You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

[Life in Zithulele, 7th June-13th June]








You may remember my post about how excited we all were at the arrival of our new pharmacist Bonga? Things were finally looking up for us – the 5pm finish at work was looking like it may become a possibility, stock was arriving, good times were being had by all. Sadly, on the 28th of May, I woke up to the following text:







'Hi I'm gone, have left keys with security, please give 7 rand to the nurse who sells scones'







And that was how I found out that Bonga had resigned! So we're back to the status quo - long, hectic working days in the pharmacy :)







I did go on holiday with Mum [see blog post] for the week immediately following her resignation so probably missed out on the craziness that ensued, but if this week has been anything to go by it can't have been easy!

Wilo Clinic support group room - pretty sobering huh?

On Tuesday I went to Wilo clinic to oversee the ARV clinic date there for the last time. It's great to have watched it grow from strength to strength over the last three months and from now on I'll just be sending the packs there and letting the counsellors dispense the drugs. Faniswa, the main counsellor there, is a complete legend, so efficient and helpful :) After we were done with Wilo, we drove up to Mthatha for a variety of purposes including picking up some stock from the medical depot. I finally discovered why the depot is in such a state when we went into their staff offices to find a few stressed out pharmacists hiding under heaps of unfiled paperwork. We were there for around half an hour, during which time our boxes of stock were swapped around two or three times and I ended up signing a load of random forms but in the end we left with the drugs we came for. Epic win.

Umtata depot main office/scrap heap

Wednesday was a very very long day. We started with the perinatal mortality and morbidity meeting during which one of our senior nursing staff remarked that it was 'news to her' that babies didn't breathe while in the womb...and it didn't ever really look up from there. I sat in my chair in ARV dispensary between half eight in the morning and six at night with no breaks. The problem was that one month previously we had had no ARV supplies whatsoever so had recalled all 146 of the patients from that day, plus everyone else who had been given that date in previous months. At one point I got up to stretch my legs but got such a look of disdain from the mobs of patients lining the corridor that I just sat straight back down again. By the time the day was over, the dispensing room had turned into complete chaos, with three doctors and the three of us from the pharmacy all dispensing from a variety of surfaces including cardboard boxes, the fridge and the window sill [pretty hectic]. When the last patient had gone, I just gave up and shut the door on the bombsite that the place had become and wandered home.







Or rather, I ended up at Liz and Lisa's with the giantest hot chocolate and rusks having a conversation about our favourite things about South Africa – won't come as any surprise that most of them were foods...So after I had been cheered up there, we headed to cell group in the pouring rain. It's only about a 400m walk to the Gaunts but I was so drenched when I got there that I had to borrow a spare pair of trousers, pretty much felt like I was back home enjoying the Scottish summer!

The best welcome home from work, ever!

Thursday was another day at work that blends in with all the rest – I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing that chat so I won't even start [but Liz and I were up all night AGAIN doing paperwork so I had to resume my tramp status on their living room floor].







Well, that was a highly exciting blog! Winter has definitely set in: jumpers are a necessity most days, the flip flops have been sidelined and all social events are conducted under the cover of blankets due to the severe lack of central heating in these parts. Not long to go now until I'm back to the sunnier [!] climes of Haddy.







Until then xxx