First Couple of Days

I've made it to the hospital! I had a bit of a confusing time in Lusaka, where Isaac kept changing his mind over when the hospital driver was coming to pick me up. This resulted in me sitting around for half a day waiting for them and then being told it was actually coming the next day. Instead of sitting around any more I made friends with some people in the hostel and we went horse riding and out for a drink, and then came back to find an angry driver who'd been waiting for 4 hours... He then insisted on driving the 7h drive in the dark, something I'd been told under no circumstances to do, so we got to the hospital at 2.30am. It's very dangerous to drive at night because the animals wander into the roads and there are random ox carts lying around, on roads where the speed limit is 100km/h... They were actually much better quality than I expected, proper tarmac for 80% of the way (much better than any I've been on in Ghana and Kenya), but this probably makes them more dangerous as people drive really fast, with no fixed central division. But we survived and the horse riding was really fun! 

It was so peaceful out in the woodland area - hard to believe it was only 20min drive from Lusaka

I've had a quick look around the hospital, but don't start work til tomorrow, so have been able to relax a bit, which is great. I'm staying in this huge house for a few days until some Scottish doctors leave. It's a bit bizarre because there are 4 rooms with virtually no furniture, just a bed, one chair and a desk. The house I'm moving into is much smaller, just one room that has a kitchen at one end and a half walled off bedroom area at the other, but at least it has a fridge and plates and bowls and things, unlike this one. I'll put up pictures when I've moved in. The new house also has a reasonable sized garden in the back which is completely bare at the moment, but I'm planning on growing lots of things. The current tennants have chickens which is GREAT although they are probably going to someone else when they leave, but I'll get to keep the chicken wire fence, so I can get some more =) Which as anyone who knows me well will know makes me very happy!

Not a great picture of the hospital, but you get the idea...

That's the front, then there's this big round about which you can see in the foreground and then behind me there are about 100 houses where various members of staff live.

I think I'm going to really enjoy living here. It's obviously a very different life to back home, but I think once I've moved house and settled in a bit that it'll be really nice :-)