Day 55

It’s getting to be our final days in Zambia, and we are really left with almost nothing to do. All of us have been wrapping up our final reports and assignments. Chris and I completely finished our case study on lead poisoning (except for further editing) today, it will really be exciting if we can actually get this paper published back in the US. One of the deans of the University of Zambia School of Medicine said that he would co-author the paper with us, so we might actually have a chance to get the paper published by a reputable source.

Jess and Mo will be presenting their data tomorrow from the project they have been working on all summer at the University of Zambia Department of Population Studies (basically reviewing an epidemiology short course given to employees of various organizations throughout Zambia).

Today we went with Hims to the Kalimba Reptile Park, about 30 minutes away from our house in Lusaka. The drive was almost completely over a dirt road…where I thought we were going to flip over several times.  Thankfully, we did arrive safely to the park where we spent the next few hours looking at several of Africa’s most dangerous reptiles. They had extremely large pythons that grow to be over 7 meters!! We saw a couple of spitting cobras that were really unfriendly. I think in particular they hated me. Everywhere I moved their heads followed and they continually spit venom at me…luckily there was a large piece of glass separating us. We saw a variety of snakes that are common throughout southern Africa. Then we discovered how large fully-grown crocodiles could actually be. They were ENORMOUS and very obese. The oldest one was over 60 years old and over 1.2 tons!! And there was only a small chain-link fence separating this beast from us…basically if it had wanted to attack us…we would now be dead.

There is not really much else to do this week, I will probably be spending most of my time reading (I just started The Lord of the Rings series…I have read SO MANY books this summer, it’s nice to be able to read for pleasure and not for school). Anyway, that’s all for now…I am so excited for the safari!!

Jenn

Day 53

Over the past week our objective on the community medicine rotation was to look into occupational health hazards. We visited a sewage plant, a water treatment plant, a dump, and a housing complex under construction. It was overall a pretty smelly week. The sewage plant was awful, I struggled to breathe most of the time because of the strong odor. To make it even better there was poop all over the ground…I can definitely see how these employees health could be effected by their work…really hope cholera doesn’t ever become an issue because they would be the first to know.

At the dump there were over 50 people scavenging through the trash that we could see. This place was HUGE. It looked like a city of trash, and it was constantly steaming due to the decomposition. We didn’t stay long at the dump because whoever we were supposed to meet didn’t actually show up…so we just kind of wandered around until we got tired of the smell.

Here is the steaming dump site with some scavengers in the background.

The construction site was actually a waste of time. I have no idea how it relates to medicine in any way. All we did was get a tour of some houses that they were building and then we were sent on our way (because of the severe dustiness at the construction site, we had to wear rubber boots and hard hats...a pretty attractive combination!).

Super cute rubber boots, white coats, and construction hats!

A Baobab tree we saw today on our drive!! 

The rest of this week we spent editing our case study (almost finished!) and watching a ton of movies. On Sunday we spent our morning at the Mother Theresa Orphanage about 10 minutes away from our house. We played with the kids until they had to go to lunch. They taught us many different games and then we had a huge soccer match (in a very small area). The kids were probably between 4 and 14 in age. Some of them had obvious disabilities but nonetheless were some of the cutest kids I’ve ever seen. They were so excited to see us!! We brought them several bags of lollipops and began by passing them out to all of the children. Several of them did not realize that you have to take the plastic off the lollipops to reach the candy, it was pretty hilarious. I kept trying to help them take the plastic off, but they kept getting upset that I was “stealing” their candy. A few of them kept stashing the lollipops in their pockets and coming up again and again for more. Each time they came back we were like, “didn’t you already get one?” and they would just simply shake their head and smile with their hands outstretched for more. At one point I started taking pictures and several of the older girls surrounded me begging me if they could take a turn at picture taking. When I let them use it they began running around taking SO many pictures, it was actually very entertaining and I got a ton of good pictures out of it. Before leaving, we talked to one of the nuns in charge about donations. We want to come back later this week and donate some toys and school supplies to the kids.

Chris with one of the kids at the orphanage.

They told me their names several times but I seriously could not figure out what they said...

One of the kids that kept stealing all of the lollipops.

Chris playing with the kids in the background and Mo having some quality picture time with the kids in front.

He really wanted a picture with me! So cute :)

Sunday was also our last day at the Sunday market at the Arcades mall. This market consists of at least 50 stalls where they sell every kind of African souvenir (predominately wild animal figurines, pottery and paintings). I bought many things to give to everyone when I get back…and a few things for myself to remember Africa by. Well, the rest of this week we will be finishing up our final edits to the case study on lead poisoning, as well as going by the orphanage a few more times, going to a reptile park Tuesday, and saying our final goodbyes to Lusaka. We leave Saturday morning at 10am for our safari in Kafue National Park, about 4 hours northwest of Lusaka. Kafue National Park is one of the largest game parks in all of Africa and apparently the best one to see elephants, hippos and leopards. We are staying at the Leopard Lodge in small chalets (hut like hotel rooms). I seriously can’t wait for safari now that it’s getting even closer!!

Until next time,

Jenn 

Day 46

7/13/12

Friday the thirteenth!! Fortunately, nothing bad happened today.

Chris and I headed to the medical school early in the morning for our weekly meeting with the professor in charge of community medicine. For now the 6^th week in a row, he did not show up. I keep saying that we should stop going since he has yet to show up ever…but we continue to go just in case. Earlier in the week Jess and Mo (my housemates from Cornell) decided that we should host a dinner for some of our friends that we have met since being here. Jess and Mo invited several of the people that they work with at University of Zambia (called UNZA) and Chris and I invited several of the medical students. We soon found out that we had invited way too many people to actually cook for all of them in our tiny kitchen, so we changed our plans to go out for dinner instead. One of the students suggested a restaurant called Eviva, which was all Mediterranean food. Our table ended up being 12 people, though we had only made a reservation for 10, so we just grabbed extra chairs as more people showed up. It was a great dinner and a great way to get to know everyone better as well as meet a lot of new people.

Here is all of us at the restaurant!

7/15/12

Today was definitely an interesting experience. Francisca, one of the medical students on our rotation, invited us to go to church with her in the morning. This church was beautiful, it was built and currently run by American missionaries. It is an “international church” so there were many people from across the world there, but mostly Zambians. Nothing was too crazy about this church or the sermon, it seemed very “Americanized” so nothing really new. Following the service, we went back to the medical student dorms (called Ridgeway Campus), and we had meat pies for lunch. Another med student, Hims, met up with us and we then went to Mundawanga Zoo, right outside of Lusaka. It is interesting how I know Lusaka now. Everywhere we travel I’m like oh yes I have been through here before, or I know exactly how to get home from here, or where the nearest mall/restaurant is from here. I immediately recognized the zoo, it was something we had seen each time we traveled to Kafue, our 2^nd week here, and directly across from the Chilanga Cement plant, where we just went to last Monday. It was cool to finally see some real African wildlife. Everyone always imagines Africa like it is teeming with wild animals and a complete jungle. Maybe I’m just in the wrong area of Africa, but there is seriously none of that here. I have only seen monkeys in Livingstone right next to Victoria Falls, and other than that, nothing. I think that almost all wild animals in Africa are now completely concentrated in game parks, where the safaris take place.

At the zoo we saw many local African animals, zebras, lions (it was eating a cow leg…), monkeys, warthogs, porcupines, Bushpigs, etc.  Going to the zoo today just made me even more excited for our safari in less than 2 weeks now! It will really be exciting!! We are staying at Leopard Lodge in chalets, which are like little houses/huts, but are very nice. The lodge only has 8 chalets, and we will take 2 of them, so I’m sure we will get to know the other people very well by then end of our 3 days there. The safari package we chose will be a stay of 3 days and 3 nights, all meals included, and 2 activities per day. Activities include literally everything, game drives, night game drives, boat rides (to see the hippos and crocs!), fishing, sunset drives, and more!! It will be amazing! Everyone we have met here that has been on a safari absolutely loved it so it is getting even more exciting as it comes even closer to being time.

The church we attended with Francisca.

African warthog!!

Cute little monkey that was freaking out at us!

All of us at the zoo.

This was our dinner!

Chris, me and Francisca.

Some of the fish we had for dinner.

This is Nshima.

Anyways, after the zoo we went back to the dorms to have dinner. Francisca told us that she basically slaved away all day yesterday to cook us a traditional, local Zambian meal. To say the least, it was interesting. You basically start with Nshima, the Zambian staple that is ground corn meal and looks like mashed potatoes, and kind of tastes like nothing. Zambian people eat Nshima with literally every meal, it goes with everything you could possibly think of. To go with the Nshima, Francisca made us gravy (which is just like a vegetable sauce…I’m still not sure why they call it gravy), chicken (which looked very strange), 3 different types of dried/salted fish (kinda made me want to vomit looking at it…), cassava, baked black beans, and fried and boiled sweet potatoes. Here, you eat all your meals with your hands (at least if you’re eating with Zambians…which for us hasn’t been that often). It is very difficult to not make a huge mess doing this, the Zambian people truly have an art for this. I don’t understand how their hands remain clean when they are basically eating mashed potatoes and runny beans and gravy with their hands. Another African mystery to me. Also, when you eat Nshima you have to run it through your hands for a long time before you dip it into whatever you are eating it with. This is also a skill that takes time to master, because for the life of me I can’t roll it up into whatever shape that they do to eat. 

7/16/12

Today is the beginning of what is technically our last week on the community medicine rotation with the medical students. Next week the students will be studying every day for their end-of-term exam over everything we have learned in this rotation (I'm really unsure what they could be tested on...). Today we headed over to the Kafue Sugar plantations, about an hour outside of Lusaka. We received a complete tour of the facility and we were walked through the entire process of processing sugar from sugar cane. It was very interesting to see what really goes on in an industry. I had no idea how sugar came to be packaged like we find in the store, so it was very cool to see exactly what takes place. I’m unsure about what we are doing the rest of the week, but like Chris and I always say, “we just go with the flow” (we literally say this everyday…).

Me at the sugar plantation today.

The truck transporting sugar cane onto the conveyor belt.

The sugar factory, where they process sugar from sugar cane.

The group of us at the plantations today.

More to come!!

Jenn 

Day 42

Hello again!

I seriously can't believe it has been 42 days since I left the US! Time has gone by soooooo fast! Only about 2 weeks left until I head back home and then only another 3 weeks until I fly back to Cornell.

Lately, we have just been relaxing and working on our lead poisoning case study. Last week was slow because Monday and Tuesday were holidays, but we actually got a TON of work done on our case study. It is now around 20 pages long and if it turns out good in the end, we might get it published by Cornell or Dartmouth! That would be pretty cool to say I had one of my papers published (would definitely look good on the med school apps!!). We have also been watching a lot of movies and playing a lot of cards. We have almost exacerbated the amount of movies each one of us had saved on our laptops. We have been buying DVD’s off the side of the road, you can get very obviously pirated DVDs from people off the road. Watching the movies are pretty hilarious. Each one of them have subtitles that are completely off the actual words from the movie. It is literally the funniest thing ever. The movie would say something like “Hello, how are you?” and the subtitles would say “You there are good, no?” We are assuming that they had the English subtitles translated from Chinese or Japanese (since the DVD covers are in that language) and so it is very off. Chris recently taught us how to play Rummy and so we have been playing that non-stop whenever we are home.

Over the past week, we were supposed to be going with the medical students to various industrial sites around Lusaka. However, our community medicine coordinator was not very coordinated this week, and they had not informed most of the locations that we were supposed to be coming by. Monday we literally sat on a bench for 4 hours waiting for the medical school bus to take us to these industries. This kind of summarizes what we spend most of our time doing: waiting. Waiting for the medical students to show up, waiting for professors to show up, waiting for the bus to show up, waiting for the people we are supposed to meeting to show up…it has been a great experience for me to learn exactly what “patience” is.

Anyway, once the bus finally did arrive (claiming that the keys were lost over the past 4 hours and that is what we didn’t leave at 7:30am like we were supposed to…), we headed off to the Lafarge Cement plant. Once there, we waited another 2 hours for someone to speak with us…only to find out that the Minister of Finance was there and therefore we could not go in to speak with anyone today. So we headed back to the medical school. Tuesday we proceeded to do almost the exact same thing as Monday. We waited for only 3 hours for the bus this time, and then we headed off to TAP, a cement manufacture company, directly next to Lafarge Cement. Someone actually met with us here and proceeded to tell us that they primarily manufacture products with 90% cement and 10% asbestos (as in the asbestos that has been proven to cause lung cancer and has been banned from almost everywhere throughout the world…). To say the least it was interesting discussion, mostly with the medical students asking the man why the company still uses asbestos. Oh well, it is Africa after all. He told us that almost everywhere in Lusaka still uses asbestos so it didn’t matter that they still produced it (?) (wasn’t exactly sure where he was going with that one haha). After this man talked to us for a while we took a walking tour around the plant and the manufacturing facility. Following this, we headed off to the Taj Padmozi Hotel in Lusaka. We had a tour around the hotel grounds and looked at several rooms. The entire time we were there all of the medical students kept asking why they were even there….I mean they are medical students at medical school and getting a tour of a hotel. We were struggling to see a connection to medicine from walking around this hotel. One of the students, David, kept asking me why we weren’t seeing patients in the wards or in a clinic, and I completely agreed. I think that their community medicine rotation during the 6^th year really should be altered. It makes all of the med students feel like public health is a waste of time and I would have to agree after going through the program this week. I feel like I could design and organize their program better than what they have now, but again oh well…there isn’t really much that I can do.

After the hotel, we were told that all of the other industrial sites we were supposed to visit today and the rest of the week declined that we could come. Therefore, we had the rest of the week off and that’s why currently I am sitting at an internet café at the Arcades, a mall we often go to near our house.

Other than the severe disorganization of the community medicine program, everything else has been great. I am definitely enjoying myself and will be sad to leave Zambia in 3 weeks.

One great thing about Zambia has been meeting new people from across the world. When Jess and Mo went to Livingstone they stayed in a hostel where they met several people from the UK. Once back in Lusaka they happened to run into the same people again and exchanged numbers. So yesterday, we all met up with them. Their names were Jack and Habib, and they just graduated from Lancaster University in the UK. Habib is actually from India originally but grew up in Lusaka. So yesterday they picked us up from the Italian Hospital and we spent the day at Habib’s ranch right outside of Lusaka. It was a really relaxing afternoon and his ranch was very nice. He told us that he has a few ostriches running around the ranch, so were really hoping to catch a glimpse of one of them. After having lunch and hanging out at the ranch, we went home for a few hours and then went out to dinner with Jack and Habib. I really wish we had met them sooner because they are both leaving this week. Jack left this morning to go back to the UK before he moves to Boston in august (he already promised us that he is going to come up to Cornell to visit, but I may be able to meet up with him in Boston seeing how my sister, Jessica, just moved there) and Habib is leaving for Dubai on Friday.

Well that’s really all for now, Chris wants to leave this internet café so he is forcing me to get off the computer haha

Until next time,

Jenn

Day 31

Hello everyone!
Currently writing from an internet cafe in Manda Hill Mall (it basically looks like Baybrook Mall in Houston). So this Monday and Tuesday are public holidays in Zambia, so no school or work! Jess and Mohit left yesterday to go to Livingstone to check out Victoria Falls for the holiday. They will probably get to see a lot more than we did, seeing how they won't be conducting surveys at clinics and schools for the week. Anyway, for the next couple of days Chris and I are basically just going to be lazy. Our only plans are to work on the case study on lead poisoning and to watch the final match of the EuroCup tonight (not sure who I'm cheering for now that Germany is out). More updates to come!

We have officially been in Africa for 1 month now!

Jenn