Kapiri

Today we are up in Kapiri Mposhi. It’s a sad little town that seems to have been forgotten. But the main road (one of two main roads in all of Zambia, one runs North and South, the other East to West) passes through. It is about 60 km North of Kabwe, which is an old lead mining town. Kapiri has a train from Tanzania that stops here, so that is one reason it exists. Kapiri is also building a new district hospital. We took a trip to the site today to check things out, and Jason (one of the visiting OB’s) being the brave one went up to the guards and asked for a tour of the unfinished place. He got the scoop at the same time. Turns out that construction began on the hospital in 2005, but it seems that the contractor wasn’t all that…well, shall we say honest, and so was terminated. Nothing had been continued until the new contractor was hired recently and they resumed construction only last week. They are hoping to have some buildings up and running by March, but it doesn’t look like the whole hospital will be functioning until October of this year. That’s if all goes well from here on out.

A funny story today was stopping at the tomato stand on the side of the road. Marion took out her camera to take a picture and all the women and children working their stands scattered and hid in record time; It looked exactly like what fish do when you get too close to the tank! Our driver said they had some “silly beliefs” which is why they don’t want to get their picture taken. I didn’t feel it appropriate to press any further with questions and find out what those “silly beliefs” are. Maybe someday I’ll find out as I’m quite curious. At least they were giggling a bit while running, nobody was screaming and crying so I guess whatever their reason it can’t be that bad. It was funny to watch.

I'm trying to post some photos on the blog, but having difficulty. I'll keep researching.