Stories from Zambia

The past few weeks in Zambia, since Drew and I returned from Boston, have had a distinct quality. We are opening our eyes a little wider to take it all in – the hundreds of children in their plaid school uniforms on the street in the morning, the birdsong and flowers in our garden, the chaos and color of driving in central Lusaka, with its vendors, minibuses, trucks, potholes, and people everywhere. Aware that our time in this extraordinary country will be over all too soon. Leaving Boston Children's Hospital for the last time - returning to Lusaka We are also being a little kinder to one another – still delighted and a bit incredulous to be back together. It could easily have been otherwise. Had the orbit of Drew’s eye had not improved quite so much at the last MRI in Boston. Had kind, empathetic Dr. Gise not been the ophthalmologist caring for him. Had the orbital specialist Dr. Freitag not known and trusted Drew’s surgeon Dr. Eliot… Then Drew and I might not have returned to Zam...

  We had a week off this past week so we made the drive down south to the lower Zambezi and lake Kariba. we started our trip camping on the lower Zam in a camp called Nsofu lodge. The place was beautiful, but the owner scared us a bit with stories of people getting eaten by crocodiles within just the last few weeks. Needless to say this made us a little worried about camping next to the clear crocodile paths that lead in and out of the water. Thankfully we did not have any close encounters (in the campsite at least).   After our first night of camping we went out for a half day of fishing, and probably about five minutes after we started I hooked this huge tigerfish. You may not be able to completely tell, but the teeth on these fish are quite terrifying to have anywhere close to your hands. After the fast start our luck seemed to have slowed down, we spent the next three and a half hours fishing but did not hook another fish. Though we did not catch any more fish we saw lots ...

  We started our trip with Grande and Jjajja at a camp called Bilimongwe in south Luangwa national park in northern Zambia. After a short flight we got to the town of Mfue were we took a van to the national park. Once in the park we switched to a safari vehicle and had a crazy three hour ride over bumpy roads in the pitch black dodging wildlife left and right. Jja jja was not quite so successful because she got hit head first with a large bird. Thankfully we made it safely and were greeted with delicious food, but just as we were about to sit down we were told that there was a leopard in the camp. So we all got back in to the safari vehicle and were were able to track down the leopard not ten minutes after arriving. What a start to the trip. This is a Bilimongwe elephants missing one of its tusks It turns out that Bilimongwe had some of the best food out there and for sure the nicest staff. Every night we were taken to a different place where dinner was put out for us. One afternoo...

  We got to share Christmas Day with 110 kids from the Home of Hope – and although we were far from home, it is hard to remember a more joyful, “right”-feeling Christmas.  Home of Hope provides loving care, food, clothing, safety, and schooling to neglected, traumatized, abused children pulled off the streets of Lusaka. They are at the forefront of care for abused and neglected children in Zambia. Last month the Zambian Parliament tapped them to make recommendations for how the entire system of orphanages and children's homes should work across the country. They are helping to shift the field towards safely reunifying families, and trauma-informed care, and their love for and knowledge of each child in their care is extraordinary. Turn-over at Home of Hope is high by design. Staff find the children's families and build relationships with them. Over time, with enough meetings and discussion, most boys can be safely reintegrated into their families, or extended familie...

If you know me you know that I love to fish. So while we were In the lower Zambezi me and my dad went out and caught some giant tigerfish. They are known for their orange tails and ridiculously large teeth. We tried for three days to catch one and only on the third day was the water clear enough to catch fish.  

  “Do these parents write about anything other than medical dramas?” “Oh, just read it, Eleanor.” December 18, 2021 Pretoria, South Africa It is not yet 4 AM and I am wide awake at the cozy quirky Brooklyn Guest House in the dark in our room behind the Alice in Wonderland door with its thigh high key hole, on the second floor landing with thigh high painting a foot by foot square and mirrors facing mirrors across the chandelier dangling beaded lines of pink plastic jewels. Being here was not in the cards even three. Now, Drew and I are medical tourists in Pretoria, South Africa at the height of its omicron variant fueled COVID-19 wave. At 6AM, we’re scheduled to report to Mediclinic Medforum Hospital for Drew’s surgery for what has (finally) been properly diagnosed as ethmoidal sinusitis with an abscess that has swollen his left eye nearly shut. Over the past three weeks, it has gotten more and more purple and puffy with a firm mass just below the surface radiating the heat of a gr...