Day 11

Day 11
Sunday, September 28, 2008 (Written several days later, and you will see why!)
We take our leave of Lucena in the morning. The previous evening before going to bed I caught my first sight of the Southern Cross along with the great sweep of the milky way. No city lights to interfere and also no big dipper pointing to the pole star to orient me to the north.
Today we are going to make a visit to Baptista’s home village of Kaoma. We have come all this way on a wonderful dirt highway (!?!) but as we reach the turn off marked toward Kaoma we are in for the ride of our life – 48 km of it. Baptista recalls that she and her class mates made this journey every weekend, being dropped off at the junction and left to either walk or hitch a ride on the very infrequent vehicles that happened along that road. She says that many times they would walk the whole distance, at night because it was cooler. Then of course they would have to get back to the junction and wait for the bus to pick them up and take them back to school. Actually the village itself is quite a little commercial center. We visited the primary school she attended and the church where her cousin is the pastor. They were just beginning the procession in to the church so I took a few pictures. We made our apologies as we didn’t have time to stay for mass, and went on to Baptista’s sister’s home which was, in itself, an interesting ride. Her sister Agatha and her husband Pascal and their grandsons’ Stephen, Peter and Richard, greeted us graciously. We offered them a football which they enjoyed immediately and immensely. I then embarrassed my self by vomiting in the back of the house, not being able to make it even to the screened pit toilet. I didn’t know it yet but that was only the beginning. Many pictures were taken and we took our leave back down that killer road toward the dirt highway (no bed of roses either) which leads to Mporokoso and the School for the Blind.
During the journey I was increasingly aware that I was not well but there was nothing to do but in the masculine way, tough it out. We arrived and I was in desperate and immediate need of a toilet. I tried to eat a little but all food was anathema. Another embarrassing vomit on the flower bed a temperature check (102), and the universal consensus was – Malaria!! They took me to the rural health clinic (that’s a story in itself!) where a blood smear confirmed that I indeed had one of those pesky little spirochetes in the smear. That means it is a light case, attributable to the anti-malarial drug we had been taking since before leaving for Zambia. They gave me the medicine of choice, a thing called Coartem, 20 mg of Artemether and 120 mg of Lumefantrine (I always like to know what I’m putting in my body). The dosage is 4 a day for four days after which they said I would feel better and would start to eat again (and because of my advanced age they didn’t charge me a cent!). So for the next 36 hours I lay in bed with a fever, being hovered over by Paula and 6 attentive nuns, and running at both ends. I’m sure that is more than you ever wanted to know but there it is.
So you have two days in one. All I can say with no little perverted pride is that I have now had the Full Zambian Experience. The next time I feel like writing I’ll tell you from Paula’s notes about the School for the Blind.

Bruce and Paula