Solar cooking and plastic surgery

Last week I had the opportunity to see some new and exciting things, which really epitomise why we wanted to come out here.

It's pouring with rain as I write so I'm typing quickly to try and get done before the power goes off as it no doubt will.

Solar cooking

On Wednesday evening the couple from MSG (a Dutch charity that supports the hospital) asked if I would like to accompany them on a solar cooking demonstration the next morning. It would mean being ready for 8am so I'd miss my usual lie-in :) I agreed.

We drove 6km up the Great East Road towards Lusaka and stopped at a centre for children in distress. It has a wide remit - predominantly involving teaching the local villagers how to help themselves be more prosperous.

The teachers for the day were a lady called Beatrice (the hospital social worker) and a lady called Scholastica (who works at Tiko's), who have been trained to use a very simple solar cooker designed by a Dutch NGO. There was a large crowd watching - both men and women, interestingly.

First of all they explained the principles and then set about making a demonstration chicken stew. Beatrice cut up the dead chicken - I noted that she didn't strip the meat from the bones of the wings and leg but rather cut through it and put the whole lot - skin, bones, flesh into the pot. To which she added some tomato, some onion, water and Portugese chicken spice from Shoprite.

The pot was set in the cooker before 10am. Then all we had to do was wait. [and wait and wait - I entertained myself by wandering off with the camera to photograph the nearby homes]

Of course then the clouds came over, which meant that the food wasn't ready until 12ish, but still, it was a very low effort way of making lunch. Some minor cheating happened when the rice was cooked on a wood stove but overall the ladies seemed impressed. Them men didn't want to pay the 70pin (c.£10) for the contraption and thought they should get them free....

It's a great idea but perhaps more relevant in 6 months and not at the beginning of the rainy season!

Plastic surgery

On Friday the visiting Serbian plastic surgeon was operating. He'd very kindly said I could watch a case involving a child that had burnt the palm of its hand. When the wound was healing the child was more comfortable having a closed fist and the skin of the fingers merged with the skin of the palm, meaning that they were now permanently locked down. Goran was going to release them and put a piece of skin from the boy's tummy onto the palm of the hand - it means the boy will have a brown palm permanently but it's better to have usable fingers.

I was told where to stand out of the way. 'And if you start to feel unwell...' 'I will leave the room' I finished. 'No! Squat down. Do not try to leave, you will fall over before you get to the door and delay my surgery even more!' OK then :)

I felt fine throughout - a tourniquet meant that the hand didn't bleed much and it was fascinating watching him carefully removing the skin and stretching out the fingers. It wasn't necessarily ideal watching them screw wires down the fingers to keep them straight but he did it with such precision that it made up for it.

'We need a photo!' he said, brusquely.

I looked around wondering who had clean enough hands to touch his camera - everyone had gloves on.

'Camera!' he shouted. Everyone turned to stare at me. Ooops.

'Now press the round button slo...' I pressed the button 'NO! NO! Slowly - you must wait for the squares and for me to say it is OK' Now was not the time to tell him I'd seen the squares and the first shot was fine. Better not to argue with the surgeon, I find.

The conversation got around to how difficult it can be to arrange immigration papers for sick Africans seeking treatment (paid for by charities) in the UK. Goran believes it's easier for Indians and Pakistanis to get in.

The anaesthetist piped up 'Of course, it's because the colonialists took everything with them when they left'
I was just wondering how we had taken the abundant sunshine, the fertile lands, the copper, the precious stones, the hydro electric power, when Goran responded 'That was 50 years ago - what have you done since?'

'But they took everything, the colonialists took all the things we had, that's why we are in this state now'

'I was in Grade 1 when you got independence. What have you done with it?' Goran repeated

I would like to be in the Zambian Government if you can just blame the British for anything bad that happens on your watch - but I'm pretty sure that's not how it works. No clearer answer seemed to be forthcoming.

'Perhaps if you stopped complaining about things that happened 50 years ago and started doing something about it you would find yourself in a better position. Plus, India and Pakistan were colonies of ours too...' I said

'Exactly' said Goran.

Then I went to Theatre 1 to see the inside of a cyst they'd taken out of a lady's abdomen. It was full of hair.

There quickly followed a Caesarean section. Geoff was convinced I'd feel faint at that but I did not. I wasn't necessarily keen on it happening to me though - there's a reason the drapes are there. I was quite surprised to see the uterus lifted out of the body and put on the tummy to aid stitching up [although Fi has seen that in the UK too] - but it was a good opportunity for a quick anatomy lesson and now I know why ladies that have just given birth still look 3 months pregnant.

It was also really nice to see the baby being swaddled by the male midwife and taking its first breath.

The next day I went to the ward to record the C sections and for the first time I already knew one of the ladies there.

Thunderstorms

Every other day, rainy season threatens to start. By the looks of things, it could be quite spectacular - we sat and watched two stunning thunderstorms pass across the sky the other night, while sat in the sun! The sunsets have also becom incredibly clear. Previously they would be obscured by the dust in the sky. It is now a lot clearer, and we get pinks, oranges, reds and blues illuminating the sky. Sitting under the sunset with a G&T is one of the best parts of the day!

Remind me what everyone looks like, please?

Oh OK, just because it's you... [This is just photos]

Rory doing his ST application with some help

Gemma, me and Fi by the pool in Chipata

Geoff admiring his burn, I mean, tan

Rory, Fi, Geoff, me, Will and Nat by the fire

Fi, me, Gemma, Geoff and Rory in the pool

Abraham

Geoff and the Prof between cases

Will working - glad I don't wash his trousers

Ox cart

Baobab flower

Children in a village

Little lizard

Pig on a bicycle

Weather and other bits and bobs...

Weather

When we realised we were coming out here in wet season we had mixed feelings. It was a time of year that neither of us had seen in Africa before but it also wasn't considered the 'best' time to come. My dad told us that the electrical storms would be amazing and that would make up for the need to pack wellies. I kid you not, we have our wellies here. Geoff's are currently full of lizard poo - I haven't told him this but I'm sure he'll work it out eventually. Although, perhaps I should mention it given that I have to clean his socks!

We were promised the rains would start at the end of October. It's now the end of November (I can't believe this - I feel like it's still August - probably because it's so hot here) and the rains are coming. Something has changed in the weather this week. On Monday we went to watch the sunset only to discover the hospital was surrounded by electrical storms. We sat and watched the lightning all around us. It was amazing, light up the whole sky sheet lightning interspersed with some forked lightning. Fantastic viewing. And, although the electricity went on and off, we didn't see a spot of rain.

The week got really hot again. I ditched my run on Wednesday morning in favour of weights and press ups in the house. It was just too hot even though there'd been a bit of rain in the night. There was rain for half an hour last night too. But this morning was hot and dry.

Then this afternoon the clouds closed in and we've had light showers on and off. There must had been a storm somewhere relatively close by because Geoff's admitted people from a house fire caused by lightning.

It's going to be interesting for the next 3 months. Every time the weather is even vaguely stormy within 50km the lights go out. This could a little trying, especially at meal times! I think we've been very lucky to have 3 universally hot months so far - it's only fair that we should join you guys in the UK in needing wellies.

African DIY

When we returned from watching more lightning after dinner on Monday we discovered we were locked out. Turning the door handle did not do anything any more. We got Rory's tools and managed to break ourselves back in. Then it became clear that we weren't quite going to be able to fix the door ourselves and we were loathe to shut it just in case we couldn't open it again - there's no other way out because of window bars.

Thankfully there's someone on call from the workshop all the time. I found him at the hospital entrance and he was soon on his way with me. 'I'm the door and lock doctor' he said to Geoff. He made a repair but said he'd be back at 10.30 the next morning to fix the fact that the door is mostly hole around the handle.

Just after 11.30 he came back with a friend. There was quite a discussion before he asked me whether I'd been planning on going anywhere. I had been planning to go to the market to buy things for Geoff's lunch in an hour.

'I don't think it would be a good idea for you to leave when you have no door.'

I agree. That would be a very silly idea, but I have a door.... OK, now I don't. They pulled it off its hinges and took it out with them. When will you be back? 14 hours.

Right. So not only could I not leave but I also couldn't prevent the sun coming in and heating up the inside of the house. I did an experiment to see how long water took to evaporate off the concrete floor some time after 14. Less than 5 minutes for a whole handful. :) I was bored, what else would you do if you didn't have carpet at home?

Don't worry, I managed to feed Geoff, just!

I could hear a kerfuffle outside at 15.10. 'We are back just like we said we would be!' 'You are an hour and ten minutes late!' 'No, your watch is wrong. We are on time.' I pointed out that they were making themselves have to work for an extra hour with that line of thinking.

They had removed our creepy crawly proofing, saying they would replace it with rubber. This rubber happened to be part of an old car tyre. And they put it on with the door open. The only problem is that the gap between the door and the floor is greatest when the door is shut.....

Pets

I don't consider the cockroaches we've been getting pets - mostly because they all die of their own accord over night. Or perhaps I only see the dead ones.

We had a run of bad luck with pets. I'm afraid that the frog died some weeks ago. I only confirmed on our return from South Luangwa. Unfortunately it's stuck so tight to the wall that I broke its back trying to remove it - and still failed. Natalie finds this hilarious for some reason. :-p

Then the little lizard we had in the bathroom disappeared. He was about 2 inches long and you could only spot him by looking for 2 black dots (his eyes) because he was exactly the same shade as the concrete of the floor. He did a good job of eating ants but then he went AWOL.

Now we have a praying mantis. He's brown and about 3 inches long. He doesn't like getting his feet wet. He turned his head right round to stare at me this morning. I don't think we'll have him long but he's good fun for now.

We still have a pet bigger lizard in here somewhere. I saw him on the bedroom wall the other afternoon but he tends to hide in the roof during the day.

And then there's Tiger, obviously.

Film night

The more childish of my colleagues openly sniggered when I mentioned long dark nights to fill with entertainment. (It's OK, I know that Keckers is too busy to read this - aren't you?) Right back when Fi and Rory came we set up Film night. The idea was that we'd each pick a film to watch, put the name in a hat and pull one out each week. We haven't quite hit the frequency or stuck to the list.

What we have found out is that we are very good at picking exceptionally weird films. If you like the idea of locking someone in an oven then pick either Case 39 or Project X. If you want to hide a Dodo in a beard then 'Pirates in an adventure with Scientists' is for you. [Note: it really really isn't!]. Generally if the film starts with female nudity it's going to be awkward to watch in a group (Chloe).

Last night's film was no exception. Will had downloaded Killer Joe. It was supposed to be great. Any film with a lady opening a trailer door naked from the waist down as its opening sequence is probably going to be alternative. If her stepson is at the door it's weirder. And if the excuse for her opening the door like this is 'Well, she didn't know it was you' then you can probably happily stop watching. Actually, it was a little intriguing to see where the whole plot was going. I'm afraid that I still can't answer that. There was a lot of mindless violence and gratuitous nakedness.

In the middle I spotted Tiger arriving at the screen door. He scared Fi and Gemma by pawing at the  door to make his way in. After inspecting the whole house (everything was in order) he came back to find a seat. First he thought he'd try my lap. He put a paw on each of my thighs (I was wearing light coloured newly cleaned trousers - grrr) and panted in my face. It took me and Nat to remove him. Then he spotted a small gap on the sofa next to Will. He made out he was having difficulty getting up onto the sofa so Will stood up to help him. Immediately Tiger jumped up and settled himself down next to Nat, leaving no space for Will. He he he he he. Will managed to reclaim some space eventually. That dog is smart!

Next time we are picking a film that someone has seen in advance..

Chickens and snakes...

On Friday a miracle happened. The network worked all day long without problem. Abraham and I set ourselves the task of writing the specification for adding the new OPD to the network. To get the lengths of cable right we needed a tape measure. We waited under the mango tree by HR whilst the workshop manager went searching for it.

Behind us 3 ladies had set up their kitchen. There was a fire with a big round pot filled with water on it. Nearby were a few large bowls. I saw a lady pick up a chicken and go behind a big pile of sticks. A while later she came back with a dead chicken.

Here was a chance to see how it was all done. I noticed that one of the large bowls contained some plucked chickens. She laid the dead chicken on the floor and went for another live chicken. I didn't quite have the courage to approach. My chance of learning was potentially passing me by. So I steeled myself to walk over and say hello.

The ladies looked up, smiled at me and then carried on with what they were doing. So here's how it's done:

• Catch your chicken - chances are it's hiding from you somewhere so grab it quickly
• Hold it by the feet as you walk to your desired location
• Place the feet under your right foot with the chicken facing away from you
• Grab the left wing and put that under your left foot
• Grab the right wing and squeeze that under your right foot with the feet - the chicken is now immobile but not silent
• Take a normal table knife
• Stretch the chicken's neck up [Vegetarians and the squeamish should stop reading now]
• Use the knife to hack through the chicken's throat. Do not stop to break the neck. The chicken will bleed to death...eventually
• Keep chicken horizontal until most of the blood has come out onto the ground
• Lift chicken up by its feet until all the blood has drained - this might take a few minutes
• Place chicken in hot water and turn it
• Leave for a minute
• Pluck - remembering to pull all the bits off the feet as well

I didn't get to see what you had to do when it came to the giblets because they were just putting the plucked chickens in a bowl. One of their sons toddled over crying at one point. He was lifted on to his mum's back, tied in a chitenge while she carried on. She was able to bend double to work at floor level with the little (but still quite heavy) boy on her back. Their heads touching. He appeared to be asleep.

I went back to standing with Abraham, watching men unloading a massive lorry. It had a flat bed trailer with three sets of rear and front wheels. It was large. They had reversed it into the small gap between the mango tree and the HR office - to minimise the unloading distance into the building's store room and make use of the shade of the tree.

Suddenly there was a lot of screaming and all the men ran away from the lorry at high speed. I saw something that looked like a snake move under the rear wheels of the lorry. I pushed Abraham about a foot away and then curiosity got the better of me and I turned back leaving him behind me. It wasn't likely that the snake was going to come flying out and attack Abraham I figured. Although next time I checked on his location he was about 10m further away.

I looked on the floor but couldn't see the snake anymore. It couldn't have come out so it must be up in the axles somewhere. I'd read about this in the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency - who knew that it was going to prove a good textbook. The men quickly came to the same conclusion. The driver started revving the engine (a good 10m away) to scare it out. That didn't work.

Next he pulled the lorry forward so there was better access to the rear wheels. A man came forward gingerly to throw water into the back wheels to scare the snake out. Another man tried a long stick. All I could hear was people saying 'Muzungu'. They seemed surprised that I wasn't scared. I figured that it was fine as long as I kept a respectful distance - the snake I'd seen was relatively small, it wouldn't be able to strike me without me seeing it first.

The driver grew impatient and suddenly set off at high speed towards the Mortuary. Then he reversed madly back. People tried again with sticks to get at the snake - which was being sighted occasionally. One guy nearly got admitted when the driver set off in reverse again while he was leaning over the wheels at the back. The lorry went all the way back to the front of the hospital before flying forwards. I was more scared of the mad lorry driver than the snake, I thought. We didn't need to make more patients for the surgeons right now!

This time the snake decided to make its exit. It dropped to the ground as the lorry passed me. Immediately a man threw a rock at it, giving it and my foot, a glancing blow. Then the stick man came in to finish the job. I persuaded him to stop when the neck and body were crushed and its bowels were sticking out. He laid the snake on the floor so that I could get a picture and try to work out what it was. It was silver with no other markings and a light belly. It didn't have a coffin shaped head. It looked a bit like a Mozambique Spitting Cobra that I'd seen before but the neck was a bit too mangled to get a good identification. Whatever it was it was a juvenile, probably, only a metre long or so.

The very end of the tail was flicking back and forth. The men assumed this meant the snake was still alive. As if the massive injuries they'd already inflicted weren't enough to protect them. They wouldn't listen to me when I told them it was dead. A further massive pummelling ensued until it was barely recognisable. Then it was paraded around to prove that the massive predator had been felled. The men got back to work.

From the crowd of people watching a man approached. He was dressed smartly.

'I don't think it was a dangerous snake. It's just one that lives in trees eating eggs and things like that. It probably just fell from the mango tree into the lorry.'

'Do you know what it is? I thought maybe a spitting cobra'

'I don't think so'

It's quite a sight to see grown men running afraid from something so small. It's understandable - there are very nasty snakes in the area including spitting cobras, puff adders and mambas - it is better to be safe than sorry, but at the same time I can't help but think that the total snake population is paying a heavy price for the danger posed by only a few species.

Cultural attitudes to medicine

Given the recent shift in attitudes to doctors and medicine in the UK, I should perhaps have expected attitudes here to be occasionally challenging. At home, the intermittent high profile cases of doctors or hospitals getting things wrong has led to a degree of suspicion amongst the public. In Katete, suspicion is unusual, but expectations are often completely divorced from the reality of medical care.

I saw a chap in clinic this week with a high pressure urinary retention. This means he was not emptying his bladder due to prostate problems, but could pass small volumes of urine. The high pressure however causes problems with the kidneys, which were clearly abnormal on ultrasound. Untreated, he will develop renal failure and die. In the UK, treatment would be a catheter then consideration of a prostatectomy once stable. We have a lot of catheters and I explained the situation to him (at length, several times over and through a translator) and offered him a catheter. The only response was increasingly irate protestations in Chichewa, the only part I could understand being "mankwala" (medicine). Clearly someone had told him he could come to St Francis' and get a tablet to take the problem away. He did not want a catheter and would not have it otherwise. In the end, we both left the room frustrated - him because he had not received the (non-existent) drug, me because I know he will become progressively unwell unless he gets a catheter soon.

We had a burns death this week. The patient was a 2 year old girl who had a 20% scald from hot porridge. The injuries were partial thickness and did not need surgery to heal, but a 20% injury is a massive physiological challenge to a 2 year old. In the UK it would be unthinkable for a child to die of this sized burn, and it would require only limited, if any, ITU input. The difficulties come in managing fluid and metabolic (i.e. food) requirements. These increase significantly in both the short and medium term in burns. The best way to manage this is to supplement the patient's oral intake with intravenous then nasogastric fluids and feed. This child had a calorie requirement not far off double that of her usual needs, and was also burnt on the face, neck and abdomen, making feeding painful. I spent a lot of time (probably two hours in total over several days) with nurses translating all of this to the mother. We were initially allowed to put an intravenous line into the child (although this was rapidly pulled out, I'm not sure whether by accident or deliberately by the mother). At no point would the mother allow us to place a nasogastric tube. It transpires that one of her other children had died on the paediatric ward and had had a NG tube. She therefore associated the NG tube with death and refused. The same is often the case with IV fluids, oxygen and lumbar punctures. These are the things done to the sickest patients, a lot of whom die despite treatment. The way this is fed back into the community however must be something like "the doctor put a tube in my baby's nose then he died, so don't let anyone put a tube in your baby's nose". In this case, the child was spoon and breast fed by the mother. At no point did she consume as much as when she was healthy, let alone enough to meet her needs. She deteriorated and died over several days. There was nothing we could do.

Today's case was a little more flippant. A middle aged chap with a cyst on his side. He was adamant that he needed the mankwala to make it go away. I offered him surgery, but he was not interested. There is no drug for cysts, although he probably thinks I'm withholding some magical treatment. In the end, he left unhappy.

I have been wondering whether some of this stems from growing up in a culture where everyone has a local witch doctor rather than GP. Most people seem to trust their witch doctor above us, and indeed sometimes come in to hospital really very sick because they have received traditional remedies. Sometimes we treat them, then they go to the witch for supplementary treatment. One man was lucky to keep his right thumb after a motorbike crash but I reattached it and wired the broken bone together. He came to his clinic review two weeks later pleased as punch with the elephant dung he had put on the wound. One glance at the look on my face and he was at the sink washing it off!

Having never met a witch doctor, I can only speculate, but I suspect they have a treatment for everything. This would cause the attitude that everything can be treated, let alone treated without an operation. To an extent this attitude extends to our nursing staff - it took a lot of effort (and the involvement of the Medical Superintendent) to make the decision to palliate a child with a non-survivable (50%) burn recently.

From the Mzungu doctor's perspective, this creates a difficult tightrope to walk. On one hand, I want to provide care as close to Western standards as possible. On the other, if I don't respect their cultural sensitivities they will leave and get no treatment.

Another hot week in the mad house!!!

[This is Charlotte pretending to be Geoff, for a change]
You could claim, quite rightly, that it's less than a week since my last update. My response to that would be twofold 1) report me to Trading Standards if you like and 2) it is Thursday afternoon and I am sat in my garden in 35 degree heat with nothing more pressing to do than sit here wittering - where are you?

The week was always going to be busy because it had been long awaited. The official opening of the paediatric ward and the new OPD was on Tuesday, with the guest of honour expected to be the Minister of Health. I had found a copy of an invite last week that rather unhelpfully said it was on Monday the 13th so the hospital secretary had had to rush around, or in local terminology 'run up and down', sending correction memos to all concerned. For some reason, I assume space constraints, she neglected to correct the spelling mistake about the anti-natal services offered. Or perhaps I misunderstand and they are really doing their level best to prevent births on the Maternity Ward.

But it was also going to be busy for me. The IT Manager (the whole IT Dept) was still on a course in Lusaka. This meant that Abraham, with his IT technician hat on, was covering. As his de facto driver, I have become, by extension, Assistant to the IT Technician. Apart from anything else, it is thirsty work because the network is spread all over the hospital with switches placed in obscure places. Last week we had dealt with part of the network failing because someone had unplugged a switch and not bothered to plug it back in after themselves. There are only 6 IP addresses allowed on the internet at any time so the instant messenger is permanently blinking even when everything is running smoothly.

On Monday things went mental. Half the network became separated. They could see each other but not the rest of the network and vice versa. It was time to learn how the whole thing worked. I shan't bore you with the details but I have worked out there are two wired networks, with many switches in each, connected by a wireless bridge. Each half also has a wireless gateway for the non-wired computers. Don't worry if you can't follow, just understand that it is complicated. So when half the network disappears one would assume the bridge was the break point. However, the IT guy did not really leave clear instructions other than a process of going switch by switch and turning them off and on again until things start to work again. It is a hard job, IT. So off we go - out of the hospital, down the long ramp, past the chapel, over the deep sand, over the broken bricks, up the steep ramp the width of a wheelchair into HR. Off and on. Now down the ramp, over more deep sand to Procurement. Off and on. Back round to the front of the hospital, up the ramp, past the medical wards and matron and physio, along to OPD. Over the bumpy concrete to get in there. Room 6. Off and on. Room 2. Off and on. Out again, down the ramp, across the sand (I mention it because it is a bugger to push a wheelchair over sand) to Accounts. Everything appears fine at this end of the wireless bridge. Abraham is despondent. Everything is working, he says. Apart from the network :). I tell him that we must have missed somewhere. Where is the other end of the bridge? He says there is nowhere else. I am reminded of my father's story about finding 5 ends of bowel. There must be a receiver for the wireless I press. He says we can try Medical Records. So off we trot across the sand and up another steep ramp, round 2 sharp corners and into the office. I can see two boxes of tricks. One blinking and one not. Abraham doesn't even ask the owner of the office to check them so I do instead. Mr Phiri fiddled with the cables going into the lower box. Abraham cries out with pleasure 'it is working now. This is why we need Muzungus. They carry on when we have given up'. Of course it is a mixed blessing fixing things - now the requests for Internet access are back!

On Tuesday morning I took our camera to watch the goings on. At the allotted start time the canopy was still being erected above the seating area. This is Africa. The Provincial Minister was expected. Whilst everyone waited some people from Tiko's provided a spectacle. Coming in the side entrance I noticed 3 people. They were noteworthy because one of them was Muzungu - Scandinavian or German - and too old for the cap he was wearing and the woman was wearing hot pants. Do not misunderstand. She was tall, thin, beautiful, had massive sunglasses on and was wearing lots of jewellery. On the streets of any town in summer she would have got admiring glances. In a rural hospital in Zambia when a Government official was expected she drew gasps of shock and disgust. It didn't help that they were openly laughing at the arrangements. Rather unexpectedly I felt a pang of defensiveness. So what if things were a bit odd and the minister had a sofa to sit on. At least they were trying. You can't just rock up uninvited in offensive clothes and then openly poke fun. They were ejected but just before that final moment I gave them a piece of my mind. They just laughed in my face.

On Wednesday we had more fun with the network. This time HR and procurement had been separated from the rest of the world. To make matters worse, the Prof's wife Wieke, had also been disconnected. I bumped into her in the hospital as she was headed to play with some of the boys Geoff had in traction on the surgical ward. She told me about the trainee licentiate calling the Prof in for a guy haemorrhaging blood only for the Prof to rush in and find no blood at all. She also asked me if I knew about dinner at their house on Sunday. Sunday? I thought it was Saturday. My husband hasn't kept me up to date. I said. Oh no, she said. I am sure it is my husband that did not say. Perhaps we will never know. Geoff claims his innocence!!!!

Later we visit the house to try and fix the Internet as Wieke has to send her articles to the Dutch magazine she works for. First we had to get into the house. It is 4 steps up from ground level. Luckily their home help, Aaron, was around to help carry Abraham in. Once in, it became apparent that Wieke's laptop was not playing ball. It is in Dutch, so quite what it was saying was unclear to both of us. I pressed a different button and everything disappeared. Oooppsss!!!! I had to run to the hospital to look at another laptop with Windows 7. I borrowed the Pharmacist's. As I asked to borrow it I noticed my hands cupping in front of me in the gesture of submission I had seen so many times since I arrived. My subconscious is culturally astute. Turns out that Microsoft put the Disable button in a really dumb place, judging by the number of people that hit it accidentally even when working in their first language. We failed to fix both the network and specific problem.

This morning we started again following the same route as Monday. All the switches were fine but I noticed that one fewer lights was flashing on two of the switches than previously. The only thing left was to track the cable from procurement to OPD. I did not like this conclusion because it suggested a cable problem, which I was not really happy about trying to fix. I have never had to reattach connectors to structured data cable before. I followed the cable up the procurement office wall and through into stores. Here it tracked across the roof beams to a connector by a window. I asked a bloke stood by if he could climb up on the bags of beans and a fridge to unplug and replug the connector. He looked confused but did as I asked. Then told me the cable went nowhere from there! I suggested it went out through the window. Oh, you are right! From there i tracked it across a roof and down a wall. The cable passed into a hard plastic pipe for protection. Towards the bottom the pipe was kinked at more than 90 degrees - please don't be broken, I thought. I straightened the pipe. Immediately Abraham, sat under a nearby tree for shade, cried out that it was working. To be sure I bent the pipe. It stopped working again. OK problem identified. I just needed to break the pipe and stretch it out so it didn't pinch the cable. 'do we need to get a man?' called Abraham.'No, I do not need a man!' I shouted back as I kneeled on the floor. It was trickier than I thought and I did not want to damage the cable myself. I tried to use a key to open the pipe back up. 'I think we might need a man!' :)

Abraham decided we needed a rest from all the rushing up and down. I did say that I had only seen him sitting all morning :) so we tried to check the email of a friend of his that is doing a degree. We couldn't get it to work, even when we rang her. I asked what sort of degree someone that couldn't work yahoo could get. 'It is tricky. Muzungus can do it because they are sharp. It is hard for the rest of us.' he said. 'Abraham, you can't say that!' he looked puzzled 'Why not?'. 'Because it is racist. The obverse of what you just said is that black people are too stupid to use email. I would be in trouble if I said that.' I responded. 'but it's the truth...' was his only answer.