Just like David Livingstone

The Zambian chapter

Pat, our ancient Land Rover, thundered indiscreetly into the Royal Livingstone Hotel car park. We pile out all glammed up. Well, as ‘glammed up’ as our backpacker wardrobe allows: Hamish is wearing trousers though and I have put mascara on so this is almost as good as it gets, but we are fooling no one. The doormen, in their outrageously colonial get up, smile politely knowing that one Mosi (Zamia’s local beer) will be about all that we can afford. One of them graciously pulls us aside to let us know that we forgot to shut Pat’s front door. Talking first and thinking second as always, I start to give an explanation about how the door doesn’t close and how funny it is when you are driving along and it flies open; Hamish meanwhile returns to the vehicle and ties the door shut with a piece of string. Surprisingly they still let us inside.

Once on the drinks terrace, with Pat well out of sight, I feel almost at home with the £900 a night guests. We are sitting a few hundred meters from the lip of Victoria Falls and the view is mind-blowing. Spray from the falls rises high in the air in huge clouds that give away the full power of the water. Beers, as it happens are 15 Kwacha, three times the price of most places but at just under two pounds a pop pretty reasonable given that we are on top of the seventh wonder of the world.

The spray coming off Victoria Falls as seen from the Royal Livingstone Hotel drinks deck

Since touching down in the country we have been amazed at how chilled the Zambian people are. Livingstone is a very touristy town so I guess they see their fair share of mazungas (white people) and so we are largely left to our own devices. Only twice have I been approached for money, both times by drunks, one who insisted if you stopped drinking at lunch time then you weren’t a real drunk, I liked his style and proceeded to engage him in conversation for so long that in the end he had to make an excuse to leave. I was sad to see him go, it was 11am and about 35 degrees, a beer would have been nice.

We spend three weeks of the month out in rural areas on clinic. Whilst away we sleep in a variety of questionable accommodation and eat more pasta than your average Italian (Humphrey our chef loves Pasta). Given that it is the rainy season, travel to and from clinic gets hairy but to date we have only been stuck in the mud once! Generally patients have the same complaints that you or I would go to our local GP with: on-going back pain, headaches etc. It is easy to get a bit jaded, waiting for some one with a real illness to come along, but then I have to remind myself that this is their once a month opportunity to have any kind of medical care and although their tooth ache might not seem like a big deal if they don’t get painkillers for it today then that will be them stuffed for another month. Many patients walk for three or four hours to be in line by 8am in the hope of being seen by a doctor, we currently have two doctors (Hamish and Anne-Marie) who get through about 60 – 70 patents leaving a large queue of unhappy customers behind as we drive off back to camp at the end of the day. We have tried various forms of triage but come hell or high water everyone will insist they are on deaths door only for the doctor to establish that Mr 77-year-old has knee pain, which he has had for 11 years, and back pain, which he has had for eight years. Arthritis is not a suitable diagnoses, in fact nothing is a suitable diagnoses unless it comes with medication.

To try and help out on clinic as much as possible Steve (Anne-Marie's husband) and myself do all the malaria and HIV testing and are in the process of becoming family planning experts. We have an unlimited supply of femadoms given by the government that we distribute often to the puzzlement of the ladies. Last week I saw an old women with a large giggling group huddled around holding up a femadom trying to make head or tail of the monstrosity. Someone asked me to explain how to use it, after reading the instructions several times I got flustered then pretended I was needed else where while in the back of my mind the words of a comedian saying something about the femadom being as inviting as a supermarket bag rang true.

This wee chap was tuckered out after his consultation with Dr Buckley

Home is a guesthouse on the outskirts of Livingstone that we share with Anne-Marie and Steve. While in residence we spend countless hours floating around the swimming pool, with Hamish sometimes treating us to a special appearance in his speedos, and few hours in our small gym. I have found the weights machine to be a great clotheshorse though so all is not lost. There is an extensive team of garden and security staff, headed up by the legendary Elvis, a kind, smiley and gentle African legend. We haven’t at any stage felt that security staff are at all necessary and often, perhaps naively, sleep with our door wide open on hot evenings. I think we all feel a little uncomfortable having these guys running around after us so try and make up for it with over the top thanks every time they open a gate. The final member of the security team is Samson, a massive mongrel of a dog who is terrified of lightening and to this day hasn’t barked once – God help us should there be an intruder during a thunderstorm.

And so this is Zambia, well the first month anyway. We are off to Botswana on a wee jolly in a few days so will hopefully report back with tales of Elephants and Lions, in the meantime we continue to drink glass bottles of coke, which as you are all aware by now is my version of living the dream!