On the pulses

We are settling down for a quiet Friday evening after a lovely meal of lentils and spaghetti. It was all that was left in the cupboard. It would be wrong of me to imply that the dire state of our larder has occurred a result of local food insecurity; in fact, we had a trip to Shoprite in Lusaka only a week ago. The truth is that we are a pair of gannets who cannot be trusted to make a piece of cheese last more than two days. This unfortunate mutual character trait is problematic enough in the world of 24-hour supermarkets, here in the bush it gets a little more tricky. My repertoire of bean recipes is close to exhaustion - any suggestions gratefully received.

Anyway, enough of of my culinary crisis for now. More diary entries:

6th August 2006

The Bembas are taking on the Easterners at the school football field this afternoon and kick off is scheduled for 3 o’ clock. We walk down to the pitch at about 3.30 with Joost, Bernadette and Dineke, and find both tribes wandering around aimlessly. Apparently no one remembered to bring a football. We sit on the grass, waiting for something to happen. Someone spots us sprawling on the ground and runs over to the Christian Children’s Fund office to get a bench for us to sit on. We are all vaguely embarrassed by this display of solicitude, but to decline would seem rude somehow, so Chas and Joost relocate to the seating provided

Then three footballs arrive simultaneously, and there is an outbreak of anarchy on the pitch, with several games going on at the same time. The referee attempts to restore order, and eventually the two teams line up to shake hands before the kick off. Mr Mwanza, the dentist, takes possession of the ball early on, but loses his flip-flops in the process, to the amusement of the assembled crowd. It is a game high on enthusiasm and low on skill, and I am soon distracted by some kids practising high jump behind us. They are a collection of boys, about ten years of age, who are leaping their own height across a bar, with only hard ground to meet them on the other side. It is an astonishing display of athletic talent, much more impressive than anything going on over at the football pitch, but no-one else seems to be looking.

14th August 2006

A policeman arrives at the hospital in the afternoon. There has been a road traffic accident, and he has brought the only casualty to the hospital. On further questioning, it transpires that the casualty is, in fact, deceased, and my only duty is to verify her passing. He beckons me to follow him outside, where I find a pick up truck, and a small group of people milling around. Everyone looks at me expectantly. I am not sure what the right thing to do is, so I just clamber into the back of the truck. There is a crumpled body lying on the floor, wrapped in a chitenge. I kneel in the dust and tug back the bloodstained sheets. She is an elderly woman, and she is very obviously dead. Despite this, I go through the time honoured routine of checking her pupils and listening to her heart, not wanting to let my audience down, and then I jump out again. Examining the dead is always a slightly surreal experience, but never more so than today.

16th July 2006

We are back in Chimusanya for a second attempt at holding a mobile clinic there. There is a funeral in the church today, so we have been allocated two concrete huts to work in instead. My makeshift office is crammed with a table and two chairs, a rack bearing assorted altar boys’ cassocks, and a portrait of Pope Benedict. The walls only meet with the roof intermittently. Undeterred by the structural hazards, the patients file in one by one and obediently lift their T-shirts to be examined.

We have been given new forms to fill in for all our HIV patients, and I am attempting to record the required sociodemographic data for a couple who are attending for the first time today. Brenda is translating for me, and she is trying her best, but somehow the answers don’t quite fit the questions. It doesn’t help that many of the questions are ludicrous. I ask how long it took them to travel to clinic from home today, and the answer comes back “Sunday”. I rephrase, we try again, but somewhere in the chain of communication the question goes astray. On the third attempt I get my answer – they have no idea how long it took, neither of them have watches. I decide to skip that section. I didn’t come to Africa to tick boxes.