Is There a Doctor in the Bush?

I made a few house calls when I worked on Orcas, but none were quite like those here in the bush where I’m expected to dash off to see my safari patients wherever they might be.  I am “on call” here 24 hours a day for my entire three-month posting, though fortunately night and after-hours requests to see me are rare.  My first chance for a bush camp call came early in my stay one evening after the twelve-hour tropical night had descended on the Valley.  I’m afraid I may have irreparably spoiled any chance I had for “Jungle Doctor of the Year” when I meekly requested the lodge send someone to pick me up because I hadn’t visited this lodge last time and  knew getting there required fording a river.  Now if I had known the camp would send their lunatic white Zambian mechanic as my chauffeur, I might have just risked driving myself.  Instead Andrek came racing to Flatdogs in a rickety old Land Rover missing its top, and off we careened through the cool night air bouncing over potholes, revving through the sandy river bottom to splash through the river then zooming too fast along the bank on the other side.  I needed some deep breaths to recover before I could begin suturing the deep cut on the face of the little South African girl after that wild ride.  I was happily able to reclaim some intrepid jungle doctor points the next time the lodge called by driving myself over the potholes, across the sand, through the river, up the steep bank and teetering on the “road” with only two feet of undercut dirt between me and the hippos and crocs in the Luangwa River thirty feet below.

On two occasions, tourists at more distant lodges have needed my services, so I’ve loaded up my rattling chitty and headed off 25 miles over impressively bad potholed dirt roads through the park to their aid.  The road to Nsefu Camp requires not one but two river fords then exciting two handed driving around washouts and potholes and revving down sandy stretches.  On my first trip, I came upon a mother and her young son balancing on their heads sacks of mealy meal, the ground maize used to make their dietary staple, nshima (which reminds me of grits left to cook too long).  I stopped to give them a lift, and I could barely heft the 50-pound sacks they blithely removed from their heads to load into the back of the car.  They were quite grateful when I delivered them to their village five miles further along the track.