Home and Back

We are back in Zambia after a great stay in the states through the month of August. Between us, we managed to visit 7 cities and see over 70 people!! We felt so lucky -everyone made a huge effort to avail themselves while we were in town, I guess we should go away more often because we felt like celebrities!! J We were able to visit some of our most missed places and do most of our favorite things – swimming in the cove at La Jolla, cycling along the coast, running at Torrey Pines, eating In-and-Out, hugging my nieces and nephew at night, sharing good food with family, and too many drinks with friends. They were really good times. We left feeling rejuvenated, ready to return to our far-away “home,” grateful for the familiarity and comforts of our true home with all of you guys.

We found Zambia heating up, preparing for October, our hottest month of summer. The mosquitoes are out in full force! After a few days in Lusaka to shake off the jetlag, Kimberly is off to Kitwe for a week-long Adult Antiretroviral Management Training. Dave is busy consulting with CRS as they finalize their 2009 Country Operating Plan. It looks like the US Government has granted another 48 million over 4 years of PEPFAR (President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) funding to be distributed among 15 resource poor countries. With our jobs secured and continued work to do in Zambia, we’ve begun wondering whether aid money is the answer. There is a “donor-dependant” mentality that may be impairing the country from creating their own solutions.

Other news here is that the Zambian president, Levy Mwanawasa, died during our holiday last month. He suffered a 2^nd stroke in June and was unable to recover. So now we face elections on October 30^th. The vice-president, Peter Banda, does not automatically take office since he was named by Mwanawasa after his election and he was not elected by the people. There are a number of candidates vying for the presidency, but we are assured that this coming election will be peaceful, as is the history here in Zambia. In fact, some Zambian friends have complained that their peers are often too passive in the presence of corruption like election rigging. There needs to be a balance between a passive response lending to a peaceful environment and the need for a more assertive protest for a just and equitable government.

We’re trying to get back into our fitness schedule after the heavy eating and relaxing we did in the states! This has been a bit tough with the wind and heat. We are missing the coastal breezes and the variety of food at our fingertips.

David is preparing to leave for Rwanda on October 6 for 7 weeks. He will be doing audit work with CRS as one of his short-term consultancy projects. .He is excited to visit Rwanda as it supposed to be beautiful. We are planning a trip to see the gorillas over the Thanksgiving holiday. After 4-5 weeks away through the month of August, we are waiting a bit to plan our next trip home. You are all welcome to visit us anytime. We would love your company.

We’ll be updating our smugmug link with some photos from home. Please keep in touch and share some of your favorites with us as well.

We love you!

~Kimberly & Dave

Caught somewhere between Independence, Heroes, and Unity Day…

We’re celebrating a nice long weekend here in Lusaka. Although we worked Friday, July 4^th, we managed to enjoy some American cuisine - burgers, hot dogs, potato salad, and corn on the cob along with fireworks in Robb’s backyard Friday night. Today and tomorrow are Zambian holidays – Heroes Day and Unity Day so we are off work and just relaxing. One of our Zambian colleagues has invited us to a barbeque (or braii as they call it here) tomorrow so we’ll learn more about the history of these two days from a local perspective.

We are recently back from Tanzania where we spent the weekend before my birthday in Zanzibar. We had been there once before (last year right after moving here). This time we went to the northeast coast to enjoy the beach to celebrate our anniversary and my birthday. You can take a look at the resort at http://www.pongwe.com/gallery/. It was awesome. Maybe some of you are more tempted to come visit??!

Not much else is new… I’m still working in and out of Lusaka, spending 50% of my time in the bush at the mission hospitals throughout Zambia. The travelling has gotten pretty exhausting, but it is always worth it when I’m at the site. Being there, rounding with the nurses, clinical officers, and doctors, working side-by-side with them in their HIV clinics, and providing lectures for the staff is really why I’m here. There are times when I wonder why we are here, and times when I feel reminded that we are outsiders that are not always welcome, but when I am out at the sites, all of that falls away and there is a very real collaboration to provide patients with the best care possible… so needless to say, I love being out there

Dave has been busy working 10-12 hour days consulting for CRS. It started as a consulting job where he was providing financial expertise to the program manager that did not have a finance background, then she left the program, and they offered him her job. He declined, preferring to remain a project consultant, but has been filling in since she left. He’s had a ton of work, but will be changing projects in September. His new project will focus more on audit and requires he travel for 6 week stints. The first is to Burundi. It should be exciting!

Otherwise, we’re looking forward to coming home in August! I’ll be attending the World AIDS Conference in Mexico City the first week of the month, then traveling to Baltimore for some work at University of Maryland. Afterwards, the holiday begins, and I’ll head back to the west coast for a few weeks of vacation. Dave is heading to San Diego the 2^nd week of August. We are super excited to be in town for Angela and Cory’s wedding September 6^th, then we head back to Zambia on the 8^th. We are hoping that we’ll manage to see everyone when we’re in town – so look at your calendars and let us know!

We hope you’re well. We miss you – despite our infrequent communication, the distance has definitely made us appreciate all of you even more.

~Kim & Dave

Catching up

Its been a busy few months (more like 5). We had our first visitors to Zambia -- Mom and Alex came out for an awesome trek through Tanzania and Kilimanjaro. For a great account of what hiking "Kili" is like check out....http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2007/10/26/magazine/20071028_KILIMANJARO_GRAPHIC.html#step1
We took a different lesser used route, the Rongai route, but the article sums up the experience pretty well. We had some great guides on the mountain and made a new friend. (See Remy, James, and Emma in the photos @ http://dave-n-kim.smugmug.com/)

Outside of Kilimanjaro, the most amazing site was Ngorongoro crater. Our pictures will do it more justice than words. Overall the trip was awesome, though I didn't have to brave Kenya days after the election mess that caused the recent violence, like Mom and Alex did.

First trip back to the States came and went all too quickly, and we didn't make it "home" to the west coast. We spent the Easter weekend in North Carolina with the Russell clan (and Sturgeons). Also luckily got to see most of my family during the short stay as they found flights out on short notice. It was great to see y'all.

Kim has been very busy with work, continuing her travels throughout Zambia (latest trip was to the 'Copperbelt', Mufalira up near Kitwe if Google Earth is handy).

I've given up on some of my ideas (i.e. pipedreams) for now and have started a real job at CRS, Catholic Relief Services, as a consultant. I'm to work with management on ad hoc projects, mainly compliance with federal grants and some finance. I've only been there two weeks but I'm pretty excited about it as its very different from anything else I've done.

One other bit of news is that we have a new cat, yes another one. This one was left on our door in a box. I had talked to a neighbor when we moved in about getting a cat. Well they remembered and now we have this little Tazmanian devil kitten; one floppy ear and she never stops eating.

We are planning to come back to visit in August. We'll plan on being there for at least two weeks probably based in San Diego.

Know that we have an open door and an extra bedroom for any visitors.

Tsalani Bwino. Stay well.

Christmas in Lusaka

Hello!

Here I sit in our living room to finally write our latest blog. It has been over a month since our last entry and we have managed to stay quite busy.

Our newest addition to the family, a 3 month old kitten named “Iwe” (in Nyanja it means “you”) is sitting on my lap as I type. I managed to convince Dave that we needed a kitten to warm up our home, especially at Christmas time (don’t tell Logan and Isabella!!). We had seen some strays running around at our gym and inquired. The waiter of the near-by restaurant took our number and said he would call if they were able to catch any of them. That same night (Dec 23) we went to pick up a tiny gray and white furball. She was eating a French fry as she sat trapped under a crate in the restaurant kitchen. All the workers laughed as I wrapped her in a towel and held her like a little baby – neither cats nor dogs are cared for much here. It’s been so great to have her company at the house. She was skittish at first, but has easily transitioned into a spoiled house kitty. She’s really playful and prefers wet food to dry food!

We celebrated Christmas in Zambia although really, our hearts were at home with you. We kept busy in Lusaka for the holiday. Munda Wanga (My Plot) is a wildlife preserve and botanical garden in Chilanga, just 20 minutes outside of downtown Lusaka. We went with friends and spent Christmas Eve day with 70 kids from 3 orphanages (age 1 yr to 10 yrs) – what a day!! Despite the rain, we had children hanging on to every appendage as we tredged through the gardens, past warthogs, antelope, bushback, lions, and a cheetah. We had lunch and played for hours with the kids. As the day went on, the curious but apprehensive faces turned into smiles and laughter. We learned from the “house-moms” that nearly all the children had not been out of the orphanage for years. Isaac, Elijah, Emmanuel, Joyce, Emilia, Mada, Angela, Simon, Cecilia… such amazing resilient spirits – honestly, I think it was more rewarding for us than for them. As we were leaving, Dave said he had his eye on FOUR! I’m sure he was joking, but it is heart-wrenching to interact with these little people, see them respond, and then leave them – all the while knowing we could intervene to make their life so much easier… we’ll keep you posted!

We started our day with our own traditional Christmas run, this year the raindrops cooled us off as we finished. We rushed over to Lubuto library to spend a few hours with the boys that stay at the Fountain of Hope orphanage next door. We opened the library and art room and took pictures as their chaperone passed out shirts that had been donated from European Union. All the boys proceeded to put the shirts on over their clothes, then posed for a snap of the group. We rushed home and prepared lasagna and carrot cake (our recent specialties) to bring to a friend’s place for Christmas dinner. It was a feast with 2 other couples, wine and laughter into the night.

We're missing you all. We'll write soon with details of our Tanzania adventure...

Until then, take good care,
Kim&Dave

“manga” and “nswa” season...

manga = mango
nswa = swarming nocturnal termites that are pervasive this time of year.

Hope everyone is having a good holiday season. It looks to be a hot and rainy Christmas here.

As for us, we have mixed in a few good vacations over the past months. The time off was well deserved for Kimberly. She has progressively gotten busier, doing her thing all over Zambia. I go with her to some of the rural clinics and I’m always amazed.

On one of the more recent trips, I had a proud moment watching Kimberly in action. She was training a group on how to test babies for HIV. The subject matter was technical and a bit beyond me but that wasn’t the interesting part. What was interesting was how the women and girls of this village took to Kim. At the start, Kim had the full attention of room full of hospital staff and had even more people, mainly women, looking in through the windows. Throughout her talk, many interesetd schoolgirls stopped to catch a peak and ended up staying for the duration. While I’m sure the lecture hit its target, these girls and women were plainly more inspired by how Kim commanded respect than they were interested in the details of HIV testing. There are still some real challenges for women here so it is rare to see a woman in a position of respect, especially in villages. I think the may soon appoint her queen.

I am still pushing a couple projects: bio-diesel, legal aid, a children’s library, golfing... On the bio-diesel front, we have now made some small high quality batches of diesel, nevertheless, the project has kind of stalled for a variety of reasons (the main one being lack of cheap feedstock). In other bio-diesel news, we’ve recently planted some Jatropha trees on a friend’s farm and I met a ridiculously energetic Dutch guy that I’m trying to help grow some Jatropha. I’ve also been spending more time at Lubuto Children’s Library lately – it’s a great project, check out their website (http://www.lubuto.org/).

As for living and traveling in Africa, it seems like the adventures keep coming.
On our most recent trip, we drove to neighboring Malawi to check out the supposedly famed Mount Mulanje (I’d never heard of it before.) On our way, we had to make a rest stop in the capital city Lilongwe. We found a great little backpacker’s hotel and luckily got the last room. The room was downstairs next to the kitchen and we were told it could get loud in the morning when breakfast started up. Well at around 2am things got loud. We were awoken by a guy banging on our door yelling “fire, fire, fire”. I roll out of bed in my undees and sleepily open the door. This guy barges in, continues to yell “fire” and frantically starts to grab our stuff; as I blearily watch him take our stuff, I’m thinking: is he a thief, do I have to punch this guy in the head?! He notices I’m not really moving and says, “REALLY, fire!” I finally come awake, look out the window and see the glow of fire and some dark smoke. I’m now a believer, Kim is now up, and soon all three of us are muttering “fire, fire, fire” as we collect our stuff. We are standing half-clothed outside in the middle of the street in less than a minute. Luckily no-one was injured. The fire was accidentally started next door at the restaurant and we are eternally grateful to that security guard that remembered to wake us…there are no fire alarms.


Anyhow, we finally made it to Mount Mulanje and it was worth it. The pics say it best (http://dave-n-kim.smugmug.com/gallery/4019982/2/233973323#P-1-12). On top of this massif there are large rolling plains, waterfalls, streams, and just awesome views. Kim was ecstatic that the hut that we stayed at up top had resident serval cats – think small leopards. Supposedly this species is rarely seen but a Welsh guy doing some conservation work up there had come upon some kittens and had raised them. The cats (Princess and Trouble) had been reintroduced to the wild but they were still used to humans. By the end of the evening Kim had made friends.


We’ll try to post more over the holidays. Miss you all.

Efridah & Naomi

Hello again –

Dave and I were talking about some of our most memorable encounters since we’ve been here and decided that we should catalogue a few stories to look back on once this experience is over. So – that said, here’s one from 2 weeks ago…

I had the opportunity to visit western province, 7 hours from Lusaka, and sit with a nurse in clinic as she saw her patients. At St. Francis Mission Hospital as a solution to the lack of providers and the overwhelming number of patients, we have trained the nurses to function as prescribers for the HIV clinic. I want to share one of our patients - the story of Efridah and Naomi.

Efridah is an older woman that came in with an infant (Naomi) wrapped on her back and quietly sat down in front of us. In Nyanja, the local language, she explained that her daughter had just been buried that morning, and now there would be no milk to feed her orphaned granddaughter. Naomi was just 3 months old. The nurse calmly wrote an order for 4 tins of formula and informed the grandmother that St Francis would provide the replacement milk until the child turned 5 months, and then they could not continue. Efridah was grateful and rushed to retrieve the formula with the instruction that she should return with the tins. She was back in a few minutes and proceeded to feed Naomi from a dirty green cup, which Naomi slurped down as fast as she could.

We learned that Efridah stayed in a village that was more than 50 kms from the hospital and had no money for transport back home. By this time, it was late afternoon, so Efridah was asked to lodge in the ward with Naomi overnight and return in the morning to discuss transport. Since a colleague and I had finished our chart reviews, we planned to venture out to one of the satellite clinics in the same direction as Efridah’s village; so we offered to drive her home. Without saying much, the offer was accepted and we started off early this morning. After 2 hours of driving, over boulders and ditches, past mud huts with straw roofs, through the hills of Katete and Msoro, we arrived at her home. She had been holding the baby tight on her lap the entire way. She was greeted by her 2 daughters and 1 son (siblings to the deceased) who were wailing, just realizing the fate of their sister. Efridah began crying and retreated inside her hut with her family as we unloaded her belongings. We needed to be sure the family was clear how the formula should be prepared since it is very rare that a child is not breastfed. It is really important that the water is boiled and the cup is clean to protect Naomi from diarrheal illnesses that could be fatal. We were set to leave when Efridah came out of the hut. She kneeled down in the dirt and looked up at us, uttering through tears her first words in English since we had met. She said, “Thank you very much.” And I decided, that today, that experience felt like enough of a reason to be here.

There are many times I wonder why we came and if we should just come home to the comforts and the company of our family and friends… and then there are days like that day… that I feel like we are where we need to be.

We love you all and hope to connect soon on email or skype. We’ve finally put some (random) pictures on smugmug.com. http://dave-n-kim.smugmug.com We'll keep adding... and hope to also attach our wedding picture link soon too.

Love,

Kim & Dave

PS - Dave assures me he is going to add his comments soon!

It's getting hot

Hello!

It has been a busy few weeks since our last blog entry. I hope reading our thoughts helps you all as much as it helps me to write! We're heading into October now, and it's officially HOT here - daily temperatures are 90-95 degrees F, without much relief into the evening. Luckily, we bought a fan that has made a big difference!

We’re starting to settle in a bit more. I still enjoy my time in the “bush” the most. Chilonga in Northern province was awesome. Dave came with me and we were able to visit the Shiwa House (from the book, Africa House) and Kapisha Hot Springs. We lounged on white sand enjoying the 'jacuzzi-like' hot natural springs. The work at the mission hospital was really rewarding too. We trained 7 rural health center nurses to provide follow-up and monitoring of patients stable on HIV medicines. It will allow patients that would normally walk 80-100kms to get to the hospital for follow-up and refills the ability to go to a clinic much closer to their homes. It feels like we’re making small steps forward.

More good news is that it looks like we are finally getting our own car… after a long search, Dave found an affordable Toyota Prado from Japan that will be coming up through Durban, Zimbabwe, and eventually to Zambia. We qualify to get a car duty free, which means we save nearly 50% on the price. I’m excited for Dave to keep working on his biodiesel since gas here is extremely expensive at close to $7/gallon.

We actually had a little scare the other night when Dave decided to have a chemistry experiment in our backyard. He was working with methanol and costic soda to make sodium methoxide as a first step in his project. He noticed his gloves were not heavy-duty enough and started feeling tingling in his fingertips. He washed his hands, but later that night, he had a headache and felt a bit dizzy. Of course, we looked online, only to find that some signs of methanol poisoning (which can happen through absorption through the skin) are headache and dizziness. The anecdote to methanol poisoning is ethanol, so Dave proceeded to drink 4 shots of vodka… which didn’t make his headache any better, but at least he didn’t slip off into a coma! He’s crazy. He said the next day that we should try to have near death experiences weekly because it makes you appreciate life more. Needless to say, he’s found some appropriate work gloves online that he has ordered.

I was busy this week with the AIDS Relief Partners Forum. This is a meeting that happens every 6 months in Lusaka where all of the executive directors of the AIDS Relief hospitals come together for updates and discussions. It was a great opportunity to meet some of our sites for the first time, and to spend time with the sites I have already visited. Thursday, I gave a full-day lecture at a centralized training to our hospital staff on dry blood spotting, which is a technique the Ministry of Health is launching to run DNA tests on infants to aid in early diagnosis of HIV. Right now, many HIV+ babies are dying (30% by age 1, 50% by age 2, and 75% by age 5) because they aren’t getting tested until 18 months. The test Zambia has been doing is the rapid antibody test which is not useful in infants because they have their mom’s antibodies until 18 months, and would therefore show potentially false positive results on their HIV test. In the US, we have been doing DNA testing for infants for a long time, it’s good to see Zambia moving in that direction. If more babies can be tested earlier, we can get them into care and treatment in time.

Today, Dave and I ran 21K (1/2 marathon) for Global Millenium Projects, specifically to combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria, and other diseases. We hadn’t done enough training, and were 2 of about 10 white people running out of 700 runners. I was 1 of ~10 women total. It was a good time. We had some of the first rain since we got here in June, so that cooled us off a bit. We didn’t get the winner’s time, but guess it was ~1 hour. We finished just under 2 hours – not quite as quick as our Zambian friends (some of whom ran it barefoot!)

We’re heading over to the US embassy tonight for a BBQ. We’ll write more later. Sorry we haven’t posted pictures. We have tons that we’ve taken, but it takes all our band width to upload them. Tomorrow we’ll try to go by the internet café and use their band width to get some pictures online.

Until next time… please write and keep us posted on your day-to-day activities!

Love,

Kim & Dave