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 small hills to run up (everything else is very flat here) and was going to go one more block then turn around. Well, the block I chose was very long, but it seemed alright. I planned to run to the next block and turn back, making a large U-shape. Well, there wasn’t another block for a long time and I started to not recognize things. I should have just turned around at that point, but I thought I knew where I was. Boy, was I wrong! I eventually stopped and asked for directions after I had been running for 40 minutes. The guy I talked to was very nice and gave me great directions, but I was really far from where I wanted to be. I ran for nearly an hour before getting home! I started early enough that I wasn’t late for work, but it was definitely longer than I wanted to be running with the heat.

I got to work, printed a few things then went to catch a new combi to go to the lab for my meeting with Beauty. Beauty was running late so I waited for 45 minutes. When she got there, she told me she had to leave by 11:30 to make it to a meeting at noon. We went into the lab and started our work but it was obvious we were not going to finish everything by her deadline so we found a good stopping point and packed it in for the weekend.

Salome picked me up and we headed back to the poly-clinic we had visited the previous day. We had a great chat with the nurses but it was after 1 pm by the time we left. I was feeling so tired and dehydrated from my long run and no lunch that I asked Salome to skip the other clinic we were going to visit and we just went back to the office.

After lunch and some water I was feeling better but it was so hot and I was so tired that my attention span was not enough to do any more work and I gave up at 3:30 (which is only 30 min early for a Friday). I really needed more appropriate clothing for such warm weather so I convinced Salome to go shopping with me. We walked all around down town and I eventually bought 3 dresses which totaled $48. Salome said the clothes were quite expensive and that most people go to South Africa to buy things because clothes are cheaper in Jo’burg. I thought I got a good deal.

Traffic was horrific at 5:30 when I was heading home. It took 10 minutes to go half a block because the traffic lights (called robots) were out at one intersection and it was chaos! When the robots are not working, everyone treats it as their right of way and it becomes such a traffic jam.

I had been exchanging text messages with Mark, from University of Colorado, Denver, regarding dinner. He and his group were going to dinner at 6 which was far too early for me, but I agreed to meet up with them later. I got home, took a shower and got ready then Jake called to see if I wanted a ride. He was just leaving work but could pick me up before going to his place to change. The timing worked out perfectly for both of us and we managed to get to the restaurant by 7:15.

The place that Mark picked out is called “Bejazzled”!! What an amazing name! It’s a restaurant that features live jazz music nightly and serves Thai food. It used to be known as the “Blue Banana” but I think it has a far better name now. The food was alright, but very different than the Thai food in the Bay area. It was fun though.

After dinner, Mark’s colleagues (who are older) wanted to go back to the hotel but Mark wanted to go out so he ordered them a cab while Jake, he and I headed down town. We went back to the bar we were at on Monday but it was just as empty on Friday so we passed on that. Jake suggested we check out this other place he knows of so we agreed. The place is called “the Rugby Fields” and the name says it all: it’s mostly a parking lot with actual rugby fields where they play games. The pavilion where they sell food and drink during the games converts to a bar in the evening and they set up a DJ to play music. There’s a braai set up to one side so if you get a snack attack, you can get a chicken or some sausages. Not many people were actually *in* the bar; everyone was hanging out in the parking lot having a good time. This was a real Zimbabwe experience. I wish I could have captured it but I think you just had to be there.

And Jake told us that hanging out in parking lots and drinking is pretty common. There is an open container law (which surprised me because I’ve seen plenty of guys on the street drinking) but it’s not well enforced. But on the weekends, people gather in the parking lots in the middle of neighborhoods, bring their own beer, and play music on their car stereos and have a good time. I think it would be fun to check out but I certainly wouldn’t go there on my own.

At the place where we were, we were the only white people and over 90% of the people were guys. Women don’t drink much and only rarely smoke in Zimbabwean culture but guys do both quite a bit. There were some women there but not many. After a few drinks we were all feeling a bit tired and the music quality degenerated quickly so headed out. Mark was going back home on Saturday and I think we gave him a good send off. He’s a great guy and I hope to see him again some day.

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.

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 away that I got some good exercise. I met up with Salome and we were ready to go when her truck wouldn’t start! We tried for 10 minutes but it wouldn’t turn over. She had been having some issues with the starter the previous day and her dad (who is an electrician) worked on it but apparently it was not totally fixed. She called her cousin who has an extra car to see if she could borrow one and he said he would come. She also called her dad as well.

An hour later they both showed up and we just transferred our stuff to the cousin’s car when her dad got her truck going. So we transferred the stuff back, crossed our fingers for the day and took off. We were an hour and a half late for the clinic.

It was for the best though because there were a bunch of visiting doctors observing at the clinic that day and the room was already crowded without us. We talked to one of the nurses and were told that the two patients we were hoping to see hadn’t come that day anyway so that worked out. We were informed of another potential client who was an in-patient at the hospital though so we went to see him. After talking to the guy it became clear that we’d have to come back the next day to get sputum samples from him so we left him the consent forms and headed back to the office.

We had planned on going to a bunch of places that day but didn’t trust the car so we went to the office. Salome wasn’t feeling well so I convinced her to go home at lunch time. Meanwhile I did some paperwork then went out into town by myself to gather some supplies. I was very proud of myself when I found all of the shops and didn’t get lost at all!

I was moving to my new place that night and I wanted to wash my sheets and towels so Jake wouldn’t have to do it so I left work a bit early and headed back to his place. I took the combi back as usual but I didn’t have any change so I gave $5 for a $0.50 ride. I and the guy beside me who paid with a 20 waited for our change. And we waited. When we got off at the end of the line, I asked for my 4 Rand (which is accepted here as $0.50 although that is not the official exchange rate). The money guy on the combi tried to give me and the other guy a dollar to split! I had to explain to him that we didn’t know each and that we paid with bills because we didn’t have change. Then the drive pulled out 4 Rand for each of us and we went on our way. If I had not asked and demanded my change I would not have gotten it.

It started raining on my way home so that nixed the laundry plan since everything gets hung up outside. I finished packing up my stuff and then watched a bit of TV while waiting for Jake to get home.

Jake dropped me off at my new place but had to dash off to a work related dinner. Vee showed me around and explained the alarm, inverter (for when the power goes out), etc. Just as I was going to start unpacking, Vee knocked and invited me over for a glass of wine with her and her friends. Having nothing else better to do, I joined them and met Jo, a teacher at the international school, and her daughter, Katie. They were both very nice and we had a great conversation.

I learned that they, and many white people here, are not actually citizens even though they have spent their whole lives here. When Zimbabwe gained independence, the government demanded that everyone had to give up any claim to any other citizenship in order to be a citizen of Zimbabwe. And they had to do it in 6 weeks. Vee is half French and half English and she said the French embassy laughed at her when she said she wanted to renounce her citizenship and the English said it would take five to six months to process the paperwork. She was stuck not being able to be a citizen even though she had lived here for 40 years. And every year she has to renew her visa. It sounds very sad.

They invited me out to dinner with them and I agreed. We went to an Italian restaurant not far away, but I can’t remember the name. I had delicious spinach and ricotta ravioli. By the time we got back it was after 10 and I still hadn’t unpacked anything (not that that took long). Overall, it was a great welcome to the area and I’m sure I’ll like this place much better than the other one although I will miss Jake’s company since it was nice to cook dinner with someone.

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 my paperwork, however, the guy at the desk said, “Is this all you have?” and I replied “This is all that they told me I needed.” Then he gave me a copy of a list with 8 items on in, all of which I needed to bring to get my visa. This list included some of the things I had (like passport photos) but also others that I didn’t (like a copy of my birth certificate and a notarized copy of the application and a chest X-ray!). I showed Lovemore the list and he said the immigration office must have changed their requirements recently.

We then proceeded to a clinic so I could get a chest X-ray.

40 minutes and $100 later, I learned that I do not have TB. Great.

I still didn’t have everything I needed and it was closing time so we just went back to the office and I promised Lovemore that I would work on the application and get it in as soon as possible.

Then he invited me out to dinner with Michele and two other professors. Since the other guys are big-wigs I couldn’t reasonably refuse even though I kind wanted to go home and have a quiet evening. I had just enough time to get home, chat with Jake, change and get ready before they came to pick me up.

We went out to a Portuguese place that is supposed to be quite nice although I was not really impressed with their menu. They mostly serve half a chicken, prepared at any spice level you want. I had the hake fillet and chips instead. The food was pretty good but there were no vegetables on the menu at all. Good thing I’m taking my vitamins! The conversation was a bit awkward at times. I was expecting a lot of science talk since it was a lot of professors, but we talked more about tiger fish since Lovemore is a big sport fisherman. At least dinner didn’t last all night; I got home around 9 pm and had some time to read and relax before sleep.

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 was lucky that we found a place that could do back-to-back copies actually because the first place we tired did it manually (copied one side then reinserted the paper upside down and copied the other side) and was very poor quality. I spent $48 on copies—it was over 1,000 pages total, but it still cost $1 for 25 pages. And they count each side as a separate page! And they can’t collate and staple. But that’s way cheaper than at the office where they charge 10 cents per page and you have to supply the paper. Again, things are way more expensive than they should be.

Jake had given me the phone number of a lady who might have a flat (apartment) available so I arranged to meet her after work. The place is right next to one of the big shopping centers in town and is really easy to get to from the city center. Instead of taking the normal combi, private citizens use their cars as informal combis and shuttle people from town to the Avondale shops for 50 cents (or 4 Rand), which is the same price as the combi. They still cram 4 people in the backseat to make it worth it, but its slightly more comfortable and much faster since there are fewer stops.

I met Vee at her apartment and she showed me around. The flat is very lovely: it is in a gated 4-plex with a beautiful yard that has some lawn furniture. Everything is well maintained and very nice. It’s a two bedroom flat, with a good sized kitchen and very nice bathroom. The living room and dining room share the same space but is very large and there’s even a small balcony (it’s on the second floor). Vee, the complex manager lives next door and the bottom two apartments are rented out to other people. There’s a maid that cleans and does laundry and a gardener that maintains the grounds.

And here’s the funny thing: the apartment is available because the owner is a sailor who set out on his boat with a friend to sail from Durban, South Africa to Australia. That was 8 months ago and they have not been heard from since!! The guy (who was older, having grown children) is now presumed dead but there’s no proof. Since Vee and he co-own the property it has been left to Vee to continue making payments and maintaining things. What an awkward situation!

It worked to my advantage though because the place is well maintained and I basically named my own price in rent. It’s by far the best place I’ve seen (more homey than Jake’s empty house and not as isolated and lonely as Mr. Morales’ place) so I agreed to move in. No one has lived here in a long time so they needed a few days to clean the house and uncover the furniture. I agreed to move in on Wednesday.

Vee is really nice and she offered to drop me off at Jake’s house if I could wait a few minutes while she finished some work. That was great for me so I went down the street to the grocery store and got things for dinner in the meantime.

After I was dropped off, I made butternut squash risotto for dinner and Jake made salad. We had a fine time eating and chatting. After dinner we went and picked up Mark, the education evaluator from Colorado, and went to this English pub in down town. The place was pretty empty—it was a Monday night—but we had a drink and chatted. I think Mark was quite glad to get away from his colleagues for a few hours since he has been with them 24/7 since they arrived. Since it was a work night we didn’t stay out too late but it was really good to get out and interact with others.

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 BRTI flat until Thursday and I wanted to look at it again so decide if I wanted to stay there for the rest of my time here. It wasn’t too far away so I decided to walk, after hand drawing a map to guide me. I made a wrong turn and the got bad directions from a woman so it took much longer than expected to get there but I arrived safely. The apartment is a bit better than when I first looked at it a few weeks ago; it has been cleaned and some decorations and curtains put up, and the beds have sheets now. But the shower is still not great, there’s no laundry, and worst of all there’s no stove! There’s only a toaster over with a hot plate. Certainly not ideal, but I suppose it could be worse. I’ll check on Monday to see if its available and I’ll probably move there if I don’t have any other options in the next day or two.

After hanging out and chatting, Michele and I walked to the Avondale shopping center to get some lunch. This shopping center is pretty much the only thing open on Sunday and it was quite busy. We actually ran into Jake and Dave there and then we saw Mark and his colleagues as well! We all went our separate ways and after lunch, Michele and I decided to walk around the market so she could get some souvenirs. We ran into everyone in the market again! We agreed to get dinner before everyone (except me and Jake) departs at the end of the week.

It was such a hot day that everyone got tired and wanted to get somewhere cooler so we went our separate ways in mid-afternoon. I took a combi into town then caught another one to go to my old residence so I could settle rent with the landlord. We had agreed on $500 a month and I gave him a deposit of $400 then I stayed two weeks so he owed me some money. He was nice about it and understood that I wanted to stay some place that wasn’t so lonely. He was just concerned that none of my things were stolen or anything was wrong. We departed on good terms and I’ll probably never head out that direction again.

It took me a while to get back to Jake’s because there’s no direct combi. I had to go back to town, and then figure out where the combi to UZ departed from. And the bus only leaves when it’s full so I had to wait for 15 minutes while other riders showed up. The bus dropped me off exactly where I thought it would and I easily found my way back. It’s really nice having a better sense of direction and the lay of the land; being more familiar with the city has lessened my anxiety a good bit and I feel much more comfortable getting around now.

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 been able to do without power. Jake had to work in the morning so I hung out by myself and relaxed.

I had been in touch with the mountain club of Zimbabwe but hadn’t been able to meet up with them previously. I didn’t have anything to do in the afternoon so I decided to join them on their Saturday afternoon hike. They were meeting at a place called Sam Levy Village so I got directions there and walked a bit and caught a combi the rest of the way. Sam Levy is an outdoor, upscale shopping mall that has all sorts of shops. I had lunch at a wonderful Greek Café and was able to buy a large bottle of water for the hike.

I arrived a bit early so I could check out the shops before the hike. I think I saw every white person in Zimbabwe! It was so strange to see so many pale people after being among everyone else. I guess the white people have segregated themselves into several areas in Harare and Borrowdale (where the mall is located) is one of them. There was a great variety of shops and I was even able to find the specialty battery I needed for my UV water sterilizer. But the place is sort of strange: there’s a huge stature of Paddington Bear next to one of the shops and everywhere there are these plastic cutouts of Disney characters! It’s so weird! Also, people are really into Christmas here and there are already lights and trees everywhere. They even strung lights on all of the palm trees, which looks quite odd. There seemed to be some good restaurants and I think it would be a good place to hang out and people watch on a nice afternoon.

At 1 pm I met up the mountain club people. There were 11 people altogether (only one black woman) and I was the youngest by about 15 years. Everyone else was quite older and some didn’t look in such great shape. We piled into two cars and headed out to Gasura, which is north and west of Harare, about 30 minutes out. We parked in a guy’s yard and set out on our hike, which was up one of the larger hills in the area. It was very hot, well over 90 degrees, and the first part had no shade so I was glad to be wearing my SPF 50. We basically cut across some fields then started hiking straight up the hill side over the granite surface. Some people were very slow moving so those of us at the front had to stop several times to allow them to catch up. Mid-way up we got under some tree cover and a breeze came up which made it nearly pleasant.

I met some very interesting people and had some good conversations. Nearly everyone is native Zimbabwean and they told me a lot about what it was like in the country from the 1970s until the present. I cannot imagine living in a place like this and watching your country go from being one of the best on the continent to seeing the entire economy fail and watch mass emigration occur. It’s just so sad. One woman had been a farmer all her life until the government took away her farm in 2005 just because she’s white. The land now lies fallow and produces no food while everything is imported from South Africa. And there’s still racial tension here; it’s not nearly as bad as in South Africa, but the white people I talked to certainly don’t approve of the black culture at all and I got the sense that they think pre-independence was better.

The hike overall was great and when we reached the summit, the views were spectacular. You could see so far into the distance and look down on the nearby farms and out at the other granite hills beyond. Descending was quite fast and we were back at the cars by 5 pm. We drove down the road a bit and stopped to have tea and biscuits (cookies) which was quite a treat after a hot and dusty hike. After 20 minutes we piled back into the cars and headed back.

One really nice lady drove me back to campus so that I could get back before it was too dark and I really appreciated that. As I was walking toward Jake’s place, he drove up in his car and gave me a lift the rest of the way. Jake had just been running so after we both showered we went to the grocery store to get some supplies for dinner.

The Spar (it’s a big grocery chain in southern Africa) near his house is really nice and they have great produce and a good selection of everything. We decided to make pasta with a vegetable sauce and salad. I have not been eating enough vegetables here so it was great to get some vitamins. Although his knives are not so great, Jake has brand new, very nice pots and pans and I set to work making sauce while he made salad. It was so nice to cook with someone, even if it wasn’t my Jacob. I bought tri-colored pasta thinking it would be with spinach and tomato but it turns out the pasta was just dyed with food coloring and a lot of the green leaked out into the boiling water!

We had a great dinner and drank a bottle of wine between us. It was a nice evening with good conversation which was such a treat for me. Suddenly it was 1 am and I realized that Jacob and I agreed to talk on Skype so I called him up and we chatted for a few minutes before I went to bed at 2.

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 so I settled for some roti (a flat bread sort of like a tortilla) and raisins.

Salome and I planned to go to one of the clinics in the western suburbs first thing in the morning to screen some patients for our study so she picked me up from my house at 7:30 and we were off.

All TB patients go to a clinic early in the morning to receive their drug treatment (directly observed therapy, or DOT) so it was not an inconvenience to them to stick around for a few more minutes to talk to us. We (or rather Salome in Shona) spoke to 11 patients over the course of an hour and 2 were eligible for the study so we enrolled them. Things went much smoother and faster than earlier in the week and we were done before 11 am.

Afterward, Salome dropped me off at the office while she went to deliver the specimens to the lab and to drop her car off at home.

While she was gone, Lovemore (a professor at the University of Zimbabwe and my sponsor here) came by to introduce me to Michele Tang, a doctor from Stanford who is planning a study with BRTI and UZ. There were having a meeting with some other doctors at the hospital and asked if I could come so I could sort out my visa issue with the dean’s office (when I arrived I got a tourist visa but I need a student visa). Lovemore was very nice and took us out to lunch but there wasn’t much time so we went to Pizza Inn, a fast food place that serves individual pizzas and sodas.

I sat in on their meeting then Lovemore took me to the dean’s office to get a receipt for my student fee and to get the necessary paperwork. By that time it was late in the afternoon so we agreed to go to the immigration office on Monday. Afterward Lovemore dropped me off at home which was really nice since it was out of his way.

Since it was still early and there was still no power, I took a walk to the post office and mailed post cards (be on the lookout in a few weeks!).

I was really fed up with my housing situation since I was starting to feel unsafe there knowing that people were entering my room while I was gone so I called Jake to see if I could stay with him for a few days. He said that was fine but he was going out to dinner with some colleagues and could only pick me up in a few minutes. So I quickly packed up all of my belongings (I don’t have that much) and threw everything into my bag and told the landlord I was leaving. It just happened that he had guests over for dinner (what are the chances) so I told him I would come back on Sunday to sort out the rent.
I was picked up by Jake and Mark, a guy from the University of Colorado, Denver, who is here evaluating the program that Jake is participating in and we went to the Book Café for dinner and to hear the live music. We were later joined by Dave, the older professor we went to Great Zimbabwe with, and we had a great evening eating, drinking and enjoying the traditional African music featuring the mbari, an instrument with metal keys that is played with the thumbs, and watching the dancing going on. It was a great evening.

Jake lives on the U of Zimbabwe campus in a 4 bedroom house by himself. The place is pretty big for one person and is nice by Zim standards. I can’t stay here for long since I don’t have permission from the university, but it’s great for a few days while I find something else.

It was really nice to have someone to talk to in the evening and to be able to sit in the living room and watch a bit of TV with. Oh, and unless you have cable, there are only two TV channels here: one which is mostly government propaganda and the other which plays bad soap operas, Zim music videos (with very poor production quality) and a few shows from South Africa.

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 left Harare.

Doctors without Borders has a major clinic in Epworth and we were shown around a bit and talked to the doctor in charge about the study. Then we met with the index patient and were introduced to his household (wife, son, brother and cousin). They all had symptoms of TB so we enrolled all of them (except for the son who was only 4 years old and too young to cough up sputum) into the study. That took the entire morning because Salome had to talk to everyone individually to get informed consent and then we had to wait an hour between sputum samples.

We didn’t have enough lab sheets to fill out so we had to go to the office to print some more before dropping off the samples at the lab. It was a lot of running around.

I organized all of the files and paperwork while Salome went to the lab then I prepared for tomorrow while Salome created some new log sheets. It was kind of nice to be in the office for a few hours where we could sit (and where there’s a bathroom) and where I’m not stared at constantly by small children.

We had a Skype call with John in the evening (early morning in California) so it was another late night at the office. Unfortunately the bathrooms are locked when the receptionist leaves so you have to plan accordingly.

Not wanting to repeat another dark walk home, I took a cab back tonight only to return to a house without power again. Power was restored around 9 pm so I didn’t have to spend the entire night in the dark.

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 we asked to speak to him about our study. I actually can’t do a whole lot in the recruitment process since most people feel more comfortable speaking in Shona, but I helped prepare the forms and nebulizer for use. Mostly I tried to look busy and made a list of things to talk to John about on the next Skype call.

Just when we were wrapping up and getting ready to go, a young woman that we had spoken to at one of the clinics yesterday arrived with her brother, wanting to enroll as well. It was great to have two patients in one day, but it meant being at the hospital until 1:30 with paperwork and having to wait an hour between sputum samples.

And then we had to rush to the lab to drop off the samples before they got too warm in our cooler box. And of course the lab is on the other side of town from where the clinic is.

We didn’t get back to the office until after 3:30 and then we had all of the paperwork to organize and e-mail to respond to.

Salome had arranged to screen one of the patient’s household contacts at a clinic near their house the following day so we had to make more copies of our consent forms and questionnaires since we knew at least one of the contacts had signs of TB. We’re trying to save printer ink by using a copy machine but the office charges $0.10 per page and you have to bring your own paper so Salome said she would try somewhere down the street to get a better price. She was gone for over an hour!

It turns out that printing double sided sheets here is really hard: none of the copy machines do it automatically so they make copies of the front, then load those sheets in and copy the back page. Only sometimes they load the paper incorrectly and you get page one on both sides or side two is upside down. And sometimes the pages are just not dark enough to read. We’re going to try a different place next time but this is a great example of how some simple tasks are just so much harder here.

By the time we were ready to leave it was nearly 7 pm and we’d been working for 11 hours. We definitely deserved to go home (especially since everyone else leaves at 4:30). Salome dropped me off at the combi stand and I didn’t have to wait long for the bus to leave but it was pretty dark by the time I got reached my street so I think I’ll take a cab home the next time.

There was no power at the house when I got back so I had a nice dinner of yogurt and granola then read some more of the Hobbit.

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.

Finding your way is interesting in Zimbabwe: I asked Salome if she knew where the clinics were and she said not exactly, but she knew the general area. I trusted her and off we went. When we got near the first clinic, Salome pulled off to the side of the road and asked for directions. A vendor selling some wares directed us to the clinic just like she said someone would.

Over the next several hours we went to four clinics, introducing ourselves and the study and asking for help from the nurses. All of the nurses were excited to participate and ensured us they would call if they found a patient fitting our criteria. It was a very productive day but we didn’t get back to the office until after 4:30. We were so late that everything was locked and we couldn’t actually get in.

We went down the street to try to buy some printer ink (no store in Harare carries color ink for a Canon MP530) then we got dinner at a local restaurant called Bannie’s. I really struck out on the meals though: they were out of tilapia and chicken stew and the pasta salad took more than 30 minutes to prepare so I settled with roasted chicken and chips (French fries). It was served with cole slaw and butternut squash and green beans so I finally got a good serving of vegetables (they are lacking in my diet right now).

Salome’s sister works for a theater company organizing plays in the area and we agreed to meet her at Theater in the Park for the opening night of a new play. However, when we got there, we couldn’t find Ruthie at all and when we texted her, we found out that she was on her way home (I later heard that she left because the play producer was being very selective about who they let in to the opening and her artist friends didn’t qualify even though I did). Luckily we got in for free even without Ruthie and I even got a complementary soda before the show.

The plays are performed in the round, in a thatch-roofed hut inside of a park in the middle of downtown. The theater is quite small, with the stage about 20 feet by 20 feet and three rows of bleachers lining all of the walls. It probably doesn’t seat more than 80-100 people.

The play we saw is called “Indigenous, Indigenous, Indigenous” and is about a family in Zimbabwe who owns a large tract of land that they use for mining, farming and hunting. One day the daughter discovers that a “bushman” has entered the house wanting to speak with her father. The “bushman”, who is an indigenous person, is upset at the way the father has been treating the land and implores the family to consider the environmental consequences. The parents, who were freedom fighters during the independence movement, brush him off saying it is now their land and he has no right to tell them what they can and cannot do but the daughter is more reasonable and listens to his arguments. It was a good play and acted very well. Two of the cast members are quite famous here and have been on television shows. There were a lot of parallels between the play and indigenous people’s movements around the world and it was great to see that someone here is trying to open the discussion of these issues. I hope to see more plays of this quality while I’m here.

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 of Lake Kyle

Best of Great Zimbabwe

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 out, I am locked in! Yet another reason to find another place to stay.

After Salome got to work, we decided to go back to MRCZ to submit our study flyer. Salome came directly to work from her home outside of Gweru (a 4 hour drive away) so she didn’t have her car today. We took an informal combi to MRCZ and there we were told we needed to say in our cover letter that we wanted the paperwork expedited otherwise it wouldn’t be looked at until the full committee met at the end of the month. Strike 2 for us.

Since we were near to a large shopping center and we desperately needed printer ink, we decided to go there and look around. We didn’t find ink but we did get a desk calendar, push pins and a second cooler box, all of which were on our “to buy” list. I also got postcards and stamps and tweezers (I left mine at home). It was great to get out of the office and have a nice shopping experience in the middle of the day.

We spent some time in the afternoon working on the cover letter and various other things until we really needed to print something. We asked around and found a shop that sold the ink we needed. They only had black and we really needed yellow and magenta but they said they would order it for us. Based on their customer service, I am not convinced they will do anything but I guess we’ll find out.

The office really clears out at 4:30 and we were not far behind. I think I almost know where to go to get the combi home, but Salome went with me one more time, just to be sure.

In the evening the power went out for a while, but then came back on which was good because I needed to charge my laptop overnight. “The Hobbit” is going well so far and after this I plan to read “The Lord of the Rings”.

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 enjoyed a hardy breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast (the hotel is very British) then packed up, ready for more adventures.

Brian and I heard from the hotel owner that the dam at the end of the lake was worth looking at so we headed there first. And he was right; it was pretty cool. It’s bigger than Hetch Hetchy, which is the dam I’ve been to most recently but I’m not sure how it compares to Hoover dam or any others. We walked across half of it and took some pictures then headed back the way we came.

This was Brian’s first trip to Africa and he hadn’t had the chance to see much, so we went to the Kyle Game reserve to try to see some animals. We got there in the mid afternoon and it rained a bit so the timing was not good but we saw a lot of warthogs and monkeys, some zebras and kudu and one giraffe. Plus a lot of beautiful scenery and amazing clouds.

Around 3:30 we started the long drive back to Harare to get home before it got too dark.

It was a lot of time in the car and my butt started to get sore.

We stopped a few times along the way to stretch and get gas (petrol here) and we even got ice cream at the Creamy Slice. The Slice is a chain of fast food joints in Zimbabwe and there are several: Creamy Slice (soft serve ice cream, watch out Jacob!), Pizza Slice, Chicken Slice (fried chicken and fried) and Express Slice (a convenience store with chips and sodas). With food like that it won’t be long until Zimbabweans catch up to Americans and Europeans in terms of waistline.

It was a long drive and it started to get dark early as the clouds rolled in. Then it started to rain, thunder and lightning. Despite the inclement weather, there were still many people walking and biking along the streets of Harare. I hope they found shelter quickly. We saw a lot of poor people in the backs of pick-up trucks, trying to huddle under some tarps. I felt very sorry for them and was very glad at how fortunate I am.

We got home around 8:30 and I had a quiet evening putting things away and reading (pictures to come later).