One week clinical practice done, 9 to go

If I need to describe my clinical practice in one world it would be boring. On the ward there are about 30-40 patients and normally in the morning shift there is 3 nurses, but now we have around 10-14 nurse students at the same time, so there is nothing to do, as there is not enough equipment. I am really happy that I spend a week in each ward as it would be too boring to be 4 weeks in one place. It is not easy be going to new ward every week, but then I will be able to see much more and maybe to do more as well. Here the first year students cannulate even without supervision even though they haven't be taught how to do it. 

One week in here and I am start to getting used to living in here. Washing my hair in a bucket, taking shower (washing my self by using ready filled water bottles, to get wet and rinse off), hand wash my clothes and collecting water when it is coming from the tap (which is not that often especially in the bathroom) and make sure before you go to the toilet that there is water to flush. Getting up before 6am as it is too light, warm and you can't sleep because of singing and praying what the local students do in the morning, and going to bed 9-10pm as it is pitch black after 7pm so here is nothing to do by then, especially on a school night. 

This is the bucket that I use to wash my hair, so I will fill it with water, dunk my head in and then shampoo my hair and finally rinsing it by dunking my head in again. After 3 months of that I will appreciate real shower.

These are the water bottles that I use to have a shower.

As we live on the hospital area away from the city centre, here is not nothing to do, or you need to take taxi and walk around 1h to get somewhere. After whole day at work I am too tired to everything, as everything that I need to do will take as twice of the amount of time that it will take in western countries. So this week I have been on the Tuesday market, where the locals sell vegetables,fruits, and other food really cheap. So you will buy loads from there as in the supermarket fruit and veg are very expensive. On Wednesday I had run out of drinking water so it was time to do a trip to the shopping centre, so me and Edwin walked there to get some exercise and took a taxi back (cost 5€). On Thursday we had visitors Jenna (a finnish midwife, who was here in feb-may on her exchange and now visiting) and Omkar (an indian doctor, Jenna's boyfriend), so we got some useful tips. 

My shopping from the Tuesday market, all these for 3 euros (1kg bananas, 1kg carrots, 1kg cucumber and oranges and pears.

My knee is starting to get better, I doesn't hurt much, I can put more weight on it and almost fully extend it, but flexion is on about 90degrees. I still walk with a limp, but not too bad anymore. Hand have been alright without cast, but I have tried to avoid using it and sometimes there is bit pain if I move it on certain way. 

Most of the evenings in here I have spent looking what I want to do on my holidays. I want to go to Victoria Falls and Safari, and Zanzibar trip is already booked. I will have 3,5 weeks of holiday after the clinical practices. I had the trip planned to go to Botswana (victoria falls, safari and rugby) but I can't do that now, as it wouldn't be good for my knee to travel 20+ hours on the bus. I am planning to get tan before I am coming to Finland, but in Zambia you can sunbath only in certain places, like at the Swedish school.

Even though the official language in Zambia is English but the patients in the hospital rarely speak it, so I have tried to learn one of the local languages called bemba, the other widely spoken languages are Nyanja and Tonga. Muli shani? (How are you?) Mwabuka shani. (Good morning).

At the end there are some nice pictures if flowers: