May madness

Back into work at Kalene after a 4 week holiday, it's been busy!

Last week Friday I went on a rural health centre visit.


The road there, and a mother with child standing in front of the health centre.


Please step into my office... the consulting room. Frustratingly, the clinic was out of stock of almost everything helpful, which made my job difficult!


Kids outside

Sachibondu

On my way back from Lusaka by road, I stopped at Sachibondu bible school for 4 days to spend time with Ruth Wallis and see the rural health clinic that she runs.

Ruth has worked in Zambia for more than 40 years, an inspiration!


Sachibondu is stationed beside a small lake and has a lovely community feel to it. I enjoyed my time there.

That holiday I had...

Seems long ago already! I spent a lovely 3 weeks in South Africa doing very little, which was just as I planned!


Climbed Table Mountain twice

Made the top by sunset and spent the night

Enjoyed the beach, and some trick photography

A happy ending


Zwao, a 2 year old on his day of discharge after 9 months in hospital, 2 major operations, and 13 rounds of chemotherapy.

Mens ward has been dealing with a lot of orthopedics lately... at one point I had 6 patients in traction! These three boys have fractured femurs. Some creativity is required for traction weights at times.


This man fractured his leg 2 years ago!! Yes, that IS the tibia bone sticking out.


Chris and Emma Houlden have now arrived from the UK, and Rachel Rodgers from Canada. I took them to the village to visit some friends from church for a bit of a cultural experience.


Peter and Astrida Kafweku (a.k.a. "Smiley Lady") were wonderful hosts. Chris had a go at pounding cassava, much to the locals delight (not a mans job!).


We enjoyed a meal of nshima and a selection of delicious relishes.


One Friday afternoon we visited the local school sports day. We arrived in time for the girls high jump. No landing mat! So obviously a different jumping technique is adopted.


Mamisa stayed with me for the first part of this year, which meant regular meals of nshima. Here she is cooking flying ants, which are abundant during heavy rains, and mixing the nshima as they traditionally do with the help of the legs.


The girls youth group has relaunched with great success, we've almost 80 names on the register and an average of about 40 girls coming each Tuesday afternoon.


I end this blog with a picture to go with a recent favourite quote of what Africa has to offer... "insects for the visually impaired". This man kindly brought this oversized grub onto the ward for us to see. (And no, the don't eat them... although I'm sure Bear Grylls would...)

Cute kids from childrens ward. Zwao is undergoing chemotherapy each week.


This man is half my weight!! Another case of TB.


Bonny was bitten by a snake. Snake bites are very painful but complications like this one are relatively unusual. Once the wound is granulating nicely he will undergo a skin graft.


Katendi had a mystery illness. He was admitted for many weeks with anemia of unknown cause. One day he took a turn for the worst and his heart rate dropped to 20bpm before stopping altogether. We assume he had a massive MI.


The latest intake of enrolled nursing students have just completed their placement on my ward.


Team "nsañu wanyi" - no problem. These girls are a huge talent at ultimate frisbee, the three on the right have all moved to go to school in other areas so we are missing them.


Mamisa has been keeping me company since my housemates left at the end of last year, which gives her a good chance to work on her maths and English. Another friend Mariah visits often and we enjoy nshima together. I'm also dog-sitting Rafiki for the Woodfields while they are away.


A baby chameleon! I was so stoked to find this cute little critter.

Happy New Year!

I saw the new year in with the Harvesters sports outreach group in my home. What a fun night! Here's a snippet of some of the excitement...

Quite a Kiwi Christmas

The last few weeks we've had a team of 13 people from Christchurch NZ join us.


Every visitor gets a tour up Kalene hill and the compulsory jumping shot on top. We climbed up on Christmas day.


They have been helping with the building project and other odd bits, as well as running a few children programs.



They boosted numbers for our Boxing day Christmas celebrations with the expat community. All sorts of delicious treats were created for a potluck lunch, then a dessert and gift giving session in the evening.


In the afternoon we went for a walk in the village where there were plenty of great photo opportunities for the visitors.

The boys had a go at drawing water, and we stopped at an abandoned shop which translates "he who eats slowly is satisfied" grocery.


The NZ team have been helping out with the "Harvesters" sports outreach group while they've been here too. This day we had an away day / end of year celebration and gave the team members shirts we had made.


At the end of the day, the youth packed into the landcruiser as usual and sung all the way home. This movie clip captures it nicely, although it's still something you have to experience in real life!

Back at the hospital...


The week before Christmas we had to evacuate all the wards for 2 hours while they were sprayed with mosquito insecticide. Thankfully no emergencies happened in that time!


George went home the week before Christmas, so I had him and the other boys who were patients on my ward to my house to watch a movie. It was interesting getting them there, as only one of them could actually walk normally. One of them, Kahilu, is paralyzed after breaking his back falling from a mango tree.



Eurnice is a 12 year old girl who has been in hospital since July. She's come close to death several times. She has a bad strain of TB, requiring more than the standard treatment, then caught measles, followed by chicken pox, and a pleural effusion requiring a chest drain. She spent a few weeks on mens ward as it was the only ward with a room to isolate her. In the picture on the right she's eating mangoes she's been out to pick, and is carrying some on her head for later. Gorgeous!


Christmas Eve we went into the hospital to sing carols. As we were singing, a snake crawled out of the mens ward drain and was promptly beaten to death. Very exciting for all the visitors!


No blog is complete without a gruesome pic... here's Emmanuel and his gangrenous foot, which was cut off last week. Unfortunately it's the second foot it's happened to, for no apparent reason.