Monday Night Fever!

Election fever has hit Zimbabwe in a big way this week! Although it has probably been like this most of the month but I’ve been out and about in the sticks so it hasn’t been as obvious. For those that don’t know this is the first vote since the removal of Robert Mugabe last November. Things are tense here in the capital, tempers are flaring but nothing has boiled over just yet, although it’s still early!

It’s been pretty amazing to be here in Harare to witness it all, campaigners out in huge groups – singing, dancing and blaring tunes from the back of trucks while blasting vuvuzelas! A bit different to what we’re used to at home! Dorothy, one of my hosts this week (as well as the lovely Jackie, who helped me navigate the crazy minibuses!), wanted to bring me to a rally last night on our way home – one of the specific events Western governments tell you to avoid if you’re here during election time but little things like that wouldn’t stop Dorothy (if you met her, you’d get it)!

We didn’t stay long after being told that if we weren’t Zanu PF, our car would be picked clean because we were on their turf and especially due to having me (a white person) with her. If you’re white you’re rich (if only they knew, they are more than welcome to my Vaseline, plastic sun glasses and 10 year old iPod which hasn’t had a new song on it since 2007 if they do rob me) and fair game in certain areas around the city. Needless to say, we didn't stick around!😅 Tensions are understandably high. Zimbabwe’s economy is in tatters, I’ve never seen unemployment like it. Hundreds of people just sitting on the side of the street daily because it’s better than sitting in their crowded apartment - there can be 10-12 people all sleeping in one room. There are no repairs or upkeep of the roads. They say here that if you see someone driving in a straight line then you should be worried as zig-zagging to avoid the worst potholes is the norm. There are huge queues outside of banks everyday to try to get some Zim dollars as there is still a huge shortage. Investment in health care is non-existent. You can feel the need for change in the air. Hundreds of Zimbabweans, including Dorothy who is a nurse and lived in the UK for 20 years, have come home. They fled in the 90’s when things were starting to get really bad and this is the first opportunity for real change there has been in almost 30 years so they have moved home, registered to vote and are ready for whatever challenges the result of this election brings.

With Jackie & her mam who I stayed with for part of this week

Rigging, coups, intimidation and dictatorships are issues seen in a lot of African countries. Most of these problems stem from colonialism. When white Europeans got wind of the wildfire of rebellions, revolutions and demands for independence (starting gradually after WW2 & gaining in the 1960s) most decided to get out before things got too violent and cut their losses. That’s fine but they literally just got up and left. So you have a country that one day was ruled by whites, with curfews and no go areas for poor, black people and the next day with no hand over, no transfer, no nothing, seats of absolute power, luxury and wealth became available. So, of course, whatever prominent tribe or clan leader who had support (who could become soldiers and protection) slotted directly into those seats. He and his family went from not knowing where their next meal was coming from to having unimaginable wealth. This tends to go to people’s heads. Greed, self-interest, corruption and bribery soon followed.

Africa is a continent that has been ravaged by Europeans. During The Scramble for Africa in the late 1800s it was divided up (without consent or often knowledge of the natives) by Britain, France and Germany, among others, picked clean (of minerals, diamonds, crops, people) and devastated and they are still desperately trying to recover from the effects even now. One of the other issues is that boundary lines were redrawn by these same powers often throwing together already existing kingdoms and tribes who were fierce rivals and now forced to live and work together by a foreign power. The uneasiness between these different tribes is still very much evident today. Obviously there is so much more to it than what I have mentioned above but this is what I’ve learned from speaking to people here (and the odd book or 2) during my stay around Zimbabwe.

With all of this going on it hasn’t been the best or easiest week for hospital visits! You often have to get permission from a government official here before a visit which has been almost impossible leading up to the election and they are also suspicious of foreigners at the moment in case I have come in undercover and am actually writing about the elections or corruption etc.

Saying all that, I did visit St. Albert’s Mission Hospital in the Centenary District. Apparently it was only an hours drive away which is nothing here. 5 hours later and almost in bloody Mozambique (I am not joking, I was tempted to go to the border and just get the stamp seeing as we’d come that far) we arrived. I can’t imagine what the Matron thought of my sweaty, annoyed face but she was lovely and showed me around. There was another “Waiting mothers shelter” here because of people living so far from the hospital and it was amazing as it could house up to 200 women! There were 187 there when I visited, all cooking, chatting, washing clothes – just their normal daily routine but in this huge communal area! Tomorrow I will visit the largest hospital in Harare to end my stay here so we will see what that brings!

Popped by a local school after one of our visits!

On Wednesday I start my journey to the Philippines via Dubai for a couple of days (more on that later!). I can’t believe I’ve been gone almost 5 weeks already. Although, it can feel like 5 minutes or 5 months depending on the day! I’m looking forward to the next stage of my adventure although it’s hotter in the Philippines so that will be my main complaint!
My first trip to Africa has been an experience I will never forget and my abiding memory will be the kindness, generosity and overwhelming welcome from the people here. The less they had, the more they tried to give me and that is the mark of the people here. It’s no wonder there are so many nurses from Zambia and Zim if that is the culture of caring and generosity they have come from!

And now to await the election results and hope to God there isn’t another coup while I’m here!🙈

Slán go foill

Kate

Bye Bye Bulawayo

So, first and foremost, in the most important of African news huge congratulations to the Cnoc na Gaoithe senior ceili band who are once again Munster Champions! Honestly gutted I wasn’t a part of it but that direct flight from Bulawayo to Shannon hasn’t quite been sorted yet…

In things that have actually happened in Bulawayo this week, I’ve spent most of my time here in different clinics and I think what has struck me most is the difference in how time is treated in the West compared to Africa. I had anticipated this but seeing it in action is another thing entirely! In the West we are enslaved by time. We wake up at a certain time, work at a certain time, have tasks that must be done in an allotted time. There is never enough time and we are always running out of it! Here, time is nobody’s master. What time does the bus go? Well that’s a stupid question, when it’s full! Obviously. Although, in Ireland we are slightly more relaxed about time than the UK (Gareth and I have had many the ‘discussion’ before a party or night out – “But it starts at 7!” “Oh come on, everybody knows that 7 means half 8 at the earliest!” "That doesn't even make any sense!""Neither does sitting there like a pair of planks for 2 hours" You get the picture. Hi G!😁).

It's the same when seeing patients. In the UK and Ireland other than walk-in or emergency clinics people are given an appointment date or time and often get slightly(!) irate when there are delays. Here there is no such thing. People either walk in to all clinics or they are told to come back in 6 weeks or so but never given a time. Patients turn up, are checked in by reception and then sit in the order that they were checked in and just wait their turn. There is no allotted time per patient, it takes as long as it takes. Nobody calls patients in, when one leaves they leave the door open behind them and the next one walks in. If one consultation takes 20 minutes longer than everyone else’s no one complains, they just wait their turn. There are also no hospital notes. Every person has a brown covered copy book that they buy themselves, keep and bring with them when they are seeing a doctor, nurse etc. and it is filled out by whoever is seeing them each time. This means that no prep time before each patient is needed to look up letters or results as you have no clue who is next and what they are there for! There are definitely some good points about it – consultations can take as long as they need to without the pressure of knowing that there will be complaints made to reception or managers, that just isn’t the culture here. Patients are seen and sorted there and then as much as is possible and no matter how long it takes. The nurses running these clinics all consult, diagnose and prescribe so more often than not onward referral isn’t necessary but is also done by the nurses if warranted. Also, it eliminates our problems with notes going missing or computer systems not working meaning you have access to nothing and a patient expecting you to know everything about them. Not ideal.

Me & student nurse Max who wanted to hold hands for the photo, as you do.

Northern Suburbs Clinic where I spent today

I did find it odd though that most nurses working in these doctor-less clinics prescribe and have total responsibility for their patients but as soon as they are in a hospital setting they rescind that power. Nurses in hospitals rarely prescribe even if they were doing it for years in the community which is very frustrating for the ones who move jobs and must then wait for doctors to do something they are completely capable of doing themselves.

One of the most interesting clinics I’ve spent time in this week is called the VIAC clinic. It stands for Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid and Cervicography. It’s the cervical cancer screening clinic. Anyone who doesn’t want to read about female anatomy for the next few minutes look away now (Emlyn, if you’re reading this, STOP NOW!!) They can’t afford Pap smears in Zimbabwe so here they dehydrate the area using acetic acid which makes any abnormal cells clump together and more obvious, then take a photo of a woman’s cervix using a dead fancy camera and treat or not based on visual assessment.

The  nurses running the VIAC clinic

The treatment is also different. If abnormal cells are found they either use a heat treatment using a thin wire heated with electricity or they freeze the area using nitric oxide. I got to see the latter and seeing a solidly frozen cervix before lunch was the weirdest thing I’ve seen at work in a while! Although, I guess working in ENT if I was seeing cervixes on a regular basis I would be doing something very wrong. The criteria are also different. Because of the problem with HIV and other sexually transmitted infections cervical screening starts not at 25, like in the UK and Ireland, but when women (often girls as young as 13 or 14) become sexually active. If they are HIV- they are reviewed every 3 years, if they are HIV+, every year. The differences in how care has to be delivered here because of the prevalence of HIV is astounding. It is slowly getting better but is still a huge problem. Nurses here have to be experts on so many things – tropical diseases, sexually transmitted diseases, adults, children, prescribing along with all the normal day to day stuff! Although many clinics have counsellors on site who specialise in HIV and AIDS which is a huge help when someone is diagnosed and needs to begin treatment.

Brenda (from the VIAC clinic) brought me on a tour of the Khami Ruins after work

I’ve been staying with a family here in Bulawayo who, as usual, have been so welcoming and helpful. I leave tomorrow for Harare, the capital where I will again be hosted by a family. Harare is my last stop in Zimbabwe, aside from a day trip or 2, so I’m excited to finish this stage of the journey in the capital and see what city life is like here as, though Bulawayo is pretty big, it’s also very chilled here. Speaking of chilled, it’s feckin freezing here compared to Hwange - jeans and jumpers weather! I definitely know one or two people back in Nottingham who are melting so I am trying to be grateful and enjoy it!

Off to Harare tomorrow – 6 hours on the bus counts as sight-seeing, right?

Slán go foill

Kate 😊

All Work and No Play Makes Mc a Dull Nurse

Another busy week has gone by and I don’t even know where to start! Actually, that isn’t true, I have to start with a shout out to my one confirmed reader Maw (Maura to those not in the know) Reidy, my second mother and moral compass!😂 Hi from Zimbabwe Maura!

As I mentioned in my last blog, Fr. Trust and I took a trip this week to Kariyangwe which is north of Hwange and where Fr. Trust is from. And talk about a road trip, flying all over the place in a truck because there is no difference between the side of the mountain and the ‘road’ for 2 hours was a bit mad but there was regular relief from the many cows who waltz out without a care in the world (Zimbabwe is very like Ireland sometimes…) and chickens, or ‘Road Runners’ as they are affectionately called, sprinting across in front of you from nowhere! I almost had a heart attack every time the chickens appeared which Fr. Trust found hilarious.😒

Father Trust and me

He brought me to see where he grew up, his family still live in huts in the area. I had thought that each collection of huts is a little village but actually each hut is like a different room of the same home and all belonging to one family and they are gorgeous inside, decorated with fabric, throws and rugs.

Father Trust's homestead

We spent some time at the hospital in Kariyangwe which caters for a huge rural population. One of their main priorities is making sure that all children in the area are vaccinated – each year they are informed by local authorities how many children should need, for example, their MMR. This year it is 521 so they add the numbers up each month to make sure they don’t miss anybody and if they are they spend a few weeks going out to these families and administering the vaccines at home. A sort of two pronged approach to ensuring that every child is protected.

Kariyangwe Mission Hospital

The thing that struck me most is that the hospital is currently without electricity (somebody stole a section of the power line a few miles away, as you do…). Getting something like that repaired here isn’t a simple job and it’s been 2 months now since it happened! This has happened in the past so when they were last offered a donation they requested some solar panelling (no flies on this lot) which keeps the emergency equipment powered and some lighting at night. A few months back the power in our block in QMC went and the back-up generator failed for about 45 minutes and it was pandemonium! Don’t get me wrong, all the patients were fine and everything was sorted after the initial panic but we are just so used to technology being at our finger tips that when it’s gone we don’t know what to do with ourselves and these guys are cooking dinner for patients over an open fire in the back yard!😄 When I asked them how they cope they were just so blaise about it – this is just a thing that happens and they deal with it.

Dinner is served!

Literally in love with their pharmacy!

Again, this is a hospital without any doctors. Nurses here have complete responsibility for their patients and one of the biggest challenges is to know when to keep a patient where they are and continue to treat or when to refer to the regional hospital in Binga. It is a lot of responsibility but nurses here are prepared for that in their training. It is known and accepted that there are not enough doctors to staff the rural hospitals so nurses assume this responsibility as soon as they are qualified – bit of a sink or swim situation but from the nurses I’ve spoken to it doesn’t seem to phase anyone. Again, it’s just the way it is so they get on with it.

As I was off over the weekend I managed to squeeze in a 2 night safari over the border in Chobe National Park in Botswana. Going on an African safari has been on my bucket list since before I knew what a bucket list even was so I decided to make the most of my weekends! There was only a small group of us and we spent the weekend on game drives, boat tours on the Chobe river and camping in the bush – listening to a lion roaring while alone in my tent in the pitch dark was not something on my bucket list but was definitely an experience!🙈 We were charged by a big bull elephant the next day in our jeep as well so all in all it was quite the adrenaline fuelled weekend!

To finish my time in Hwange I spent yesterday back in St. Patricks with Sister Rumi as she was away when I first visited. Working with her for the day I got to see the administrative side of things – trying to stretch a budget and staff that are sorely depleted is no mean feat - considering that most of the hospital was and is still being built due to donations (for example, thousands of bricks for a new department were donated from Australia) trying to keep things going can be difficult! We also spoke about the currency crisis which came to a head in 2008 as I had heard somebody mention it earlier in the week. This was before Zimbabwe switched to US dollars as currency as their inflation rates sky rocketed. This resulted in massive food shortages and nurses literally not being able to come into work as there was no food in shops, farms were deserted and people had to spend their days trying to find food somewhere to feed their families. I remember hearing about this on the news years ago; white-owned commercial farms were seized by the government and resettled with local black communities followed by the collapse of the country's wholesale agriculture industry after government mismanagement and the land just stood idly for years so there was literally no food being grown and due to inflation and sanctions it was impossible to import any. You hear this on the news and it feels like it’s a million miles away but now I’m here talking to nurses who had to stop coming to work to basically go on the hunt for their families next meal. I can’t imagine trying to keep a hospital running and patients looked after while this was all going on as how do you make people choose between their job and feeding their family!? It’s not like the money they would earn at work would even help as there was no food to buy! With the election approaching at the end of the month people are hopeful for a brighter future for the country which will obviously include more support for the health care system.

My time here is now coming to an end – I leave for Bulawayo tomorrow and my first Zimbabwean city! I have had the most amazing 2 weeks in Hwange, staying in a convent in rural Zimbabwe is definitely not something I ever thought I’d be doing but the Sisters and Fr Trust have been amazing. If you are ever in this part of the world make sure and look them up as I’ve never been looked after so well although, be warned, there’s a lot of mass involved (6:30 every morning, not even joking) but bleary eyed mornings aside it’s been brilliant!

From left to right: Sr. Noeline, Sr. Johanna, Sr. Anastasia, Sr. Jane & Sr. Rumi

Oh and best of luck to the Cnoc na Gaoithe Ceili Band (Clare County champs! Woo!) who are competing in the Munster Fleadh in Ennis this week, we’ll be shouting for ye from Bulawayo! Hup!

Slán go foill.

Kate

Have a little Faith.

Makadini mose! I'm here in Hwange where it's hot (but not as hot as home) and all settled in the convent with my new glee team - Sr. Rumi, Sr. Jane, Sr. Anastasia, Sr. Johanna and Sr. Noeline. The Sisters have been the best thing about Hwange so far because they are amazing! One of them is a nurse and 2 are recently retired nurses so am learning loads from them but also they are just funny women! I don't have a photo of them all together yet but here's Sr. Anastasia with the convent's very own Nottingham tea towel (I have been resident drier upper since I got here so it seemed apt)!

Sr. Anastasia delighted with her Nottingham teatowel!

The convent is right beside St. Patrick's Hospital (started as a clinic by an Irish priest in the late nineties, thus the name) so it's been an ideal place to stay.
Needless to say it's been a very religious week what with my visit here being organised by Fr. Trust and staying with the nuns. But I've been discovering how large a part religion actually plays in healthcare in Zimbabwe, well, in Hwange anyways.
So far all of the staff and patients I have met (and this goes for Lusaka also) have been religious. Yes, many of the hospitals are Mission Hospitals but not all of them.

The old travelling clinic at Lukosi Clinic, now they just admit women at 36 weeks if they live too far away.

Late last week I visited Lukosi, a clinic in a more rural part of the District. It is run completely by nurses & midwives, there are no medical staff whatsoever. The clinic mostly looks after pregnant women as it delivers free care, which most of the hospitals don't, and they cannot afford to come into the town to the bigger hospital. The nurses here are well trained and run the clinic well but they are limited equipment wise. For example they cannot do ultrasound scans due to problems with the voltage of the scanner that was donated to them. If a woman is having a complicated pregnancy she is referred into St. Patrick's but this is the tricky bit. Often if people cannot afford to pay they won't go into St. Patrick's and will take their chances, sometimes with dire consequences. When I asked the senior nurse there what happens if there is an emergency when an otherwise healthy woman has complications giving birth his answer was that that is the risk they and their patients take.
It got me thinking that it's no wonder religion plays such a big role in health care here. No matter how short staffed a shift has ever been or how lacking in resources we think we are, at the end of the day all I have to do is pull that little red button (have not seen a single emergency call bell anywhere so far) put the crash call out and within minutes a dozen people are swarming around to save the day. Imagine not having that!??
No emergency bell, no call out, no arrest team, no back up. You're it.
I'd be saying more than a few Hail Mary's if it was me, that's for sure.

I spent today in St. Patrick's on ward round, in clinic and checking out the different departments.
Again, the differences are huge. There are no specialties, just male and female wards (other than maternity of course). There are 2 doctors for the whole hospital and not many more nurses.While on rounds they explained some of the more common problems they see - TB is a huge issue here at the moment and treatment for it is scarce. HIV is also a big problem with the majority of the patients we saw today being HIV+. One patient came in with a stroke potentially caused by a lesion due to his being HIV+, he needed a CT scan to confirm this. He's not getting one because the closest place to get one is in Bulawayo (300 miles away) and costs $500, which the patient pays himself. This patient hadn't a hope in hell of having that kind of money, I don't have that kind of money!! In a lot of situations like this patients end up being treated for their symptoms or what they appear to have as the investigations are just not available here and if they are most people can't afford them.
I've found it incredibly frustrating to see people with problems that I know how to fix - so does every other member of staff here - but the medication or equipment just isn't available and in the rare case that it is the patient will often choose not to have it as they cannot afford it.
On a personal note - most of you know that I have rheumatoid arthritis. Since diagnosis it has been hit hard with strong treatment to get me in remission which has worked a dream, you would never guess to look at me that there's anything wrong. After seeing many patients today come in during acute flare ups and really struggling I asked the doctor I was with about the treatment. It turns out there is none. Symptomatic patients are treated with steroids and pain relief as and when and that's it. The medication I take exists here, it's just far too expensive for anyone to even contemplate stocking it, even in the private hospitals. So if I lived here in Hwange I'd basically be a cripple. I have never taken my treatment for granted and have always been so grateful for how well I've responded to it but seeing patients today with the same condition as me who can barely walk was really hard to swallow. The luck of where you are born is a huge factor that most of us never even think of.

Audrey (left) & Luara (right) 2 nurses I worked with in St. Patrick's

Again, you can see why religion comes into it. People here place so much in the hands of God and probably because they have to. To become ill and potentially die from something that isn't even on our radar in the West (there was a huge cholera outbreak in Lusaka last year, malnutrition is regularly a reason for admission of children in the rural parts of Hwange) you have to have faith in something otherwise you are faced with the stark reality that the reason you are in that position is lack of education, investment and turbulent politics which isn't a pleasant thought. At least if you have faith that it is all part of some greater good it is some comfort, to patients and staff alike.
I think that blogs are meant to be upbeat and fun so I'm not doing very well today! I'm off to Binga with Fr. Trust tomorrow to see a proper rural setting. It's close to Lake Kariba which is the worlds largest man-made lake so I'll make sure to take some photos and include something nice in the next blog! It has been a great week though, the whole surrounding area is a national park so it's beautiful, the Sisters are amazing (I remember being much more afraid of nuns in Ireland. Maybe Irish nuns are scarier? Also, maybe it's because I'm 29 rather than 10!) and I've seen so many new things. Plenty more to see and do in week 3 I'm sure but this week's motto is definitely to count our blessings as we don't know what we have until it's gone.

Slán libh.

Kate

And We're Off!

Hello from Zambia!

So my first week is almost done and it’s been a bit mad! Arrived last Wednesday and was picked up by Mrs. Mtonga’s (my contact from Florence) sons who brought me to my accommodation where Ann was waiting to plan the next day with me. Ann used to be an ENT nurse and because of both our familiarity with this area I joined the ENT team on their major rounds the next morning. These take place once a week when the consultant and registrar see all of their patients with a trail of med students and student nurses behind them.

I was soon to learn that, although this sounded like a mammoth task, there are only 10 ENT beds in the hospital (and therefore all of Zambia) so it didn’t take as long as I thought! I would love to have taken a photo of the wards but obviously I couldn’t! The lack of equipment compared to us is astounding, they basically need new everything!

University Teaching Hospital Lusaka

When I accompanied Dr. Mbao, the consultant, to his afternoon clinic I was again struck by how little they get by on. Everything is sterilised and re-used. They have one nasendoscope (a camera to look at the vocal cords with) for the entire country! It made me feel incredibly wasteful of all the disposable equipment we use and also guilty for all the moaning we do about lack of equipment. If only we knew! Don’t get me wrong though, this lack of equipment and staff (3 ENT surgeons for the whole country, this also covers head and neck) doesn’t reflect on the care. The patients I saw were getting exactly the treatment they would have been getting in the UK, it just sometimes takes a bit longer as they don’t have the resources we do, for example an urgent biopsy result can take up to 6 weeks to return a result rather than the 2 week protocol we have in place.

It was fascinating to see how everything works; all scans, xrays etc. are all ordered on paper forms, tracheostomy tubes must be changed twice daily which sounds crazy to us but they don’t have the “fancy” ones we do where you can just change and clean the inner tube and then change the whole tube once a month.

Me, Dr Mbao & Sister Mabel

I spent the next morning in theatre and met Sister Mabel who showed me around and seemed to be running the show. I stayed for Dr. Mbao’s morning list which again seemed to be bogged down with issues regarding equipment. While there I got chatting to some of the nurses, many of whom are keen to come and work in the UK. The biggest road block at the moment seems to be the English language test which many of them have failed more than once, receiving a level 6 when you require a level 7 to qualify to work as a health care professional in the UK.

By the way for any non ENT heads, sorry! It was really useful to observe things in an area I’m so familiar with though as I actually knew what was going on!

After theatre I popped over the nursing school where I was shown around some of the clinical skills labs – very like ours in Ireland and the UK, dummys everywhere! It was odd as all nursing students have to wear their uniforms for class and placement and still wear the white pinafores with the little hat, seeing rows and rows of them in a lecture hall felt like going back in time a bit!

On Saturday, Ann brought me to a traditional Zambian kitchen party. It’s basically a bridal shower but is traditionally where other women in the family present the bride to be with everything she will need for her new kitchen when she is married. A little old fashioned, yes, but man was it a spectacle! Zambian singers, dancers and drummers entertaining everyone for hours some of them even dressed in traditional tribal gear. It was amazing! I also met the nurse I was sat beside on the plane who was back for the kitchen party as it was for her niece. She works in Manchester and got on my flight in Dubai – small world!

Ann Mtonga (front, right) and her 3 sisters at the Kitchen party

Victoria Falls

Just a little bit soaked!

I am currently in Livingstone, a stones throw from Victoria Falls where I spent my morning. Still drying off a bit after walking over the Knife Edge Bridge under the mist of the Falls (probably not going to help the cold I’ve had all week…) but was well worth it. One of the most spectacular, powerful sights I’ve ever seen. It was literally awesome and this isn’t even in wet season! Although I think I was lucky as the weather here has been quite temperamental this year so there was plenty of water!

I’m currently back at my accommodation (booked due to the excellent Wi-Fi. Yeah, that’s not happening, this blog may be in retrospect by the time I actually get to post it!) and just chilling this evening watching the World Cup as tomorrow I cross the border into Zimbabwe to meet Father Trust who is the priest running St. Patrick’s Hospital in Hwange where I will be spending some time. Father Trust and I were going to support Spain in the WC (his idea, I went with it…) so I hope he’s not too disappointed when I meet him!
For a part of the trip that was hastily added on at the last minute Zambia has been amazing. I’ve been pretty much wrecked and smothered in cold the whole time – the locals have put it down to me being a Westener who can’t handle life in Africa and who am I to argue!?

Ok, time to go on the Wi-Fi and tea hunt!

Slán go foill.

Kate