Blogs from Livingstone, Zambia, Africa - page 18

Monday was back to projects. And guess what??? We have wheat bread at the house now! Yay! Better for toast! Monday morning I was at Linda Clinic. At the clinics we’re only in the outpatient area so we don’t really see any of the wards with the sick people. I want to see if I can shadow a clinical officer one day to get the real experience. In the afternoon I was at Maramba Old People’s Home for the first time. It isn’t the nicest place in the world, and the rooms are small, but it isn’t bad and there are even trees for shade so that the residents can sit outside. Its capacity is 40 and it’s funded by government grants and donations. It is for old people who don’t have any family members left, ... read more

I'm really glad I'm doing this project! It's a good organization, well-organized, and it's good to help out where help is really needed! So Wednesday I was at Linda Clinic again. And it was baby day! Once a week each clinic has baby day where the mothers bring their under 5 children to the clinic to get weighed and immunized. Each baby is supposed to get weighed every month. There were 3 volunteers at the clinic so I got to help with the babies while the others took vitals of the other patients. At first I was just recording and graphing but then I actually got to weight the babies! The scale is essentially a bag hanging from the kind of scale that you would hang a bag of fruit on to weigh it. We took ... read more

9 Oct - a enjoy a long lie while most of the others go on an early morning game drive / BIRD spotting. Another new experience today, a river border crossing (my border crossings during my travels have now included by plane, truck, train, foot and boat!). We need to get off Priscilla and walk onto a small ferry to cross the Zambezi leaving Botswana behind and entering Zambia. There's not really any queuing system for Priscilla and only two lorries can get on per trip however, we eventually all get over, go through the visa rigmarole and it still only takes 3 hours...there's been worse border crossings, believe me. Can't believe I'm in ZAMBIA, sounds so exotic and as we drive through the town of Livingstone, I think of home! The Zambezi Waterfront Campsite is ... read more

The decision to go to Africa was one which came to me all of a sudden. In the early stages of our relationship, Aleks and I had agreed to a cruise in the Caribbean. As our relationship grew deeper and more meaningful we decided that marriage should follow and that this cruise would act as a sort of honeymoon for us. The cruise however was not the logistical simplicity that I had foreseen. While it would cost Aleks about fifteen hundred dollars to fly to the start point, it would cost me approximately the same as well, though I was about a third of the distance away. Also this inexpensive cruise which looked at first to be a great bargain would carry with it some unforeseen costs. Lodging on the cruise would be cheap but ... read more

I'm in Africa! My 6th continent! Only Antarctica left... :) I flew from India through Dubai. In Kolkata at the gate they had a phone where you could make local calls for free so I got to call my dad at the hotel and let him know that I made it. In Dubai I slept for a while on the floor and ate some food. Emirates Airlines has a restaurant where depending on how long your stopover is you can get a snack or meal or multiple meals for free. So I got a snack. In Jo'burg I was basically just there for the night. I was tired from not sleeping much on the plane so I just hung out in the afternoon, talked to some of the other people there, and then went to bed ... read more