Zimbabwe

Since I wasn’t staying close enough to walk to Wilkin’s hospital anymore, Salome and I agreed to meet at the office on Wednesday morning and go to the clinic together. Jake dropped me off half way to the office on his way to work so I didn’t have to take the combi but far enough … Continue reading »

In the afternoon on Tuesday, Lovemore came by to take me to the immigration office to get my student visa. He was really concerned that I wasn’t following the rules by only having a tourist visa. I thought I had all of the proper documentation so I went along. When I got there and presented … Continue reading »

I’m sure I spent a very busy day at work although now that it’s a few days later, I can’t really remember what I did all day. In the afternoon Salome went out to make copies of our consent forms and questionnaires and we spent a long time punching holes and stapling things together. It … Continue reading »

Here are the photos from the Sam Levy outdoor mall and the hike I did with the mountain club. Enjoy! Zim mountain club hike

I slept in a bit this morning after staying up so late last night but it’s hard when the sun comes up before 6. I had a nice morning catching up on e-mail and whatnot then I called Michele, who I met on Friday, to see what she was up to. She’s staying at the … Continue reading »

I was a bit disorientated this morning when I awoke in a different place, but then I remembered where I was and breathed a sigh of relief. I spent the morning organizing my belongings since I threw them haphazardly into my bag the night before then I charged all of my electronics that I hadn’t … Continue reading »

There was no power at the house when I got up this morning which normally wouldn’t have been a problem except there’s very low water pressure when there’s no power and I finished the last of my bread and planned on making oatmeal for breakfast. Of course, there was no way to heat the water … Continue reading »

Today we had our first follow-up appointment with household contacts of an index patient. We went to a clinic in Epworth, which is a separate city, just outside of Harare. Harare has expanded all the way to Epworth so if it were not for the “come again soon” sign, you would not know you had … Continue reading »

Salome and I started our day by meeting at Wilkin’s Hospital for the weekly MDR-TB clinic. The first few cases were interesting but not eligible for our study and I was feeling pretty awkward when a guy presented with treatment failure and had just received his drug susceptibility testing results. He fit our criteria so … Continue reading »

Today Salome and I had a long day out in the field. We decided to circumvent MRCZ and hand out our study flyers to the clinics without their approval so we could get patients enrolled as soon as possible. In the mid-morning we headed to the western suburbs to explain our study to 4 clinics. … Continue reading »

I can only upload pictures to web albums at work because it would take up too much data at home on my dongle. Because I’ve been so busy at work it has taken me a few days to get these ready, but here are pictures from last weekend at Great Zimbabwe and Lake Kyle. Best … Continue reading »

This morning I decided to go running before work. To get to the office by 8 am, I run from 6-6:30 then shower, eat and head for the combi stop. To my surprise the gate wouldn’t open when I pressed the button; the padlock was still on from last night. Now, instead of being locked … Continue reading »

On Sunday morning I slept in until 6:30. That’s the latest I’ve slept in since coming here (I typically wake up at 5:30). Jake and Dave went for a run but since I didn’t bring my stuff I had a relaxing time walking around the beautiful gardens taking pictures then reading on the veranda. We … Continue reading »

I had big plans for Saturday: I called a representative from the Zimbabwe Mountain Club and got the details about the hike they were doing in the afternoon. I was excited to get out of the city, even just for the day and thought I’d invite Jake along since he mentioned that he likes hiking … Continue reading »

As part of our study we want to recruit patients from all over Harare so we don’t have a biased sample. Therefore we’d like to recruit patients from all of the poly-clinics in town (there are about 20) so we picked out the 6 that typically see the most TB patients and we decided to … Continue reading »