|
|
|
First Adventures as a Doc in Zambia!
 After a 40 hour journey, I arrived
on Tuesday in Mfuwe near South Luangwa National Park in Zambia to be the
doctor for the Luangwa Safari Association for three months. I'm
staying at Flatdogs Camp (see
www.flatdogscamp.com) in a lovely setting on the banks of the South
Luangwa River. A “flatdog” is a crocodile, and indeed big crocs and
hundreds of hippos hang out in the river or on its sandy banks.
 The first night, I was awakened from my jet-lagged slumber
at 3:00am by an enormous crashing noise just outside my thatch roofed stucco
hut. What to my sleepy wondering eyes appeared but a herd of elephants
eating my bushes and trees. Elephants are very noisy eaters -- lots of
crashing and tearing of tree limbs. I was awake enough to appreciate
how amazing it was to be kneeling on my bed watching elephants calmly graze
just feet away. They "talk" to each other with a wonderful almost
palpable low rumbling sound that is remarkable to hear. Moms and
babies snacked away for two hours when I finally fell back asleep to the
sounds of hippos groaning, hyenas whooping and lions roaring (I'm not making
this up -- just another Tuesday night in Africa!). The "ellies" also
make walking about difficult since they are quite big and can be rather
grumpy which makes for a worrisome combination. The baboons and vervet
monkeys hang around camp looking for an easy meal to steal, but they don't
seem to bother anyone.
 My little house here is not exactly the Ritz, but it does
have indoor plumbing and comes with two "house men" who clean, do my laundry
every day, make a fire in the boiler to heat water for my shower in the
morning, and tell me if it's safe to walk to the restaurant just down the
road.
 Though I miss Bill, I'm not
without housemates here. I have a cute little frog that comes out at
night and sits on my glasses case in the bathroom. The first night two
geckos came running out of my sink when I turned the water on. I've
heard two different “cobra in the bathroom" stories now. The second
one involved a cobra in the toilet bowl at one of the lodges. They
apparently like to live in the septic tank. Gives using the toilet a
whole new element of danger!
 I did have to stop in Lusaka (the capitol) for a day to
have my "documents" (which meant every diploma or certificate I have ever
earned) copied in triplicate and approved at the Medical Council of Zambia.
I'm the first American doc they've had in the Valley, so I was worried I
would have problems. However, Mr. Banda, the head honcho said,
"American documents are fine. After all you were a British colony
too!!"
 The Dutch doctor on her third stint here has overlapped
with me for a week to show me around. Basically we're on call 24/7 for
guests and staff of all the safari lodges in the valley. We also
volunteer at the local, Kakumbi Rural Health Center - a post that normally
would be staffed by nurses alone. The health center has six "beds" to
keep ill patients for a couple of days. Severely injured patients
(like victims of lion or croc attacks) and very ill patients are referred to
Kamoto Hospital with 62 beds and one doctor one hour drive away.
Apparently the Congolese doctor there is gone much of the time on
administrative duties, so the hospital is currently "run" by a second year
German medical student with the Zambian staff. The nurses are
remarkably good for the equipment and training they have, though in the end
most patients get treated for the top two or three bad things they could
have all at once since there is no lab or x-ray of any sort here.
 Malaria tops the list of illnesses, and seeing a few
malaria patients makes me take my Malarone even more faithfully!!
Sadly, the HIV rate here is 20% of the population -- just think of
one-in-five of your friends or family having a fatal disease for which they
don't yet have medicine here, though thankfully the anti-retroviral drugs
and HIV tests are supposedly on their way.
 The biggest adventure so far may be driving the "shining
chariot" of a beat-up Toyota 4WD pickup that passes for the doctor's
vehicle. When I pointed out how much nicer the cars are that everyone
else drives, someone said that for once the doctor has the crummiest car!
Apparently the truck has never been the same since one of the doctors hit a
hippo at high speed -- bad for the hippo, the doctor, and most especially
the truck. I've made friends with Patrick the mechanic and expect to
be making frequent pilgrimages to his shrine of truck healing.
 So I've been here 4 days now and I'm settling in.
I've met hundreds of people it seems, and all have been very welcoming and
nice. I'm learning to sleep through the elephants midnight snacking,
though a hippo woke me up last night -- it's always something!! I'm thinking
I'll very much enjoy my time here. It’s already a grand adventure, and
I'm just getting started!!
I
hope you can enjoy my Zambian adventure along with me!!
|
