a little bit longer…

it seems i may be hanging around lusaka  little bit longer. i have been offered a position from cih (center for international health) at the u of t to stay on in lusaka and be the student exchange summer coordinator. this will consist of working for an extra three months (may, june & july). i will be coordinating the research projects of 5 students from u of t and 2 students from tanzania. i think it will be a good opportunity and i am looking forward to it. in addition, i will be able to continue my research at the chelstone clinic (well start it, and than continue… ha). as well as do some more teaching. considering i don’t have a job to come back to in canada, this has all worked out quite well to give me more time to build the ever changing cv.obviously it means i will be away from wonderful toronto for the summer, which is quite sad. i do love toronto in the summer. but with promises from friends to extend summer into fall, i will be staying. i will also have to spend some time out west in august… maybe even attending some weddings while i am at it!work is going well at unza. two of our proposals/projects are starting to take off. i submitted an amendment to the u of t ethics board so hopefully i will be able to start my slightly modified research in the next couple of weeks.i have been invited to a zambian wedding on friday which i am very much looking forward to. that means i also get to do something else that i love… dress and shoe shopping. i will be sure to take pictures, although my internet is so slow i am finding it difficult to post them. 

delays

not shockingly i have been delayed in starting my research. after what has seemed like relatively good luck, the arv drug i am waiting for in canada is not going to be shipped until possibly april, which means i will not have enough time to interview the patients on the drug and see how they are adhering. so, i am going to have to submit an amendment to u of t ethics, something i should be working on right now, but am wanting to delay because of the head ache it will probably cause. basically i will probably look at a sample of all patients at the same clinic as in my original protocol, and not just on this one specific drug. it shouldn’t be too big of a deal, but i am just wishing i didn’t have to make any changes at all.

my work at unza continues to go well. i am now working on a kicking aids out project (which i was trained in while in st lucia) and continuing with the festival for children with physical disabilities.

i am also looking for a job once i graduate, a daunting task that sometimes sends me into panic mode. i have found a few things that look interesting but all in all it seems early to start applying given that i wouldn’t be available to start until june.

if anyone comes across a perfect, well paid job in sexual health promotion, please send it my way!

zambianisms

so, instead of doing a boring weekend recap (although my weekend was fun, but i don’t feel the need to talk about dancing in every entry…) i thought i would make a list of things that are interesting about lusaka or zambians. little isms for those of you who have never been here might find interesting…

so, in no particular order, my list is:

-bus drivers yelling ‘mommy’ at you when they want to get your attention

- also, to get your attention, kind of hissing at you, although not in an intimidating way (kind of like taking the ‘p’ off psst)

-people saying ’sorry sorry’ to you when you do something stupid, like knock something over in a store or get full of mud while walking through a field

-long handshakes, including kind of holding hands afterward

-the shocked look when you say you will walk anywhere

-being constantly called a ‘mzungu’ or white person (again, not a mean comment, just stating the obvious)

- the variety of ways nshima (the staple food made out of corn) can taste, even though it seems like it should always taste the exact same

-how quickly a rain storm can come on and be truly pouring for sometimes only 15 minutes, followed by sunshine again

-how many people can fit on a bus and how small personal space becomes

-being asked where i’m from constantly… with guesses including the US, russia and the sudan (????)

-bartering for taxi fair, or anything for that matter, with a smile on your face

my weekend minus sleep

the lack of sleep has begun, and early on in my placement. this past weekend was a fun celebration to finish off a very productive week. i tried to branch out a little, as opposed to doing too much of the same old same old….

friday i ‘knocked off’ (a weird british saying that is prevalent in zambia) early from work and went home to get ready to go to a fashion show with my roommate julianna. the dress code was ‘romantic.’ since we had no idea what that meant, we did cute tops with jeans and hoped for the best. when we arrived at the show (a french school called alliance francaise) there was a beautiful room all decorated in reds with a runway down the middle. some people were very dressed up, but we weren’t too out of place. the show itself was a bit of a disappointment, as the clothes weren’t as nice as i had expected, but the event was interesting and fun. miss zambia was there, and we decided that other models in the show were much better looking. although, she did strut her stuff and flip her hair a lot…. so maybe she deserved the title.

after the fashion show we headed to meet some friends at a bar with live music and we danced a little to such songs as ‘hotel california’,  some abba and some zambian music. a random mixture that was quite funny. after the music was winding down we thought, hey, why not just continue our night…. and so we ended up going to two other clubs and dancing into the very early morning, getting home just before 6am. obviously a lot of fun, but my dancing muscles were sore and the phone call from dee in the morning didn’t help my headache (although, i wouldn’t have it any other way!)

saturday julianna and i did our usual coffee and grocery shopping. when we got home three of our little neighbour girls knocked on our door and we hung out with them all afternoon. the highlight was an impromptu photo shoot with my digital camera and our sunglasses. the girls wanted to see how the camera worked and look at themselves in the photos, by the end, they were posing like professionals.

as oppose to resting, julianna and i went out for indian food with friends (my coworker inutu and some american friends of ours) followed by drinks and salsa dancing. the salsa dancers were amazing and definetely made you feel completely inadequate. although one of inutu’s friends did try and teach me some moves, and i wasn’t horrible. i may start attending some drop in salsa classes on wednesdays, so that next time i am less pathetic. so, for the second night in a row, we stayed out dancing until late.

sunday i met up with a zambian woman who is friends with someone i grew up with in canmore (alison casey…. for those from canmore) and had a lovely afternoon playing with her young baby and eating lunch. when i returned home, julianna was babysitting our upstairs neighbours’ little girl, tapiwa, who  stayed with us for a few hours while we got ready for a dinner party with zoe and her mom, christine. we had them over and had a lovely evening chatting and eating. tapiwa behaved very well and i got a taste of what it is like to try to cook dinner and eat with a baby on your hip/lap. i think i will wait awhile before that becomes an everyday reality….

so, there is my abbreviated weekend, with the highlights. i am keeping up my love of rom coms by going to see 27 dresses tonight. work may be slow this week because the students are studying for final exams… but hopefully other things start to fill my time. if not, there is always coffees and cakes in the afternoon and watching the riches on my computer in the evening.