I didn’t know how long it would take to get to work from my new place so I left a bit early. I had to wait a few minutes for the combi to fill up but it was way faster than from my old place so I got to work in less than 15 minutes and arrived at 7:30.
When Salome got in, we headed out (her car was working better) and went back to the hospital to enroll the guy we had talked to the previous day. We were just getting ready to go when one of the nurses told us there was another patient who qualified for our study. So we spoke to him and enrolled him as well. It was very productive, but we spent 3 hours at the clinic. Then we had to take the samples to the core lab.
At the lab we talked to Beauty, the lab manager, and I made plans with her to come to the lab on Friday to help her set up one of the kits we want to run on our samples. When we were done at the lab, we sought out the clinical director’s office to get information on getting ethical approval to enroll patients from Harare city hospital (where the lab is). By the time we left there it was afternoon and I was really hungry. I ate an apple on the drive to the Beatrice Road hospital where we wanted to talk to one of the nurses.
We gave out our study flyer and enlisted the help of one of the nurses to train the nurses at the clinics to perform one of our study procedures. Then we headed to another poly-clinic to inform them of our study and distribute a flyer. The TB nurses had the afternoon off so we spoke to the nurse in charge and agreed to come back on Friday.
By that time it was after 3 and we had a Skype call with John at 4. We rushed back to the office and picked up the printer ink that I had ordered and got back just in time for our call. I ate my “lunch” at 3:45 in about 3 minutes. We talked to John for an hour and half and caught him up on what had been going on in the week. Finally, at 5:30 pm (an hour after everyone else had left) we headed home, quite exhausted.
I still didn’t have any food at my new place so I went to the grocery store right after work. Luckily it’s only a 5 min walk away so I had time before it got too dark. I loaded up my cart with staples and vegetables and was barely able to carry all of the food back.
While shopping I got a text from Jake, inviting me to dinner with him and Dave, who was leaving on Friday. I suggested we go to the restaurant just down my street so they wouldn’t have to pick me up and I had just enough time to get home, put things away and change, before heading down there. Sadly, the restaurant closed at 7 pm on Thursday so they had to pick me up anyway to go somewhere else. We went to a nice Italian restaurant called Leonardo’s and we enjoyed a bottle of wine and this appetizer called halumi which is a salty, fried cheese from Cyprus. It was quite tasty. For dinner I had a pizza that had the center dough removed and replaced with a salad. It was very good but don’t think this is what the local people eat; it is certainly a restaurant where white people go and is not representative of the real Zimbabwe.