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

3 months in...

Hello!

It’s hard to believe we’re coming up on 3 months in Africa! We officially arrived June 15 and we’re already in September. Time flies. Sometimes it feels like we’ve been here much longer, especially when we’re homesick! But usually we feel like we are still settling in, needing more time to make Zambia our new home.

We have been busy setting up our place – buying furniture and other necessities, including some artwork from the local markets. I feel like I finally appreciate why my mom and dad had such funky interior design from Saigon when I was growing up! It’s been fun to decorate with an entirely different flair here. Dave had a 4-post bed made so we can hang our mosquito netting – and it’s getting to be that time here – hot and rainy season is just around the corner. I bought some fabric and made our curtains. We’re managing to soften up the place a bit. Dave’s latest purchase was a coffee table made of teak wood. It’s beautiful – and amazingly cheap.

I spent a week in the Copperbelt for another HIV and TB training for providers. Other than our accommodations, it was a success. I think I’ll be traveling with Raid from now on, especially if I travel north to the Copperbelt.

Dave has been buying all the necessities for a test-run of biodiesel. We have all sorts of chemicals in our pantry!! Who knew he was a chemist! We also have a few jatropha seeds planted in the backyard. He met with a local Zambian that is growing Jatropha and is very interested in Dave’s desire refine it. So, we’ll see. He is really interested in exploring the possibility of alternate fuel, especially here when gasoline is very expensive and there is land to plant on and people that can farm it. He’s my hero because he is so original. The Price Waterhouse and EY positions would be ok, but he could have done that work in the states, so he is less eager to take them. We didn’t expect to come here to make money, so I keep telling him to pursue his passion while we’re here. He’s still exploring different interests (jatropha, microfinance), and I am so happy he can.

We are missing home quite a bit, especially as the holidays get closer. I was told that it would actually be better for us to stay in Zambia over the holidays because if we go home, we might not return!! I guess they recommend staying in country for at least 6 months before you visit home. There are some expats that are planning a Thanksgiving feast… should be interesting because turkeys are quite hard to come by, but it’s nice to know we’ll have our traditional celebration meal. I think we will go to one of our AIDS Relief sites in the “bush” to celebrate Christmas with the villagers. It should be interesting – very different, but interesting nonetheless.

We’ve started a running group that meets on Sunday morning. It’s been a nice reminder of home. We don’t have any Zambians in our group yet because they’re all too fast!! J There’s a ½ marathon coming up at the end of September, so we hope to be ready for it.

We’re heading out of town again later this week to Chilonga, ~7 hours north east of Lusaka, in Northern province. Dave is going to join me for the weekend, and then next week I’ll remain and work at one of our mission hospitals in the area. We hope to do some hiking and take some pictures to add to smugmug.

We love you all and look forward to your comments on the blog or emails.

~Kimberly & Dave