Zimbabwe Trip 4 - Part B

Monday, May 15, 2006

And fascinating it was! I got up at 6:30am with the alarm, even though I couldn’t get to sleep until well past 1am last night. I got dressed, and then breakfast came. The paper had a headline talking about how the southern Africa countries were reaching an agreement to stop their citizens from fleeing to better countries with good pay if they are in the medical profession. That’s a great way to make sure that your citizens don’t stay in southern Africa, if doing so means they are forced to come back to Zimbabwe, Malawi, Zambia or wherever. Apparently, the pay is much better in Botswana and South Africa, and Zimbabwe loses many medical personnel to these countries. They also lose a lot to Great Britain and Australia which are not part of the pact. Zimbabwe thinks this will bring back medical personnel to a failing country, but it won’t. All it will do is make sure that doctors from poor southern Africa countries will flee to countries outside of the region. Even the Bush Administration hasn’t suggested something so stupid. That all these countries in southern Africa have agreed to this pact shows how stupid they are, except perhaps South Africa and Botswana who don’t want a glut of foreign doctors bringing in competition to their native grown medical personnel.

I ran into Beth Luman in the lobby waiting for our rides. Beth is working on an HIV project with the CDC-GAP office. She went on safari this weekend about an hour outside of Harare, and managed to do work while there! For her, this was the perfect weekend. Considering she’s an epidemiologist, I just don’t get that kind of “fun”. Maybe that’s why I’m not an epidemiologist  Anyway, she likes to do quirky things while in a country, which is fine. Without having a car, I don’t feel the wanderlust I would if I could just hop in a car and drive anywhere. I’d love to see the Great Zimbabwe for which the country is named. But I have no way to get there without paying out the nose. It’s also more than a day trip, and there’s not much around the structure in the way of accommodation.

I will be sitting in the office next to Casey’s this time, which is nice. Not quite as isolating as being down the hall like the last two times I’ve come down for TFI preparations. I’m sharing the office with Debra Townes, whom we selected to be Yinka’s replacement. She seems to be doing well, and there will be a big meeting with Deo on Wednesday to determine if everyone wants to go ahead with her appointment. I’m pretty sure it will go well. Debra is very funny, and I’m afraid I bring out the naughty in her by pointing out the obvious in certain situations, especially when it comes to the sexual peccadilloes you see in an African workplace, not to mention the diplomatic community.

I found out that Yinka’s wedding has been called off. Apparently, she and Everard broke up in March. She’s not taking it too well, either, but she’s soldiering on. I don’t know any of the details, but I’m guessing she caught him lying and/or cheating. Even when they first got together, some of the ladies at the Embassy reported that Everard would make sexual comments to them. Sadly, that’s an African trait. African men are raised to believe they are entitled to have as much sex with as many women as they want. It’s a key battle in the fight against AIDS. Women get HIV from their husbands even though they never cheat. The problem is, their husbands are. African men think nothing of having a wife at home, but several “pieces” on the side. I also wonder if he stole from her, but if Yinka wants to tell me, she will. I just feel bad for her, but I thank God she found out whatever it was before she married him. I also found out that Amy had her baby about 10 weeks ago, and she secretly married the baby’s father in December. Her next assignment will be in Brazil, but she’ll first go back to DC for language training and other training to prepare her for the assignment. It would be nice if CDC provided that kind of cultural training for assignees, but we generally tend to throw people into the pool and see if they can swim. It’s part of the reason why we like to have had people go on missions for us to see how they are in the field. Technical competency is relatively easy to come by, but it’s that intangible factor of a personality that will make or break you in a developing country.

I got my email turned back on relatively easily. I was surprised to find that I couldn’t post my journal outside of LiveJournal. I had wanted to cross post on MySpace, but it’s blocked at WHO on the grounds that it’s a “personals, dating” website. That’s a bit simplistic, but whatever.

I look at the files Casey has gathered for me. This will be an interesting task. The early years of the Measles Partnership did not have the best record keeping. They were trying to keep afloat, so they weren’t thinking of detailed records. So there will be some forensics involved. A bit out of my training, but I’m sure I can muster through somehow. I’m not sure what I’ll be able to accomplish, but hopefully my efforts will be of some use.

I managed to get on the wrong bus going home from WHO. Of course, they didn’t ask me where I was going, they only pointed to me and said I was a “hotel person”. Turns out, the driver thought that meant the former Sheraton. Whoops. So they had to back-track to let me off.

I noticed some interesting things at the Meikles. The number of items available for food is diminished from my last visit. There simply aren’t that many items available, which is interesting. Also sad.

I’m having trouble with my Ipod recharging via my laptop despite having done it in Atlanta before I left. I’m not sure what the problem is, but if it doesn’t start charging, my Ipod will lose all its juice in a day or two.

I’ve found myself watching BBC Food more than the other channels. Granted, I only get CNN International, BBC World, two movie channels, sports channels that show cricket and soccer, and BBC Food. It’s actually pretty interesting. Not to mention the men with British accents are pretty damn hot. :)