Happy belated Canada Day!

Hi Everyone,

I FEEL TERRIBLE. I completely forgot that today was Canada Day until about noon. Epic fail.
So…Happy Canada Day everyone!
It’s been absolutely FREEZING here. Well, for Zambian standards anyways- about 10 C. My office has windows on almost all sides, and the windows don’t close, so I’ve spent the last day freezing in my summer office clothing, enjoying the cold breeze as it drifts into the room, icing up my fingers as they type away furiously at my keyboard. I gave up today, walked home and grabbed my jeans and a jacket, I was too cold to care about office attire.
As I walked home today to get my jacket, I had a bit of an adventure. There’s this shortcut that you can take to get into my compound. You have to go through a property that has an animal hospital and a gardening centre, and you can enter from a small gate at the back of the courtyard. Anyways, everyday that I take this shortcut the guys that work at the gardening centre (which looks like a small enclosure surrounded by shrubs and plants) wave and say hi to me. Today, as I was walking home they asked me if I had had lunch yet and when I said no, they invited me to eat beef and nshima with them. I decided I had nothing to lose and went into the garden centre (which turned out to be more like a secret garden- it was this huge yard filled with all kinds of plants). One of the men started cooking and the others invited me to join them in several rounds of Crazy 8s (the rules, I learned, are quite different here and everyone likes to make the game very dramatic). I ended up having a very good time, and the gardeners liked that they were able to beat the muzungu at almost every round. Needless to say, I made some new friends today.
Last Friday, I went to the Teaching Hospital (the largest in the country) to meet with my placement supervisor who fills a very important position there (we’ll call her Nancy). I should take a moment here to say just how awesome Nancy is. There is nothing this woman doesn’t do! She’s probably one of my heroes. Nancy’s written paper son tons of stuff in public medicine, is a nurse and administrator, has 5 kids, is married and chairs all kinds of health policy committees, she’s also on the board for my NGO. I went into her office and found that there were others waiting to see her. I was eventually whisked into her office, and despite the fact that she clearly had a ton of things to do, she was incredibly calm (I should take a leaf out of her book). After our meeting, I wandered around the hospital a bit. I noticed that there were lots of people sitting out on the lawn, and wondered why, until I realized that they were patients. This realization hit me very hard, like a slap in the face. I won’t lie, I live and work in a nice end of town, and I am not exposed to some of the devastating realities that this country faces. Certainly, poverty and illness exist in my neighbourhood, but you don’t see it on the same level. 20% of this city is infected with HIV/AIDS (that’s a fact) but no one talks about it as something that affects them personally. It affects everyone and yet if you didn’t know any better, you wouldn’t realize that it existed here. This is something that I find quite fascinating- after talking to some people I volunteer with, I have come to believe that it might be a coping strategy for some, and a way to escape stigma. Anyways, the Hospital, while the “it” place for medicine in the country, is notoriously understaffed and undersupplied. This is terrifying, as Zambia has a slew of national health crises, from malaria, to HIV/AIDS, TB, etc. Janice- my roommate’s girlfriend works in the pediatrics department there, and I have learned the low-down about the Hospital…for instance, the power goes out a lot here and the hospital doesn’t have a generator. People have died because of this.
My weekend was quite eventful. On the last Saturday of every month, the Dutch Reform Church hosts a great market. I met some Americans from Iowa and Alabama who live quite close to me. They are here for 3 weeks to do some work at my NGO, so I invited them to come along with me. The market was fun, and I got to enjoy some delicious sesame noodles with groundnuts and greens. Delicious. I also found the courage to head downtown again- this time with a Zambian that I’ve befriended (we’ll call him Tom). I noticed that as long as you are with a local, no one looks twice at you. I met up with Tom at one of the major bus terminals in town. While I was waiting for him, this man came up to me with his baby and was like “Look! A Muzungu!”. I asked if I was the first muzungu that the baby had ever seen and when he said yes, I did a little curtsey and said I was honoured.
Tom ended up showing me his end of town, which is quite far from where I live. His family has a nice house on a quiet road, and I was invited for nshima, chicken and greens. I ended up having a good talk with his older sister who is back for the 1st time in 2 years from Australia. I have noticed that after rooming with 2 guys, and having predominantly male coworkers and acquaintances, it was good to talk to another female for a change.
This week has consisted of me frantically trying to pull together a research proposal. I don’t have the energy to write a lot about it right now, but I have an important meeting coming up next week with my supervisor and a potential collaborator on the project. Fingers crossed that it works out.

---

---