March 24 - Hello from Beautiful Mongu

Hello,

During our first few days, we are becoming better at adapting to our surroundings. It was a bit of a culture shift at first since we are use to using different supplies at the hospital and home.
One challenge we faced was cooking for ourselves: the food here is different and not as readily available than what we are used to in Canada. In addition, we found out that unless you want to share our food with the ants, we should probably keep it wrapped or in containers. We are starting to better recognize the privileges we have as Canadians. However, we are making our way and trying new things!

We also spend the week at Lewanika General hospital where we worked along side a wonderful group of nurses on both the female medical and psych wards. During our time there, we worked on comparing the different types of conditions the nurses would typically see. We became more familiar with conditions we don’t commonly see in Canada such as malaria, HIV and dengue fever. It was one thing to learn about these conditions but to see them in a patient really helped to bring all our learning together. 

On Saturday, we were graciously invited to the March for TB that took place by the Mongu District Hospital. We learned that there was such thing as “Zambia time” in comparison to  Canadian time. Meaning that even though we technically arrived late, we were still much too early! We marched and then watched the Zambian marching band, dancers and officials giving speeches. What a great day though.

Overall, we are enjoying our time in Mongu, Zambia and look forward to the weeks ahead!!!!!!!

Sincerely,
Diva and Claire