The End of the Earth

With help from Google Maps, I constructed this map showing the location of places I mention in these blog entries. Click on the picture for a larger view.

Here is a view of Lubwe in northern Zambia

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I am awakened by the alarm clock at 3:45 a.m. For a second I don’t remember where I am. Then the thought of needing to catch a bus rouses me enough to roll out of bed. Mr. M. takes me to the bus station. I thank him and board the bus. Stepping over suitcases and giant bags of stuff, I drop my backpack behind the bus driver and take my seat next to it. The bus is jam packed with people and what looks like everyone’s entire belongings. Some people who had bought their tickets late are sitting in the isle on plastic stools. Everyone seems barely awake, despite the loud Pentecostal music blaring from the speakers. At five o’clock, the bus pulls out of the station and into the pre-dawn darkness.

The boy sitting behind me on the bus

I drift in and out of consciousness as the bus rolls down the smooth and beautifully paved road. Speed limit signs flash by as the bus barrels down the empty highway. Speed signs are good; it means the road is good enough for people to speed, therefore the limit. When I am awake, I chat with the guy sitting next to me, who turns out to be an irrigation engineer working in Mansa, the town after Samfya. I while away the hours by chatting and looking out the window at the vast expanse of lush vegetation stretching to the horizon on either side of the road.

Anytime the bus stops for a break, it gets bum-rushed by people selling vegetables and snacks

Villagers selling potatoes, tomatoes, onion, etc.

A couple of kids look on as the buying and selling take place by the bus

Almost eight backside-numbing, DVT-inducing hours later, I am dropped off at a road junction. Mr. M. had called ahead and the hospital had sent a car to pick me up. After waiting for five minutes, a Landcruiser pulls up. They had just gone to Samfya to pick up some vaccines and are now returning with a few passengers. I squeeze in the back. In less than a hundred meters, the paved road ends and the driver starts to navigate around potholes big enough to swallow up small cars. It is the rainy season in Zambia right now. The potholes have now ranged from big puddles to small ponds. I brace myself for every bump on the road while everyone else is happily chatting away in Bemba, the dominant local language. Thirty kilometers of bone-jarring ride later, a collection of brick buildings come into sight. I collect the pile of loose bones that is now my body and tumble off the Landcruiser. I’ve finally arrived in Lubwe!

It has taken me fifty-three hours since leaving Brisbane to reach, as far as I am concerned, the end of the earth. The mode of transportation and level of comfort changed as I traveled farther and farther: Singapore Airlines from Brisbane to Singapore then Johannesburg, with a personal entertainment system in front of each economy class seat and its excellent food, seemed downright luxurious compared to the flight on the spartan South African Airways to Lusaka. Again, compared to the bus journey on cattle-class from Lusaka to Samfya on a beautifully paved road, the bone-jarring ride to Lubwe on a pot-hole riddled dirt road was akin to a thirty-kilometer ride inside a cement mixer.

Sister Rose, Administrator of the Catholic Church-affiliated Lubwe Mission Hospital, shows me my accommodation and introduces me to Alice, who will be cooking for me for the next two months. After settling in, taking a cold-water wash, and having a filling late lunch, I spend the rest of the afternoon walking around the area. In Lubwe, you can forget about getting on the internet; the only communication to the outside world is through the mobile phone, which is run by a private company that keeps the communication tower powered 24/7 with generators. Sister Rose says Lubwe has been without power since yesterday. Power shortage is a chronic problem here, partly because of its remoteness. At night, I eat dinner by candlelight. I’d better get used to using my head torch on a regular basis; it looks like power outage is the norm here.

A view of my room at the guesthouse; no sharing, it's all mine!

Brick houses with thatch roofs and maize fields make up the lush landscape of Lubwe in the wet season

View of Lake Chifunabuli just steps away from the guesthouse

A family going home from the hospital

I didn't pose these kids; they did it on their own.

Almost There

It was a ten-hour flight from Singapore to Johannesburg.

Stepping off the plane, I go through the ritual of clearing immigration, picking up my backpack from luggage claim, and walking to the arrival hall of the airport. I have four hours until my flight to Lusaka. As I look up to search for signs that point to departure, a couple of people dressed in airport staff uniforms approach me and ask me where I want to go, then point me to the escalators to the departure level.

When I step off the escalator, another guy dress in a polo shirt with “Airport Aid” embroidered in the front asks me what airline I am flying. He then walks me down to the end of the terminal to the South African Airways counter, gets my backpack weighed, and gets me in line to check in. I look up to thank him but am met with his right hand extended, palm up. “Tips,” he whispers. “Excuse me?” I am taken aback, “I don’t have any rand.” “Tips, any currency,” he repeats under his breath.

I realize I’ve just been had. Man, I should have known better. But he has already “helped” me, I don’t want to cause a scene. I take out my wallet, thumb through my Australian dollars and Singapore dollars, and stop at the American singles. I knew those $1 bills would come in handy when I was packing. I take out US$2 and hand them to him. He takes a glance, pockets them, and disappears. So within a half hour of setting foot in South Africa, I have been taken for a sucker.

I remember the time a couple of years ago when I was crossing from Cambodia into Vietnam. A couple of guys “helped” me fill out the arrival form and submitted it to the immigration officer, then asked for a dollar for their service. I learned that whenever someone decides to “help” you with something straightforward like filling out a form and handing it to someone or, in this case, find the check-in counter and get in line, it’s better to politely decline the “service” they offer.

After window-shopping at the duty-free shops and bookshops, I board the flight to Lusaka. The one-hour-forty-minute flight to the capital of Zambia brings me and what appears to be a large group of expatriates to the dilapidated Lusaka International Airport. I pay through the nose (US$100) for a three-year multiple entry visa, the only one available to US citizens. Stepping outside the arrival hall, I am greeted by Mr. M., my local contact who had basically set up the elective for me. He takes me through the suburbs of the city and into the city center to the college where he is studying. Full of squat, drab, and utilitarian buildings, the city center is nonetheless humming with enough pedestrian and vehicular activities to cause a minor traffic jam during rush hour. The main road, Cairo Road, is one dilapidated building after another housing various small shops punctuated by big and bright South African supermarkets.

I find out that there are two daily buses that go to Samfya, the nearest town to Lubwe where the mission hospital is located. One bus leaves at 4 p.m. and arrives in Samfya at the ungodly hour of 1 a.m.; the other bus leaves at the ungodly hour of 5 a.m. and arrives in Samfya sometime in the early afternoon. Well, it’s probably better that I arrive there in the afternoon when sane people are awake. Mr. M.’s friend has graciously offered his dorm for me to have a few hours of shut-eye before catching the 5 a.m. bus.

At night, while eating dinner at Mr. M.’s dorm room, the power goes out. Apparently the whole country is experiencing power shortage because the main generator at Kariba Dam, the main source of electricity for the whole country, is having problems. I am sensing this may be a sign of things to come.

Killing Time in Chang-I

My journey from Brisbane to Lubwe, Zambia looks like this: flights from Brisbane to Singapore; Singapore to Johannesburg, South Africa; Johannesburg to Lusaka, Zambia; then one day bus ride from Lusaka to Lubwe. The first three are fairly easy; it’s the last leg that I am a little worried about – the bus ride may be more painful and unpredictable than the first three legs combined.

Flying over the Channel Country in central Australia where there was a lot of flooding in the last couple of weeks

But that’s later, no point in thinking too much about it now. I flew out of Brisbane this afternoon. An uneventful seven-hour flight got me to Singapore, where I have six hours to kill. It’s easy enough to take the train into the city, but with all that’s on offer inside Chang-I Airport, I think I can kill six hours here. Having transited through Singapore twice before, I definitely think it’s the best of the airports I have seen.

First of all, they have free internet access. Yes, FREE! They even have booths for people to plug in their laptops and surf the internet, completely free, with no time limit. And that’s where I am writing this post. Okay, they already had me with just the free internet. There are also TV lounges with comfy chairs. The airport staff is very friendly and helpful. The other stuff at the airport is pretty standard: duty free shops, bookstores, and whatever other stores for you to window shop at. And, they got top marks from the people at Sleeping in Airports. Can you tell I am a big fan? On the other hand, Singapore the city is a different story. I won’t start.

With one and half hours until my flight, maybe I should mosey on over to the gate. I don’t know what the internet situation is like in Zambia. I will update with posts if I get internet access there.

Ready...Set...

Whew, what a week! Between studying for the supplementary exam, taking the exam itself, and getting ready for my elective in Zambia, the whole week was over before I knew it.

The exam on Wednesday went all right, I thought. I felt better about it afterwards than I did after the last exam. The examiners didn’t tell me whether I passed or not. I am sure the med school will let me know if I don’t pass again. So in this case, no news is good news.

In the mean time, I have been trying to get ready for my elective in Zambia. Running between the university student health, the two major hospitals in Brisbane, and different shops, I have been getting my vaccines, medications, and stuff I will need for eight weeks in Africa. After dropping some serious cash, I am all set with everything I need: vaccine shots, malaria prophylaxis and empirical treatment, broad spectrum antibiotics, tablets for traveler’s diarrhea, activated charcoal capsules, water purification tablets, and the most important of them all: post-HIV exposure prophylaxis pack. At times I feel like I am being excessive, but I know Murphy’s Law dictates that if I don’t take it with me, I will need to use it at some point.

Thus armed with enough medication to supply a small pharmacy in a third-world country, I am ready to take my first journey to Africa. I will spend eight weeks at a mission hospital in rural Zambia. I am sure I will see so much that I would never see in Australia – all those exotic tropical diseases, HIV, late presentations of every disease, malnutrition; the list goes on. This will be the most unfamiliar, uncomfortable, and probably the most stressful situation I have yet to face in my life. On the flip side, it will also be a great learning experience, both in terms of medicine and in terms of life experience. So, here we go. T minus fifteen hours and counting…

Why Is Everyone...

Staring at me? What? Like you’ve never seen anyone walking around with reverse raccoon eyes before? They’re called tan lines, people! Sheesh!

Hermit Mode: On

After settling in at my friends Richard’s and Henry’s place by claiming a corner on the floor of their living room, my mind turns to next Wednesday’s exam, which has been like an angry cloud hanging over my head threatening to strike for the last three days. I have exactly one week to gather all the knowledge that has been leaking out of my brain over the last six weeks and try to somehow shove it back in there in a somewhat organized fashion. With a subject as broad as internal medicine, it’s like trying to review the last three years in one week. Sounds a lot like Mission Impossible to me at the moment, but I have no other choice. So for the next week, my habitat will consist of the library, hospital wards, and my corner of the living room floor.

Signing off – ‘til next Wednesday.

Airport Snooze

I don’t know what I would have done if I were in the pre-internet age. All travel agencies were closed for the weekend in Christchurch. Thanks to the internet, it didn’t take long for me to book a reasonably-priced flight to Brisbane for Tuesday. Of course, cheap flights usually mean weird hours. My flight leaves Christchurch at 6:15 a.m. tomorrow morning.

After spending a day moping around the city, I get a box from a bike shop, pack up my bike, and take the bus to the airport. I am going to sleep on the floor at the airport so I can wake up early enough to make the flight. Earlier in the day I consulted the website Sleeping in Airports to see what they have to say about the prospect of sleeping in the Christchurch airport. Apparently it’s quite the standard practice there. From the way people described their experience there, I would almost expect the airport staff to bring me a pillow.

With this information in tow, I get off the bus and lug my stuff straight into the international arrival hall. As I survey the area for a good place to lay down my sleeping bag, an airport employee comes up and gives me advice for a good spot. I plop down my box and panniers next to the row of telephones by the arrival gate, thus claiming my piece of territory for the next eight hours or so. A little later, a few other groups of people start to arrive, all are spending the night. After shooting the breeze with them a little, I decide to turn in for the night. To make sure I get some semi-quality sleep, I am going all out: inflatable mattress, blow-up pillow, sleeping bag, blinder, and alarm clock – I am a tent away from totally camping out.

So I sleep undisturbed other than by the noise from passengers arriving on late flights. At quarter to five, my alarm jolts me up from a deep sleep; and I start the process of jumping through the series of familiar but tedious hoops to get on my plane. So long, New Zealand. I didn’t get a proper look at you this time. But just you wait, someday I’ll come even more prepared to experience the mountains, the lakes, the glaciers, the wind, the rain, and even the famous sandflies. I’ll just consider this truncated trip a “taster”. New Zealand, I’ll be back!