HOLY WATER BOTTLES GRASSHOPPERS AND DRUMS - 2

ENT ZAMBIA -  WEDNESDAY.

            On Wednesday we went to Mazabuka, a two hour drive from Lusaka.   The plan was to get there as early as possible so that we would be finished in time to make the return journey in daylight.    While we were still  forty kilometres away I got a text.   It was from Sister Mariana, a Zambian nun whom I’d met here in Ireland. 

“Many people are here,” read the text, "they are waiting anxiously for you to arrive.”

            We arrived in Mazabuka and went to Nchete House, a community centre run by the Sisters of Mercy.   People were streaming towards the waiting area.    We looked in.   Holy Guacamole!    People of all ages were crammed into the waiting room and more were arriving.  Time to get cracking.  



Kieran in the waiting room looking daunted.













Alex, Martin and I set up in a circular thatched hut in the grounds.    Part of the space was a waiting area and the rest a closed off room.   

Audiology Mazabuka

Three audiologists working in one room is not ideal but, it was the best we could do.   Mutanta, our interpreter, was continuously on call so there were non-stop interruptions.  Outside, the waiting patients all talked at the top of their voices and, every so often, we had to go out and hush them. Besides it was very dark inside the room, so we were all frowning through the gloom at our audiometers.  



Peerubgthrough the gloom.



Outside there was chaos.   The Sisters had taken names and given everyone a number as they arrived but, when we arrived, Kieran asked for the patients to be divided in to three groups. Ear, Nose and Throat.   This meant that people were no longer being seen in the order in which they’d arrived.   And nobody likes that.  Mutanda and Alex had to keep going out and explaining.

 

 

Pattison at work



At one point in the afternoon there was uproar outside and I went to ask the people to quieten down.   I opened to the door to find Pattison. Our ear-mould technician cowering outside.   Pattison is young and slightly built and his outsized white lab coat made him look even slighter.   He held a chart in front of him like a shield and his eyes were wide and darting.   In front of him stood three, large, middle-aged women, feet planted apart, hands on hips, heads wagging, angrily giving out the pay.   I reckoned they were not happy with having to wait but   I decided, coward that I am, to withdrew discreetly and suffer the noise.

I don’t even know how many patients we saw that day because it was heads down test one and then the next. Next, next.   There must have been about 150 altogether.     Two patients stood out one was a little girl who had suffered malaria and been treated with quinine.    As a result her hearing was severely damage.   Sadly, I couldn’t test her properly partly because of the conditions and partly because I did not have a drum.   A drum is very useful for conditioning small children for a hearing test because, no matter how bad their hearing loss they get the vibrations of a drum.   I had the sense that she might have some useful hearing but she clearly did not know what I wanted her to do so I cannot be sure.    Her little face has been haunting me ever since.

Another patient was Beatrice, a woman in her thirties, wearing a nurse’s uniform.   I asked her if she spoke English and, although she appeared to hear me ,she folded over, collapsed in to giggles, twisted about in her chair and looked away.    It was such an odd response that I wondered if she had difficulties other than her hearing.   Was she mentally ill?   Did she have a learning disability?    As I was furiously thinking how I should proceed another woman in a similar uniform came in and sat beside her.

“I speak English.”  She said.  

Then she dropped her voice and leaned confidentially over the table.

 “And I am very familiar with her “condition”.”

Good lord. What “condition”?

            I explained the test to the companion.   She passed on the information in Tonga to Beatrice.    Very soon her “condition” became clear.   She had a very severe hearing loss.   Once I realised this, I spoke directly into her ear.  She seemed delighted with this and it turned out that she spoke excellent English.   Her initial response was just embarrassment.    As soon as she got her new hearing-aids she was delighted with life.

            Mazabuka was also the place where Kieran removed wax from a man’s ear which had a grasshopper embedded in it!   Yuck…. But kind of interesting too!   He also declared that he’d seen more pus in Mazabuka than he’d seen in his whole life.   Martin suggested we call him Pus in Boots.    At the time it seemed hilarious!

 

Grasshopper in ear-wax... mmm...delicious!







            We had hoped to leave Mazabuka in time to get back to Lusaka in daylight but that didn’t happen.   In Africa the sun doesn’t bother lingering about delivering twilight.   It plops down behind the horizon without a with-your –leave or by-your-leave.  

Sun in the process of plopping.

Alex had to sit up in front and warn Kieran of potholes.   She also had to watch for pedestrians because it’s very difficult to spot Africans in the dark.   Then there were the cars that whiz past us on the inside and the cars driving at speed with no lights.   I was glad I was sitting in the back and I dealt with my fear by chatting merrily to our two nurses, Evelyn and Mercy.

            We arrived back at our hotel wrecked and slept the sleep of the just.



The end of a hard day.