Aerial Photo of Ingwavuma

Aerial shot of the metropolis that is Ingwavuma, taken from the little Maule 7 plane that flies to the peripheral clinics. The loose livestock are hard to make out, but you get a sense of the chaos.

Community Service Medical Staff at Mosvold

We had an absolutely awesome time at Mosvold, due in no small part to the fantastic friendly junior medical staff who treated us as valued members of the team. They were also excellent company – we had plenty of braais, morning/afternoon teas & great times. They were full of advice on things to do in Kwazulu-Natal and were generally a bundle of fun. We will miss them all!

Heading north to Swaziland & Kruger

We are due to leave Durban & the lovely Dr. & Mrs. Mair behind on Wednesday, as we head up to Swaziland for 3 days (staying at Sondzela Backpackers in Mlilwane Sanctuary) for some whitewater rafting & craft purchases.

Then moving on to a 6 day safari in Kruger National Park with Viva Safaris (see our itinerary here), staying in treehouses & hopefully seeing much big game & beautiful birds!

Aditi at Ponto D'Oura

Aditi on the beach in Ponto D'Ouro ("Point of Gold" in Portugese).

Diving in Mozambique: 10-12 November

This weekend was a great escape to sunny Mozambique, where we went diving twice on some goregeous reefs, and saw:

1. Marble electric rays
2. black cheek eels
3. nudibranchs (little worm like creatures with pretty colours - fascinating creatures)
4. a giant bass/cod (we're unsure what is really was)
5. other gorgeous starfish, coral and underwater fish/creatures

These were our first pleasure dives, and they full of pleasure.
We stayed at a town called Ponto D'Ouro where the sun is always shining, people are always smiling.... and diving! It is a vrey Portugese town with relaxed atmosphere, afternoon siestas and open verandahs for downing some Paradise Rum (the local spirit) wit hthe backdrop of a gorgeous sunset.
It's also a bonus for our passports to have visited an exotic country with two unusual letters in its name (Z and Q)!

Birdwatching in Mkuze Reserve: 4-5 November

We spent the weekend past in the Mkuze Reserve, sighting game & on our first birdwatching trip! Our generous hosts were (from right to left) Mike & Christine Mair -uncle & auntie of my dear friend Julie Frost from New College- and their delightful friend Sandra. We simply had the most wonderful time! In addition to great company & great food (always close to the forefront of my mind!) we had some fantastic sightings of beautiful and rare birds.

Among our most prized sightings were the Narina Trogan, the African Broadbill & the Gorgeous Bush Shrike - which thrilled even the experienced birdwatchers among us!! Aditi & I were also mightily impressed with sightings of eagles (crowned & tawny), trumpeter hornbills, emerald doves and many others.

Thanks to Mike, Christine & Sandra for excellent company and a wonderful weekend!

Sunset at Nsumo Pan, Mkuze

On first night in Mkuze, spent a gorgeous evening by the wetlands of the Nsumo Pan: watching the hippos laze & belch in the water, the crocs sleep on the far shore and a plethora of birdlife! As the sun set we were rewarded with the gorgeous colours opposite.

Tawny Eagle nest

Fever Tree Silhouette, Nsumo Pan

The fever trees are an amazing sight in Mkuze, growing on the edges of rivers and wetlands: here in silhouette at the pan, but the tawny eagle in previous photo also is nesting in one. Their most striking feature is that distinctive lime bark which feels soft, almost flaky.

The fever trees (Acacia xanthophloea) are so named as early settlers sleeping under the trees contracted malaria and suffered the characteristic spiking fevers. However, the link is not the trees themselves of course but the mosquito vectors of malaria, which also live around the rivers and wetlands.

Mosvold Hospital

We are having a stupendous time here at the hospital, absolutely fantastic. Medically speaking: there is just so much exposure to diseases we don't see in Australia (tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS predominantly) and of those that we do, they often present at a much later stage (especially cancers). And we have loads of independence & autonomy. Each afternoon Aditi & I see our own patients in the Outpatient department, which is a fantastic learning experience. The senior doctors are just around the corner for tricky questions or difficult problems. We are even allowed to prescribe medication here!

The vast majority of the population speak only Zulu: we've picked up some limited key words, but mostly work with nurses or nursing students translating for us. Generally works very well, though you certainly learn to be economical & rather direct with your questions!

Each Tuesday & Thursday morning is theatre - the best! We have learnt how to give most anaesthetics & now give any spinal anaesthetics unaided & assist with general anaesthetics. Then during the operation we are invariably allowed to scrub up and act as the 1st assistant. Helping to cut, swab, dissect & suture closed. We've each assisted in amputations, caesarean sections, tubal ligations & performed many smaller procedures such as skin or lymph node biopsies (samples of tissue).

The hospital also services about a dozen perhiperal clinics, which the doctors rotate through. Aditi was lucky enough to fly in the little 4 seater Red Cross plane to the farthest one today!! Some magnificent photos from there.We both have also taken trips with home based care nurses, who visit patients in the community. And that is a real eye-opening experience! Visiting all these tiny shacks/shanty houses where the people live in destitute poverty, having to fetch water from the municipal well which may be kilometres away. Typically a homestead will be 2-3 round huts of sticks & mud/cow dung with thatched roofs ("rondavels") housing whichever grandparents are still alive, usually 5+ children and whichever of the parents that have not perished from AIDS. They keep chickens for eggs, cattle for milk (& funeral meals - almost every weekend) and goats for an occasional meat meal. The land is fairly poor & water scarce to no crops are grown, thus most of their meagre incomes are spent on purchasing maize meal from town (around 12 Rand/10kg I think). To put that in perspective, it costs R50 for a taxi or little bus to hospital.

Lucky Winner of Two Scholarships

Hooray!

I'm extraordinarily happy to say that I'm the lucky recipient of two scholarships for our elective!

1. MDA National Elective Essay Competition - link to essay.
- Run by a medical defence company.

2. John Hirsman International Health Scholarhip
- Run by our UNSW Scholarhip Office.

Though it's not fair to claim them both as mine, as Aditi & I each wrote essays in submission to both competitions -and we each worked on the other's- so really we are both the winners here!

Sodwana Bay

Where the forest meets the sea.

Scuba Diving with Coral Divers: 26-31 October

Angus, (Scottish student also at Mosvold) Aditi & myself safe on shore after an ocean dive.

Spent a long weekend at Sodwana Bay, a coastal town 2 hours from Ingwavuma & completed our Open Water diving course! We stayed with Coral Divers in their safari tents (just secure enough to keep out the many roaming monkeys), inside the northern section of the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park.

Tremendous fun & great food!! Angus & Aditi both found their sea legs relatively quickly, though I was a bit less fortunate falling sea sick on each dive - only in the ocean, not in the pool thank goodness!

Fantastic experience underwater: saw many marvellous tropical fish (water is around 25 degrees in warm Indian Ocean off South Africa's east coast), a pizza-sized ray & some moray eels - or so I'm told, as I was a tad busy holding my stomach in the vigorous underwater current.