Our new home

We’ve officially spent 10 full days in Zambia.  It seems that 1/2 of the time was spent in slumber, failing miserably to overcome this jet lag.

The other 1/2 has been utilized in familiarizing ourselves with our new country of residence and in preparing a home.  We have finally moved into our new house; well, for now it is a large shell of a home.  It is only one mile from the Lusaka Eye Hospital and Dental Clinic.  Sitting on a generous plot of land, neighbored by only one other house, it is surrounded by a brick wall with barbed wire on top of the wall to discourage potential thieves.  The landlord, a friendly Brit who married a Zambian, lives just on the other side of a wall.  The house itself is quite nice by Zambian standards.  Tile floors, a large floor plan, five bedrooms, a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, and two full bathrooms.  There are a few furniture items that were provided for us, but mostly the rooms lay barren, breathlessly awaiting the arrival of our container of belongings, which will likely take months to reach us.  Earlier last week, we selected cloth and had curtains hand-tailored for our 13 large windows.  So finally we have some semblance of privacy.  

I am thankful for running water, which gets warm but never hot enough.  I am also thankful for electricity, although the first few nights we experienced black-outs and had to resort to going to bed at a very early hour. 

Shopping is interesting in Zambia.  We were tired of Shoprite, the major supermarket that has monopolized the entire country.  The lack of competition in prices as well as the need to import most goods have caused goods and food to cost as much as or even more than they would in the U.S.  So last week we asked our driver to take us to where the locals shop. New Soweto Market.  Bumpy dirt roads lined by dilapidated wooden frames for booths selling everything from soap to monkey bananas to plastic slippers.  Swarms of flies found their haven in the new orange peelings that were thrown into the piles of old debris.  That was quite an experience, but at least the prices were much lower!

Since we have not yet settled in completely, we have unintentionally been forced to diet.  We have been able to manage eating only 1 or 2 meals per day.  Food has been difficult for us to obtain, as we do not yet have a car and we live far from the downtown area.  Our stove is not functioning very well (it took almost 30 minutes to heat up a frying pan with veggies), so cooking is difficult.  I will be very grateful when all of our kitchenware arrives in our container. 

We are still waiting to obtain our work permit; hopefully that will be obtained in the next week or two, so that we can begin working.  In the meantime, we are getting to know our new country.  We have many things to learn. 

Tomorrow I will head down to Zimba, a town almost 400 km away, to meet with some ophthalmologists/cornea specialists from Michigan who come regularly to Zambia to provide eye care.  It will be good to start networking with other ophthalmologists in Zambia.

Paul and I have obtained cell (mobile) phones.  So if you are ever wide awake in the middle of the night and have no one to talk to, feel free to give us a ring!  (If you live in Hawaii, we are exactly 12 hours ahead; if you live in California, we are 9 hours ahead, and if you’re in Boston, we are 6 hours ahead)

From the U.S., just dial...

260-97-988-4100 (Janie)

260-97-972-7412 (Paul)

Hopefully we can get more reliable access to the internet in the near future.  So stay tuned…More updates to come!