do want to txt me, I can actually receive txts on my aussie number.

Secondly, I am absolutely exhausted. It's been busy (see below :-)) and I am just coming off a fairly intense on-call shift. Our small hospital is full and at least 3 of the patients are at ICU level (except of course we don't really have any ICU equipment). It sometimes gets a bit overwhelming because it's often so futile due to lack of resources and the diseases themselves (HIV is a horrible illness). I must admit that before I managed to sit down to write this I had to debrief a bit with a couple of the other docs to let out my frustrations. I regularly need to seek strength and encouragement from God to keep doing the work and for that reason I am so thankful for the environment and people that surround me.

Thirdly, I can't shake this viral infection I have ... grrr

Now that I have got that all out, I dont want you to think that I am not happy or enjoying myself because I am loving every bit of this journey and know that it will cause me to grow. I am so lucky to be here and experience some of the things I have. So here goes at filling in the last 2 weeks.

Everything turned pretty topsy-turvy when the group from the states arrived because my regular schedule disintegrated, which I'm not complaining about at all. We have another church in a quieter part of Lusaka with quite large grounds and a retreat centre and this is where the group stayed. I still had some commitments with the hospital so I was going back and forth between the two places. The other church (St. Mary's in Kinyama) is so much more peaceful and the group that are here are brilliant. The group includes a couple in there 70's that moved to the US from Egypt 50 years ago and have literally travelled the entire world doing medical and mission work. It has been amazing learning from them.

Like I said last time, we travelled by road to Congo for 5 days of mission there and the experience was something none of us will ever forget. One of the local drivers from the church drove our little mini-bus the 8 hours to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Unfortunately the minibus was pretty full so three of us took public transport (a coach and then a taxi) and met the others at the border. Crossing the border was a 3 hour process but it all went through fine in the end thank God. Another ride in the minibus (another taxi for us) and we were at St. Mark's Church in Congo greeted by the most amazing singing voices.

Congo is a fascinating place. It has been ravaged by war and poor government; apparently there was some fighting in the north while we were there but we didn't notice and only realised when we got back to Lusaka. The infrastructure is poor and systems are hard to work with, but the people are absolutely amazing and the spirit in the place is like nothing I've ever seen before. The people are generally very intelligent and deep thinkers. As with the rest of Africa, there are hundreds of languages but the najority speak Swahili and/or French, so I had to dig out my schoolboy French to try and get by. The other the thing is that they are brilliant singers, with amazing voices and such a deep spirit in them. Easily my favourite person was one of the local priests Fr. Paul, who reminded me of Rafiki from the Lion King. He's so animated and lively and has a fantastic voice and a palpable love for God and his congregation.

We have five churches in Congo served by four Congolese priests. The main church is where we stayed and had the best infrastructure of them all. We have a generator, but can only run it 1 or 2 evenings per week. We have a cistern at the edge of the grounds that is fed water from the town, and if the generator is working well we can pump water into a tank to have running water, if not we have to gather it with a bucket. All our cooking is done on charcoal fire. It was such a great few days and I really hope I get to go back soon. We spent a lot of time doing various services and visiting people in the area and getting to know the group there. There was also some medical mission to be done because the church does not have a clinic there so whenever they hear that there is a doctor, people appear from all over to get attention.

Ok.. now I have to apologise if this post seems a little disjointed, it's just that I keep getting called away to other things so it's been a work in progress. I'd better try and finish it quickly :-)

So, once we were back from Congo, there were yet more exciting things to do. We went on an outreach trip to one of the other churches here in Zambia, which is in the middle of a sprawling village/farming community about 1 hour from the edge of Lusaka on a potholed dirt road. Obviously the drive was quite an experience but when we got there it was absolutely beautiful with cotton fields and huge centuries-old trees and a wonderful congregation of people. We set up a clinic there for the day as well, and thankfully a couple of other girls had come across from the states, one of whom had just finished med school so that eased the patient load just a bit.

Alright, I think this post is quite long enough now. Tomorrow we're going down to Livingstone for a little holiday to see the falls and hopefully walk with lions :-)

It has been such a brilliant time so far and I am so grateful for all the spiritual growth, but it actually makes me miss you all so much. I wish you were all here to share this amazing place and experience.

God bless