It's not all work, work, work.

I am away in the UK for a couple of weeks. Flicking back through these entries (and boy, some of them are long-winded - did you really read them or did you "skip to the end"?) I fear I may have misled you. My life in South Africa is not, as the balance of my writing might imply, one of entirely selfless dedication to others. This country is after all, one of the most beautiful and varied in the world. If you were sitting with me in the lounge I would whip out my laptop and inflict upon you the 25,000 photos I appear to have taken on my weekend jaunts. Instead (and I no doubt hear you cry "mercifully") I give you half a dozen highlights. Until a fortnight. Sala kahle.

Approaching the Drakensberg.

In the Drakensberg mountains with Dr Tom (centre) and Dan, an elective student (right).

Hippos in the St Lucia Wetlands National Park.

The Umngeni Valley Nature Reserve - looking down from the crags to the river. Excuse the knees - photographic composition dogma required a foreground.

Crossing the swing bridges in the Mkuze Game Park Fig Forest.

A herd of antelopey things - impala I think but I don't know and you don't care. Mkuze Game Reserve.

Ostriches having sex at the Umfolozi River Lodge. Not beautiful but certainly varied. The accomodation for humans was apparently better than this.

Comments

non-dla said…

Hello, very interesting web page. I'm just finishing my F2 in UK and am interested in working in SA. Just wondered if you wouldn't mind my asking how much postgrad experience you had before going to SA?

9 July 2007 at 18:32

Ed Moran said…

I had a fair degree of postgrad experience but there are many UK docs working in SA with less - including some with 2 or 3 years. With the new training system I am sure there will be many more as there will no longer be the freedom to be an SHO for 2 or 3 years after hous jobs. Happy to speak to you about it. Go to the Rural Health Initiative web page (www.rhi.org.za) and email Tracey Hudson who can give you my phone number (or else let me know your email address).

Ed

9 July 2007 at 18:36

non-dla said…

Thanks for your reply. I've been in touch with Tracey who's been very helpful. However, the phone number that she's given me doesn't seem to work so I think it will have to be email. My address is nondla@googlemail.com

Noni

12 July 2007 at 22:31

Otherwordly isolation

I lean across the reception desk and catch the attendant’s eye. “Sawubona,” I say, dusting off my rusty Zulu. I see you. “Sawubona, ninjani?” she replies. I see you, are you well? “Ngiyapela.” I’m fine. She grins at me. “You must be a doctor.” “I am! How did you know?” “It is only the doctors around here who use Zulu. Even if it is only the greetings.” She arches an eyebrow. “I used to work here, at Hlabisa hospital up the road. I have a few other Zulu words, you know like ‘Does it hurt?’ and ‘Take a deep breath’.” She laughs. And then launches into an excellent impression of an elderly Zulu lady rattling off a series of complaints, waddling across the reception area clutching her back in mock agony. She gets it exactly right. I have come up to KwaZulu-Natal for a few days. Tonight I am staying in the Hluhluwhe-iMfolozi game park, 20 minutes or so from where I used to work. Awarded my entry ticket, I drive into the park. The sun is low in the sky, the kills bathed in amber light. I ta...

10 years on

The door flies open. Lele peers in. "You must come out here and see. They are doing a play!" I finish up my case file annotation and come to the doorway. The waiting area is in chaos. A gang of school children are manhandling a couple of marimba's to the space in front of the consulting rooms, a team of nurses and counsellors are creating a stage area. Patients look on mutely. Some with interest, others - presumably feeling proportionately less well - without. "What is going on?" I ask. "It is 10 years since the clinic started. 10 years since MSF first started the HIV treatment programme and proved that it could be done in Africa. So the staff are celebrating. They are doing a show or something." The sister in charge of the clinic has moved to the front of the crowd of patients. She calls for silence and then gives a short introduction. Lele translates for me. "She is saying that this is a very important day. 10 years ago people were dying. And 10...

The first rule about run club

This is what death will be like. My heart is pounding, chest constricting, I can barely lift my foot from the ground. The sweat pours from me and my head pounds. It is Thursday run club. An hour ago Ibby was rounding us all up, exhorting us to get a move on, and allocating us to vehicles so we could lurch through Freetown’s commuter traffic to Lumley Beach on the west side of town. Half way there, the traffic solid and the heat stifling we hailed a street trader and we bought packets of drinking water (improbably branded “CLIMAX”) and biscuits (incongruously labelled “made in the UK for Aldi”). A King’s Sierra Leone Partnership tradition – started by Ibby some years ago – the whole team go beach running after work every Thursday. “The route’s fine” they tell me. “Flat, and you can 5k or 7.5k”. It started well enough but it’s 28 degrees and my pale body is unprepared. The route is straightforward but weaving in and out of other runners, stray dogs, unexpected ga...

In Sierra Leone

Search This Blog