Day 6

So today I sat in lecture from 8:30am until 5pm...basically it was a LONG day. I was literally falling asleep learning about methods of calculating odds ratios for populations with malaria..haha. Some of the medical students were literally passed out on their notebooks in front of them. The lectures were not the most exciting in the entire world, but they were still quite interesting and important to know and understand for field work. I got to walk around the hospital more today and Chris (my partner from Cornell for the summer) and I ate lunch in the hospital cafeteria. I forgot to bring my camera today but I will have it tomorrow!! And I promise pictures will be up soon!

One really funny thing that keeps happening to me is that EVERYONE asks if I am related to the president!!! Obviously having the last name "Bush" I have gone my whole life being asked that same questions, however EVERYONE asks me here! The first occurrence of this was actually when I was in NY at JFK airport checking my baggage. The woman at the counter asked for my passport and upon looking at it, looked up at me with the most shocked expression ever. She was like, "Are you THE Jennifer Bush?!?!?!?!?!" I wish I had played along with it a little bit, but instead I just laughed and was like nope, sorry. She was VERY VERY disappointed to say the least. Anna (one of the other girls on the trip from Cornell) told me I should have said I was so that she would bump me to first class or something...that would have definitely made my 14 hour flight better!! Anyway, yesterday at the beginning of the lectures I had to introduce myself in front of the class (like 40 people). After this every student that came up to me was like, "WHAT?? YOUR LAST NAME IS BUSH!!! YOU ARE FROM TEXAS?????? YOU MUST BE RELATED TO THE PRESIDENT EVEN IF YOU SAY YOU AREN'T!!!" Today one student (who I forgot his name because African names are VERY hard to pronounce, let alone remember..haha) finally approached me and was like "the whole class has been discussing whether you are related to the old president or not," then he preceded to tell the rest of the students that I wasn't.

We met another student today named Hims (he told us to call him that cause we actually couldn't pronounce his real name). He talked with us for about an hour during break and then walked us through the hospital showing us around. Then later he asked us if we wanted to join him this saturday night to go to a poetry reading that the med students put on every other weekend. I really want to go but we already have plans this weekend..just found out that we are taking a 5 hour bus ride north to Kitwe in order to interview an expert on lead poisoning for our case study. Oh well..Hims told us that we could join him for the next poetry reading in 2 weeks.

So for the past week, we have all been getting around the city by being driven by Sailas, the Italian Orthopedic Hospital's hired driver. It has been really nice to have someone to drive you around wherever and whenever you need to go somewhere because many of the streets around Lusaka are not safe. Chris and I might start walking to the medical center in the mornings to go to lecture as it is really only a 15 minute walk from where we live..but for now Sailas is readily available and he is very friendly! Chris took this picture of me and the car Sailas drives us around in (on the left side of the road I might add..), THE CUTEST CAR EVER!!!

So far everyone I have met in Zambia is SO nice and friendly! I had heard this before I came that this was because Zambia a landlocked country and so in the past they had to be extra friendly to all the countries around them in order to get supplies and such! Well, I can certainly say they are super friendly!

Until next time,
Jenn