Bwanji, I guess its been a while since my last posting- apologies, its been a crazy time. To start from where I left off last time…. My supervisor from Canada was here, which meant that I had a very hectic and interesting week! I spent Monday sitting in on a meeting at the Canadian High Commission with him- very intriguing. Basically, every time the partner NGO comes thru Zambia (especially because they are CIDA funded), they stop to meet some contacts at the Commission to get an update on Canada’s role in the local health scene in Zambia. It was a [View Full Entry]

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Written October 25th, 2009) Greetings all! I am almost at the 5-month mark, meaning I have 3 months left. As the Zambians say “Ahhhhhhh! Eeesh!” It’s gone by incredibly quickly. This week has been both frustrating and interesting. The petrol shortage continues, and I am no longer finding the whole thing funny, now that the price of taxis has gone up. Also, when I do take the bus, it takes (and I am by no means exaggerating) 2 hours to get anywhere. The traffic is so bad because the line-ups for petrol are insane and can block an entire stretch of [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, It is sooooooooooooo hot. Today, by 9am it was already 36 C. I sure miss that great Canadian fall weather! I have spoken to some of you, and have heard several complaints about the cold in Canada. I am envious! The heat is not so awesome in a landlocked country where no air conditioning exists and you have to pay considerable amounts of money to use hotel swimming pools. Also, wearing shorts is not really an option- I already receive too much unwanted attention from men wearing jeans and a t-shirt. Originally, I had thought that Thanksgiving was going [View Full Entry]

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Written: Wednesday, October 07, 2009 There and back again Hey Everyone! Surprise! I was in the UK for 10 days. No one knew I was going except for my lovely aunt “Sophie” who kindly engineered the whole thing. I went to the UK to attend my grandfather’s memorial service. It was definitely time for a break from the whole Zambia scene. I was getting frustrated and needed a change for a while. Tom and his mother drove me to the airport at 6am. As I sat in the departures lounge, I began to get a knot in my stomach. I had [View Full Entry]

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(Written Friday, Sept 4, 2009) Mwalyeni bwino! (this is a common greeting in Bemba- it means “Are you eating well?” And in turn, you respond “kulila mulelya” which means “provided that you are eating well!”) Hence, I hope you are all eating well! I know I am. On a more interesting note I am beginning to lose my sanity a bit. Well, not really, but I definitely need a break from Lusaka. I was hoping to get to a town called Siavonga this weekend but that didn’t really work out. Dan was going to come with me but he has things [View Full Entry]

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Muli bwanji! (That’s Nyanja for hello and how are you?) I have been very skimpy on the photographs, so I am trying to post more of them for everyone- this may prove to be difficult because the internet connection here is just something else. I will try though! This past week was a lot better for me. I’ve made a lot of progress with regards to my thesis. One of the major stakeholders called me and wanted me to meet with her, which I gladly did. I got a lot of feedback and spent most of the week working on perfecting [View Full Entry]

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I hope everyone’s week was much better than mine! This week was really brutal. On Tuesday, I found out by e-mail that my grandfather (who lives in the U.K.) passed away. Although this wasn’t unexpected, it really took a toll on me and I wasn’t really able to function for the rest of the day. I felt really terrible- my family had gone to the U.K. to help out and I was unable to do anything. I didn’t hear anything more from my family until I skyped mum on Sunday. All in all- not so fun. The bad vibes continued for [View Full Entry]

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Hi Everyone, I am sick…again! My bladder infection came back to haunt me on Friday night…and it came with a vengeance. Luckily, the clinic that I went to last time is open 24 hours. I gave another urine sample and was told that my original infection never actually went away, so this time round I had to be given more antibiotics AND an injection. What fun.So…this pretty much spoiled the plans I had this weekend to host a braii (party) for my birthday. I have given up on doing anything to celebrate and am just going to accept my 21st birthday [View Full Entry]

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Hello hello Everyone, Life in Zambia continues. I had the worst birthday ever! Seriously, I had made plans to have a small party on the weekend and maybe go out for dinner on Wednesday, but no. Clearly the universe hates me because I woke up with a bladder infection and abnormally coloured urine. It was a wonderful 21st birthday gift. Tom knew a good hospital, so he took me there and I payed 40$ for the fastest medical care known to man and some seriously strong antiobiotics. While this seemed relatively inexpensive for health care I realized that a lot of [View Full Entry]

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Bonjour all, I can’t believe it’s the end of July already! Absolutely crazy. That means I’ve been here almost 2 months! Work has been busy- I am trying to finish up a grant proposal that is due on Aug 1st, but we want to email it in Thursday. Its going well, except the budget portion (its math…go figure). I’m not sure what I will be working on after this- I’ll probably have to find myself another project- I will probably end up working in the organization’s database a bit. Its been a very frustrating process but I have learned a lot [View Full Entry]

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