Africa Time

I may have mentioned before that things move fairly slowly here. When I first travelled from Lusaka up to Katete I had bought myself a ticket for the ‘7 o’clock’ bus. Arriving at half six I loaded my bags, the engine was running already, bus two thirds full, happy days I thought the seven hour journey will begin on time. Of course not. Over the next few hours I sat impatiently, the engine kept running, various people got on and off the bus, hawkers selling air time, biscuits, torches even wigs. From time to time the driver would rev up as if to move, but no. Workers from the bus company hassled any intending traveller trying to get their custom and not loose out passenger to rival bus companies.

At about half ten the bus was full and it left. For the three and a half hours waiting in the hell that is Lusaka inter-city bus terminal I fidgeted, looked at my watch frequently, got up several times to look around for signs of movement. I was the only white person on the bus and also the only one impatient for its departure. The Zambian people sat patiently just letting the time pass.

It is a Sunday afternoon working in the hospital and I stop for a moment to look around the ward. Yeah there were thirty sick patients there but the place is a sea of tranquillity. Most of the patients are lying on their beds. Each bed had a bedsider, a relative staying with the patient to provide care including changing, washing and giving oral medications. Looking through the ward all of the bedsiders and the patients are just sitting there waiting patiently, just like the people on the bus.

Trying to compare to similar experience at home I couldn’t see any relatives just sitting by the bedside waiting and waiting. Remembering Sunday’s in Castlebar hospital the relatives might by watching the TV seeing Mayo loose in Croke Park again, or reading a newspaper or magazine. There is no TV on the ward here and nobody is reading. I can’t help wondering what are they thinking about, what is going through their minds. I try to find out from some of the patients and bedsiders that speak English. There isn’t anyone about to translate and my Chewa doesn’t extend beyond medical terms.

Kenny has been in hospital for about a week. He has renal failure either due to sepsis from his pneumonia, his HIV meds or recent treatment with gentamicin from a rural health centre. Unfortunately I can’t offer him dialysis so all I can do is stop his HIV meds and hope his renal function improves. He says he passes the time talking to his wife who is by his bedside, usually about their children who are at home. ‘I am always encouraging them to be strong and to be realistic in everything that, one must be convinced in mind to say I am sick’ Kenny says. His wife explains that she just spends the time nursing her husband, she needs nothing else to occupy her mind. Kenny adds that when he is awake they chat and crack some jokes.

Meck has very little English but explains his main thoughts is fear of relapse of nose bleeds which have been cauterised a few days ago (medically it is the least of his worries). He inquires what my name is, in the hecticness of the past few days I obliviously haven’t formally introduces myself to him. He then adds that he wants to go home and see his children.

Further up the ward Edison’s dad sits by his bedside. Edison is 19, has just been diagnosed HIV positive, has a pathetically low CD4 count of 3 and is also in renal failure. His dad has really good English. He says he feels sick himself at present and spends some time thinking about that ‘otherwise I think about the young boy, most of the time when I am here I consult the bible and read and get courage out of the readings’. He stays each night in a boarding house next to the hospital while his sister sleeps on the floor beside Edison.

He likes the boarding house, fifteen to twenty people are staying there ‘the place is good, we always take prayers there’. He swaps shifts with his sister at visiting times, that is six in the morning and half past four in the afternoon. What does his sister do during the day time? ‘She goes back to prepare some breakfast, she remains there washing clothes for Edison, doing other things’. He explains that his wife is at home with their six other children and he thinks also of them. He thinks especially of Edison’s twin brother who is well ‘but right now he can’t go to school as I am here and need some money so I can’t afford the fees’.

I commend him on his English and enquire did he acquire this through his work. I expect him to say he has some government job or has worked in the mines or Lusaka. ‘I am just a peasant farmer, I got my education before this modern education’. I ask him how he feels about Edison’ illness ‘I don’t feel right, I can accept it because he is a human being and my son, I can not decide how he might have got that illness’.

Some of the patients and bedsiders are outside sunning themselves. I find Frank stretched out on the ground. He was just admitted today, diagnosed with HIV yesterday. The lumbar puncture I have done today has found Cryptococcal meningitis a serious opportunistic infection found in advanced HIV. ‘I feel better’ he says looking relaxed and at ease.

Samuel’s mother is outside also. He has been admitted quite sick with diarrhoea and vomiting. He was in hospital in January, was diagnosed with HIV then but didn’t attend for follow up and has not been taking treatment. Samuel is among those men that present here like images from a live aid video, gaunt with sunken cheeks, wasting away. His mother is an upbeat and resourceful woman. She doesn’t leave the hospital instead she gets food here and does the washing in the bathroom. She says the bedsiders pass their time discussing patient’s conditions. ‘We encourage each other, encourage them (other relatives) not to feel lonely in the hospital’

Perhaps it is this positive attitude and outlook to life that allows people here to remain so patient, knowing things will happen when they will and that not everything is under their control be it what time the bus will depart or when or if their loved ones will get better.