The nature of this job is always on 2 ends of the scale. Weeks and weeks of nothing, then 5 days of absolute ball tearing work which leaves you very much wishing for a long sleep followed by sun soaked beach.
I'm back in Praetoria after a whirlwind trip covering a few thousands kms and about 20 hours of flying. Back to fix a plane that should have been fixed a month and a half ago.
Lusaka was nice. And by nice I mean no "you must pay, you must pay" at customs. No cold showers and 'holy' tar roads. And most of all, no locals who look like they're going to fleece you of everything you have the moment you're not paying attention. Bought a few trinkets there which was nice. Other than that there's not much to report.
Really at the end of it all, if you read back a few posts to when I first got here, that's where I am now. Waiting, waiting to go back to my beloved DRC to get some work done. Hopefully this time it's done properly and the company I work for can stop flushing thousand dollar bills and start earning some.
The Tick List
Monday, 27 August 2007
Tuesday, 14 August 2007
When you talk about pink elephants
you end up seeing pink elephants.
After a few emails asking me what's happening with the blog aka 'Am I still alive' I guessed it was time for an update.
Motivation has been bordering the non existant to the point where I wonder if there's any use getting out of bed. Still stuck on the ground with no work to do while we're waiting on a new part to arrive here in deep dark Africa.
Oh and I got malaria. No need to panic, put the phone down. Yes malaria can kill you and mortality can be as high as 20% even when treated in severe cases but I caught it early and it wasn't cerebral or terminal malaria.
For those of you wondering what it feels like to have malaria try this:
Swim 10kms or do a 3 hour full body session at the gym,
that night go on the piss like it was New Years Eve,
then eat really old and bad curry that would burn the bark off a tree.
How you feel the next morning is pretty much on target except it only gets worse not better.
I first had symptoms last Tues and went to a local military hospital to ge tested. Blood work was back in half an hour and showed parasites of simple Malaria. Must have been bitten in the first few days as I'd only been here about 12 days and it takes that long to show symptoms.
Anyway, I had meds given to me by a field medic working for one of our clients and I took them as instructed. 24 hours later feeling better, 72 hours pretty much 100%. I was lucky.
My public service announcement. If you're going to a malaria zone, bring a treatment option with you as you never know what type of malaria you're going to get or what treatment you'll have access to. The best for Africa is Coartem (Artemether-lumefantrine) along with paracetemol for fever. Unforunately Coartem isn't distributed in Australia but you can pick it up in a travel clinic when you get where you're going. Artemisinins are distributed by the WHO and bring parasites counts down quickly. They also work better for parasites resistant to cholorquinine which is the most used form of treatment.
Anyhow, all is well now. Just waiting for time to tick over as usual.
There's been a bit of a fuss going on here with one of the Fathers who is causing a bit of trouble for us, so we're going to pack up and move locations. We'll actually save money AND have 24hour electricity as well. Why we didn't know about this new place before is beyond me, but we do now so we're off probably on Sunday.
I've taken a few more photos around the traps and I'll update quick snaps a bit later.
Other than the above, not much else to report which is half the reason I've been AWOL for a while.
Til something interesting happens again, adieu.
After a few emails asking me what's happening with the blog aka 'Am I still alive' I guessed it was time for an update.
Motivation has been bordering the non existant to the point where I wonder if there's any use getting out of bed. Still stuck on the ground with no work to do while we're waiting on a new part to arrive here in deep dark Africa.
Oh and I got malaria. No need to panic, put the phone down. Yes malaria can kill you and mortality can be as high as 20% even when treated in severe cases but I caught it early and it wasn't cerebral or terminal malaria.
For those of you wondering what it feels like to have malaria try this:
Swim 10kms or do a 3 hour full body session at the gym,
that night go on the piss like it was New Years Eve,
then eat really old and bad curry that would burn the bark off a tree.
How you feel the next morning is pretty much on target except it only gets worse not better.
I first had symptoms last Tues and went to a local military hospital to ge tested. Blood work was back in half an hour and showed parasites of simple Malaria. Must have been bitten in the first few days as I'd only been here about 12 days and it takes that long to show symptoms.
Anyway, I had meds given to me by a field medic working for one of our clients and I took them as instructed. 24 hours later feeling better, 72 hours pretty much 100%. I was lucky.
My public service announcement. If you're going to a malaria zone, bring a treatment option with you as you never know what type of malaria you're going to get or what treatment you'll have access to. The best for Africa is Coartem (Artemether-lumefantrine) along with paracetemol for fever. Unforunately Coartem isn't distributed in Australia but you can pick it up in a travel clinic when you get where you're going. Artemisinins are distributed by the WHO and bring parasites counts down quickly. They also work better for parasites resistant to cholorquinine which is the most used form of treatment.
Anyhow, all is well now. Just waiting for time to tick over as usual.
There's been a bit of a fuss going on here with one of the Fathers who is causing a bit of trouble for us, so we're going to pack up and move locations. We'll actually save money AND have 24hour electricity as well. Why we didn't know about this new place before is beyond me, but we do now so we're off probably on Sunday.
I've taken a few more photos around the traps and I'll update quick snaps a bit later.
Other than the above, not much else to report which is half the reason I've been AWOL for a while.
Til something interesting happens again, adieu.
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