We were invited to visit “Thandizani” by Elisabet Alie Vila (or Betty) a young Spanish volunteer,
who we first met at Harbourne Hall at one of the VSO training weekends in Birmingham. She is in Lundazi with her partner John Crockett.
Thandizani is a unique Zambian organization, which has developed an excellent community based system of tackling many of the problems of delivering a comprehensive service for HIV/AIDS patients.
Working in Monze where all these aspects of care are also provided we have become aware of the many pitfalls of providing this type of service, particularly the difficulties in motivating and educating the community and preventing the corruption arising from the money given by aid agencies to fund these services.
Thandizani, meaning, “let’s help one another”, is the idea of an ex-clinical officer, now the Executive Director, Geoffrey (pronounced Jofrey) Chikunjiko. His idea arose during a conversation with a patient during a very busy clinic. He is also a pastor and we felt he has created an exciting, inspired and sustainable way of tackling HIV/AIDS, which relies heavily on the best in people and may avoid some of the problems we have witnessed in Monze.
A Picture of us with Betty,Geoffrey at the end of the row and the Director of the local Health Management Team in the middle.
At one teaching session we attended, for mostly unpaid counsellors from some of the 150 or so communities that have been developed, we asked what helped motivate them to give their time and commitment. One man said it was the love it created between helpers and the patients and a woman said it was the feeling of achievement she felt in helping vulnerable children and women. Margaret a co-founder with Geoffrey said the groups also had a great sense of achievement from all the training they receive in counselling skills and for educating people about HIV/Aids.
In total we spent five days travelling mostly on buses over-filled with people, their children, luggage stacked in every space not occupied by a body, live chickens, food, dust and dirt, wedged and fixed in our seats by men and significant parts of their anatomy close to our faces. There was little opportunity to eat or drink, which was fortunate as it was not possible to get out to pee for as long as 6 hours at a time.
This was all to spend 2 days in Lundazi with Thandizani, Betty and John and one glorious day on the shores of Lake Malawi.
Our journey was our first and probably last real African experience of travelling on a bus going as close to native as we will ever get!! It was an extra-ordinary adventure worth doing once.
We were able to talk to some remarkable people from the rural folk in Lundazi and the people running Thandizani, to the Brothers of St Anne’s Cathedral in Chipata, the surgeon at the University Hospital of Lusaka and the British High Commissioners in Lusaka. Perhaps it shouldn’t have been so soon after Ku-omboka.
Day One: Saturday 18/4/09: Monze to Lusaka: 186 kilometres: 2.5-3hrs
2 tickets booked for the executive Mazhandu Family bus leaving Monze at 9.00hrs, K55,000 each, total cost of £16. It cost £1 for a taxi, which unusually was on time to take us to the bus station at Golden Pillow but the bus, was neither on time nor executive. We leave at 10.00hrs on a routine bus for the 186 kilometres ride to Lusaka in 2.5-3hrs, reasonably comfortable and lulled into a false sense of security.
I phone RZ, University Teaching Hospital surgeon, who I had arranged to meet at 12.30 for lunch and apologise for our short delay. Fortunately he had also been delayed even more than us at Beit Cure (BCH) private charity hospital doing circumcisions on men from the local township for no fee (to reduce their risk of getting AIDS; very professionally organized with counselling and good after care) and would be free at 13.30hrs. We arrive at BCH by taxi at 13.45. RZ phones to say he has been delayed even further and eventually arrives at 15.15! As we are due to arrive at the British High Commission at 17.00hrs for an early dinner, as the Carters will be jet lagged and tired having just arrived back from the UK,we felt it would be difficult to have lunch as planned with RZ which would now be at 16.00hrs. We succumb and had a delightful light lunch at the Kilimanjaro restaurant in the Manda Hill shopping centre.We learn that RZ is married with 2 children his wife is a professional woman and his practice includes trauma/orthopaedics and probably not a great deal of coloproctology. However MRT plans to visit UTH and watch him operate. He agrees to take on 2 Monze patients. A 21 yr old sero-negative man with an extensive ano-rectal cancer and a young woman on whom we had done a laporotomy and found what was probably a sacular aneurysm of the left common iliac artery.
Somehow we fitted in a trip around the wards at UTH and RZ manages to deliver us to the British High Commission at 17.00hrs just in time for tea and a piece of Carolyn’s very tasty chocolate birthday cake. We were joined by Tom Carter currently the British High Commissioner (he and Carolyn share the job; a first for British ambassadors and HCs) and as before we are delighted how easy it is to chat with them, helped by the fact their two young 10 and 8 yr old boys also join in. They also seem to dismiss all the embassy staff at the weekends and look after themselves. Carolyn cooked roast chicken, which we still had space for, preceded by a gin and tonic and wine with the meal. The surroundings were as you might expect from a British Embassy, (but not too stuffy or formal) with a large garden, swimming pool, and monkeys in the garden from the President of Zambia, Rupiah Banda’s residence, which has large park like grounds and is next door. They were interested in what we had learnt at “the coalface” working directly with Zambians and I think genuinely envious of our opportunity of getting an understanding of the routine lives of ordinary Zambians. However in contrast we were quite envious about their experiences with senior people in Zambia including Kenneth Kaunda, the first president, as well as the current president. It was a very exciting opportunity to see how at least some of the taxes we pay are spent!!
Day 2: Sunday 19th April: Lusaka to Chipata: 605 kilometres: 8hrs.
We had purchased our bus tickets the previous day on arrival in Lusaka. We bought them from the Juldan bus company on Betty’s advice, as they were “timed” buses.
This means they leave at a set time unlike others, which only leave when they are full which may take all day! The tickets cost K115,000 each (total £35) to leave at 10.00hrs.We got up early at the High Commission after a very comfortable night in a large, modern but elegant room, had breakfast of cereal with Carolyn and Tom and the boys, Mark and Matthew, and were given a lift to the bus station by Tom who got lost, mainly due to our confident but inaccurate instructions but also because he rarely drives himself around Lusaka!
The bus from Lusaka to Chipata
St Anne's Cathedral
Betty said Geoff would collect us in Thandizani transport at 10.00hrs. They arrived at 12.15hrs and as the cook at St Anne’s had prepared lunch for the two of us they insisted we also invite Geoff, the driver and Betty who had come with them to welcome us! This meant there was no place for the retired Archbishop who rapidly disappeared with his plate to somewhere else. After lunch and some essential shopping for Betty in Chipata (Lundazi is similar to Monze in its access to some of the luxuries of life like butter, cheese and wine so Chipata is their Mazabuka) we left at 14.00hrs. After being shaken over another disintegrating road we arrived in Lundazi, 1350 metres above sea level as the sun was setting at 17.30hrs. Lundazi overlooks the South Luangwa Valley, which is rich in natural life including some of the Big Five. However as the National Parks enclose most of these we didn’t see any stray animals during our visit but we are returning in August to Mwfue Lodge in the national Park with Emma. Looking to the east Lundazi looks over the border to Malawi with a steep drop to the Rift Valley.
We were made very welcome by Betty and John, unpacked and after a brief chat we were entertained to dinner at “The Castle” by Kenneth a senior administrator from the VSO office in Lusaka and his wife who had arrived in Lundazi from Chipata earlier in the day. We did wonder why Kenneth couldn’t have given us a lift from Chipata if not the whole way from Lusaka. The choice of food was the usual T-bone steak (not available, also as usual), chicken or sausage with nshima, rice or chips and tomato ketchup - the best food in town. We had chicken and chips (as usual!) with lashings of ketchup (also as usual!) No change there! Stephen, also a VSO volunteer, was there with his wife, but couldn’t eat because he had just had a molar removed. They are from Uganda and have been in Lundazi for three years, having come to Zambia with Tony and Sarita. Stephen has set up an excellent, almost state of the art, lab for Thandizani in very difficult circumstances and in spite of his current pain he was able to give us some really important information about the systems for testing for HIV. He suspects that there may be many patients in Lundazi who, in tests before he arrived, were wrongly labelled as positive and incorrectly started on treatment. The repercussions of this are complex but are such that the patient and his or her family benefit financially from being positive and aren’t totally pleased if they are told they are negative!
In the pitch-black night with our torches for defence we walked home without being attacked by snakes, insects, the Big Five or the residents of Lundazi.
The next two days were filled with interest and we learnt a lot about how to run an HIV/AIDS service. It included another dinner party on the final evening with the Nicholsons and another two young non-VSO volunteers. The Nicholsons were a little younger than us, were white native-born Zimbabweans but couldn’t live in their house in Zimbabwe except for short periods. They still hoped to return but in the mean time had been running tobacco farms first in the Congo and for last 7 years in Zambia. They were very interesting to talk to about their views of Africa and brought there own drinks Vodka and Bacardi with coke in a large plastic cool box.
Day 6: Thursday April 23rd: Lundazi to Nkhata Bay in Malawi: 245 kilometres: 7hrs.
After our three nights and two day stay in Lundazi, instead of going directly back to Chipata we decided to cross the border and the mountains
to swim in one of the great Rift Valley lakes, Lake Malawi.
The Thandizani transport booked for 6.30hrs arrived at 8.00hrs and after picking up petrol we left Lundazi at 8.15. We headed at first north and then south to Jenda, which lies on the border and is 65 km from Lundazi. After going through the Zambian immigration office the 4WD drove along a no man’s land road for several miles with Zambia on its right and Malawi on the left as we were now travelling south.
There was a lot of tobacco grown on the Malawi side
The tobacco plants and flowers
We had to abandon the car as the road/path finally crossed into Malawi and take a cycle taxi
our luggage as we walked the final 1 km to catch a bus that would take us the next 132 km to Mzuzu.
The one of many children with no seat able to sleep perched on a small corner of an otherwised occupied seat over long periods of time with no complaints!
Our Chalet
Mayoka Village is owned and run by a cooperative of mainly black Zambians although two white women seemed to be mostly in charge. They were all extremely friendly and this created a great atmosphere for all the guests who were mostly young and white with a lot of gene matching going on. We really had a great and relaxing time there, we were proud to manage the steep rocky steps that had to be negotiated to get anywhere. This was particularly difficult at night in the dark with only 2 non-fatal falls (MRT after too much wine – such a lightweight!)
We swam in the lovely fresh warm waters of the lake, had a boat trip and saw a slightly tame fish eagle swooping for fish thrown into the water on a stick. The stick was to keep the fish floating to allow the tourists to get their photos. It is a magnificent bird mainly black with a white head and a wingspan of up to 5 feet.
We landed briefly on a beach
and saw many more log canoes but not one boat with even a rudimentary sail, all were propelled manually with oars Many of them carried a single fishermen with their bare legs and feet straddled either side of the canoe. At night they all carry lights to attract the fish.
Three men in a boat
We bought some really nice carved wood including key tags, a delicate wall carving of ebony black figures and a very simple chair for Joseph decorated with an elephant’s head.
We didn't eat at Safa because of the way they mistreat their chips!
We departed in good spirits the next morning on time for the first time.
Day 8: Saturday 25th April: Nkhata Bay to Chipata via Lilongwe: 498 kilometres: 12.45hrs.
This was our greatest challenge so far but again I have to say a unique and amazing experience we wouldn’t repeat too soon or possibly, ever again!?
We managed to get up at 5.45 to board the water taxi directly from the “village” at 6.00hrs to catch the commuter bus from Nkhata bay, which left mostly empty and promptly at the scheduled time 6.30. So far so good. However for the first of the half of the 408 km journey to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, the bus stopped every few miles to take on more people and unfortunately their children, luggage, live chickens, dust and dirt and Uncle Tom Cobbly and all. Finally, when every space from floor to roof of the bus, every corner aisle and nook and cranny were over filled and it seemed there was absolutely no space left, streams of more passengers were crammed in like sardines.
It was hardly possible to move a toe never mind a leg. This is why it was also wise for us to be on a food and liquid fast as it would have been almost impossible for us to get off the bus for 8hrs. We still can’t believe that we did it. We are obviously adapting to the African way of life.
It is also remarkable that during these long journeys you never hear children, who never have their own seats and have to stand for incredibly long periods of time, complain, fight, moan or cry! What is it we do to our children that makes them so unable to stay still or be restricted for even for a few minutes? African kids are so stoical and in a curious way self disciplined.
What are we doing wrong? - To balance this, I have to say that we rarely see parents interact with their children, though they may at home. There are no visible toys or books, and children are pointedly ignored if they cry. No comforting or cuddling. This also seems to be the case if children are distraught in hospital. There seems, in many situations to be a culture of indifference, which also seems to make children much easier to live with. “Children should be seen and not heard”!
We arrived at Lilongwe thinking that the battle to get across the border to Zambia and Chipata was over. This was not the case. We had been able, with difficulty on the long bus journey, to get through to Father Peter, to again secure a room at St Anne’s in Chipata. However on finally being released together with the live chickens and others from the packed commuter bus at Lilongwe bus station and again being attacked by another ten Malawians who were anxious to help us on to the next stage of our journey, to our horror we discovered that buses only go to Chipata twice a week and the next one was on Tuesday! Undaunted I established it was at least possible to get to the border, if not across it but only by the previously mentioned small wrecks of blue buses or extravagantly expensive private taxis.
Abandoning our recent pledge never to ride in such transport again on the grounds of safety, at 15.30 full of anxious hope, we boarded a small wreck of a blue bus after contentious negotiations on the price of the tickets. This appeared to be our best or only hope of not spending the night in the street in Lilongwe and with little patience waited for the bus to fill. I felt like getting out to drum up some business! We had also established that the journey would take one hour and then we could get a taxi that would take us the final 10 km and 20-minute journey to the border, before the border closed at 18.00hrs for the night! There seemed to be plenty of time?!
The little blue bus was full by 16.00hrs still time to make it? However it had to stop for petrol and proceeded to stop at every opportunity to pick up more passengers and their luggage, rarely a live chicken all packed in the usual way. One hour passed and it was probably good that neither we, nor it seemed anyone else knew we were still 45 minutes from Mchinji and the 20-minute taxi to the border and safety. The bus arrived in Mchinji at 17.40 and we were greeted by the usual 10-20 Malawians anxious to help us to the next stage of our journey. For Kw 1400 (£7) we piled into a carefully selected taxi and the 20 minute journey which took 30 mins finally got us to the border, by now in darkness but at 17.58 hrs. We held our breath. In fact the taxi driver had told us it was open all night but we didn’t want to rely on this. He was correct and there was no problem in getting across the border and after a short walk we shared a taxi with a Zambian couple, and the only remaining worry remained whether we could get to St Anne’s before the brothers had eaten all the food. We were able to dine on almost cold chicken in a sauce with chips and Ketchup. We watched live on TV, Man United overturn a 2-0 deficit against Tottenham Hotspur to beat them 5-2 much to Harry’s disgust, as the rot began with a disputed penalty that the ref after watching the action replay admitted had been wrongly awarded!
It is amazing the amount of interest and time taken, by mostly male Zambians in the results and teams in the Premier league. Any impact that we VSO volunteers have on Zambians feelings toward the UK pales into insignificance compared with the result of for example Man U v Arsenal or Liverpool matches!
Day 9: Sunday 26th April: Chipata to Monze via Lusaka: 791 Kilometres: 12.25hrs.
We had breakfast at 7.00hrs and left at 7.30 in a taxi ordered by one of the brothers, which arrived almost before he put the phone down most unlike a routine service suggesting some mutual arrangement between the brother and the taxi driver, perhaps his cousin. The next curious event was that he stopped on the way to the bus station to pick up a man, refusing to pick up the man’s friends on the grounds that there was no space. They had a discussion in Tonga and the taxi driver then explained to us that the man he picked up was a bus conductor who would advise us on which bus we should take. Having only a few minutes to absorb and re-interpret this train of unusual events “I smelled a rat” and to the taxi driver’s clear anxiety I got out of the taxi, which he had parked out of view of the bus station to make my own enquiries. I quickly established there was a choice of two buses which were competing for passengers and that the first to be filled would leave before the scheduled departure time. So it was CPS v Juldan! I established that Juldan was the fuller bus and therefore winning and even offering a cheaper fare so I rushed back to the taxi to find to my great frustration that the man had sold two tickets to Judy for CPS at the full price almost certainly earning himself a percentage of the fare. I exploded and demanded our money back trying to get the police to intervene absolutely to no avail. The taxi driver and his mate disappeared, as did the Juldan bus at 8.15. We left on the CPS bus at 10.15 and arrived in Lusaka 8hrs later at 18.30 after a reasonably comfortable drive, which again included several stops, for reasons varying from dropping his mates off to passengers who needed to pee. We discovered that what we thought was the last bus out of Lusaka to Monze was fully booked but got onto a bus that did leave only 30 mins later and stopped at Monze on its overnight journey to Sesheke via Livingstone. We were extremely happy when it pulled out of the Lusaka bus station on time. It also meant that we would spend the night in our own beds after a hot bath to be ready for work the next day at 8.00hrs. We pulled into Monze Kobil Petrol station at 22.30hrs and got a taxi for just over a pound to arrive home just before 23.00hrs!
What an adventure! We both slept like logs and were fully ready to continue the battle to change the world in Monze HIV/AIDS clinic and theatres the next day. The difficult problem of putting all this down in words was the only other major job we had until the following Thursday when we were moving off again with MB and his friends PBS and wife Helen, and Theresa and Maeve from the Holy Family of St John to Masuku lodge and Lake Kariba for 3 nights and 4 days. More of that in the next Blog.
This whole remarkable journey lasted 8 days, covered 1562 kilometres (just over 1,000 miles), we were on a bus for 46.2hrs (almost continuously for two days and nights) to spend 2 days in Lundazi and one day by Lake Malawi. Transport costs were £200 of which we had £109 paid in expenses leaving £91 for us to pay. We only had to pay £110 for accommodation, meals and booze at Nkhata Bay, all the other stays in Lundazi, Chipata and Lusaka were free! The total cost for the 8-day trip was therefore £201 or £100.50 each. A little cheaper than Tongabezi or skiing in the Alps!!
And so we must close with the news we have now had no rain for almost 4 weeks a dramatic turning off of the tap as we had had rain for most days since last November. The dust is back, the landscape is browner by the day and the lush uniform green is rapidly changing to an untidy irregular death of plants, albeit with splashes of red, orange and yellow wild flowers resisting the encroaching tide of brown. Our garden has ground to a halt and nothing seems to be growing in spite of all our loving care, time and watering. It seems to be static, such a disappointing change from the vigorous growth in the wet season. The evenings have become much colder with temperatures down to 110 C but the days remain gloriously sunny and very warm to hot (upper 70s to 80s).
