Zimbabwe

My life has gotten rather boring here and I’ll spare you the details of work, which of late has mostly involved sitting at an uncomfortable desk and working on an Access database or entering data all day. Even my evenings are not exciting: I walk home from work, read, eat leftovers for dinner, perhaps watch … Continue reading »

Nothing of note happened on Monday so I won’t even bother with a separate entry. On Tuesday, I invited several co-workers and Jake over for dinner at my apartment. Since Salome lives far south of town and I live on the north side, she came home with me and hung out while I cooked. Her … Continue reading »

Sunday was a very lazy day. It was raining on and off throughout the day which made me feel like staying indoors. I did a lot of reading and even took a short nap in the afternoon, otherwise not much to report. My next door neighbor (and landlord), Veronique (she’s half French) or Vee for … Continue reading »

I went for a nice long run this morning since I didn’t have much going on during the day. It was a great morning after the storm: not too hot or humid and with a bit of breeze. During my run I also tried to locate a specific grocery store, the Kensington Spar (it’s like … Continue reading »

On Friday, I met Salome in the office then we headed to Mbare to enroll our final patient for the week. Mbare is one of the closest clinics to the office so the drive time was short but we had to wait for the patient to arrive so the overall amount of time was no … Continue reading »

Happy Thanksgiving! Obviously, Thanksgiving is an American holiday and not celebrated in Zimbabwe so I went to work today. It was a very boring day, spent entirely in the office, working on database development. Luckily I think I finally finished it, although I still have to test it to make sure all of the tables … Continue reading »

Wednesdays are the busiest days for us because of the MDR-TB clinic at Wilkins Hospital. The sisters (nurses) there have gotten to know us pretty well and they are great at calling up patients and having them come in to talk to us. It’s awesome for the study because recruitment is going really well, but … Continue reading »

I went for a run this morning and kept better track of where I was so I didn’t get lost this time. I even found a few people out for exercise as well! Not many people here exercise in general. I think walking far distances is only done by people who can’t afford transport and … Continue reading »

On Monday morning Salome and I went back to Mbare polyclinic and spoke with the TB nurses there about our study. They were really nice and said they would give us a call when they found anyone fitting our criteria. Then we went back to the office and worked on paperwork stuff for the rest … Continue reading »

Here are a few pictures that I took on Saturday while walking around downtown. Harare photos

This afternoon I went to the football (soccer for the Americans) game with Jake and his friend. This was the league championship game and everyone turned out for it. The local team, the Mbare Dynamos, was playing Kiglon. The Dynamos were the heavy favorite because Kiglon hasn’t been doing well this year. But the game … Continue reading »

I was pretty exhausted after Friday so I decided to have a nice relaxing Saturday of bumming around. I started by grocery shopping so I could actually cook a meal in my new place. Shopping itself is much more convenient now since the shops are so close but the fact that no stores have change … Continue reading »

Here’s a video that I made of my new place. It’s super awesome. I hope the link works.

I decided to check out my new neighborhood this morning by running through it. I have a pretty good sense of direction and I’m sort of familiar with the main roads (when there are street signs) so I was pretty confident all would be fine. It was going great and I even found a few … Continue reading »

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 … Continue reading »