Between campuses

I can’t tell you how much I want to be out doing community outreach rather than always doing policy development, programming, grant submissions, publications etc, in the office all day. Don’t get me wrong, I do like my work and think that it probably has a greater impact than individual interactions but I really miss working with people and exploring city life. The university community is an interesting, clever bunch to work with (only the brightest students make it to the national university, as it is highly competitive), but it also means I work with a pretty secluded, unique part of the population. For this reason, I love any opportunity to get out and about (i.e. the Livingstone program, Czech school etc). I also quite like it when students come to our office asking for VCT (they usually ask in the quietest little voices) and I usually get to answer their VCT questions before taking them over to the clinic. Of course, they’re really just lost (our office is beside the clinic), but I quite enjoy these random interactions.

However, today provided a real escape from university life, as I took a two hour bus ride back from the medical campus where I had a meeting (should have been a half hour ride but the bus waits until it is full). As I waited for the bus to fill up outside of the hospital I got to talk to a bus full of mothers and some of their children (at the hospital the mothers are at the bedside 24/7), despite their obvious worries about their children, they were a really friendly, happy bunch. They told me about their kids and even asked what tribe I’m from (I’ve got to choose a Zambian tribe, because the ‘canadiana tribe’ just doesn’t cut it haha). One woman in particular really stood out for me. She sat beside me and told me about her son who had recurrent pneumonia and how she was on the bus to town to get him medication (the hospital had run out). As we talked more I found out she had two more boys, was of the Tonga tribe (a tribe that particularly supports polygamy) and had a husband who was a truck driver in the copper belt. Boom, at that point I couldn’t help but think that HIV must fit somewhere into the equation. Of course I don’t know enough to really know and I feel like a jerk for jumping to conclusions, but overall I thought it was an interesting reaction… because if it is true, it demonstrates how stigma prevents people from telling the full truth, and if it’s not true, it shows that I’ve really been programmed to only see AIDS (which I guess is neither good nor bad, nor surprising)… I think this woman and I will stay in touch… so maybe I’ll get a real answer.

The rest of the ride was a bit less serious as much of it was spent sitting in the middle of the city Market while we waited for the second bus to fill up. It was such a good chance to just watch people. Of particular interest was the super sudden mass exodus of illegal fruit vendors when the civic police patrolled. The bus ride back to work was pretty amusing as well, the ‘conductor’ (I’m using this term super loosely) tried to charge me twice the price (the ‘mazungu’ price as I pointed out, which made him laugh even more), but fortunately I knew the real price and all the other bus riders stood up for me (pretty surprising and sweet). And of course, no ride would be complete without a couple marriage proposals/buy-off offers. Although having a boyfriend doesn’t hold any water, fortunately, the threat of a large strong husband works well. Ha.

Finally, when I got back to the office (wow, this story is way too long, sorry!), I decided that my arm ached from malaria and therefore consulted MacBrian (who is almost as paranoid about malaria as me… if that’s possible). He fortunately assured me that my asymmetrical ailment was not malaria and then asked “has somebody been tampering with you?”… haha I couldn’t help but laugh, which made him laugh. Though just to be sure he restated the question and told me he’d go beat them up if they had. Very sweet… but I assured him… nobody ‘tampers’ with me. Ha.