The Chicken; The Fox; The Grain

Photo of the week. A post coital moment to relax before starting again in 10 minutes. (The girlfriend is sleeping to his left)

Highlight of the week: Our poorly patient asks for more magic tablets. He is up and about enjoying the park

Lowlight of the week: We lock our new cleaner out of the house by mistake. 

Maximum temperature: 28 degrees Celsius

Rainfall: Not even a whisper

How will I get my chicken, fox and grain across the river? I have a small boat. It will only carry myself and one of my wares. Given the chance, the fox will eat the chicken. The chicken will eat the grain. What can I take and what can I leave? It’s a mind exercise. A test of logic. It’s doable. But only with a plan. It needs a cunning plan.

It’s handover time in South Luangwa. A 3 monthly drill in the valley. Each time a new doctor arrives, the old one leaves. With a 3 day handover period. There is much to hand over. A house. A car. The medical kit. The doctor phone. An orientation to the valley. An introduction to the clinic. Patient care to pass on. Continuity important. It’s easier with a returning doctor. Less to handover. But still vital details need care. What’s new in the valley? What medicines are needed? Is the kit all in fine fettle?

But then things get complicated. It’s not like the final episode of Dr Who. Where the outgoing doctor regenerates. Taking all of their experience into a reinvigorated, somewhat better, being. All knowing. Seamless and stress free. Here there must momentarily be two official Valley doctors: The incumbent. And the wannabe.

Perhaps a relay race is a better metaphor than Doctor Who? The baton is momentarily held by both doctors. But even during this transition only one doc carries the can. Or the baton. The Valley doc with the car, must also have the doc phone. Without a car they are stranded. The doctor needs to respond to an emergency lickety split. Wheels inseparable from phone. A cursory handover inevitably leaves the new doctor in no man’s land. A foul handover. Risking disqualification or misadventure. Three days is the traditional sweet spot for this regeneration process. But at some point the newly fledged doctor needs to fly solo. But the best laid plans oft go awry.

Talking of things going awry – last week the baton stuttered on its well-rehearsed journey. Doc Andre had to leave early, before he had had a chance to verse us on what is expected of the new Doctor Who. Meanwhile Doc George steps into the breach. A man who already wears two other hats, and fills over-sized boots. He works as a surgeon and a hospital doctor, whilst also managing the “Velos” District Hospital, by the airport. Doc George holds the baton. And waits patiently for the wannabes to come back out of the bush. Doc George holds the fort for potentially life threatening issues. But day-to-day primary care will have to wait for the cavalry. We set a time for the cavalry to arrive. 14:00 on the 15^th July.

It's Monday the 14^th. We receive a call from a distant camp. Something is brewing. A complicated medical issue. But the client hasn’t yet pressed the panic button. International rescue has not yet been summoned. Might we be able to help? If the need arises?

We ponder our options. The boat is on the other side of the river. With the current farmer, the fox, and the grain. Without the car and the phone we are unable to react. As an aside, we are not yet fully indemnified to provide care to safari guests. But as good Samaritans we might just pitch in if Doc George needs a hand. We watchfully wait. Provide a safety net. And eye the boat on the far shore.

Tuesday 15^th comes soon enough. Today is the day. Our first day at school. But we have been to the school before. We are now 4^th graders. We know our way around. We know the system. We have arranged to meet Doc George for hand-over. Midway between our house and his hospital. At 14:00. We plan on hitching to the main road. And then we will get a taxi to Just Africa. A central point. But Tuesday the 15^th brings the predicted riddle, a brain teaser, full-force, into our prefrontal cortexes.

Keith’s phone pings into life. The client is more unwell. The WhatsApp message declares. Can you make a plan to do a visit? In the park. About an hour away.

Cogs start to turn. Synapses share miniature jump-start messages. ChatGPT won’t be up to solving this one. We need to do the mental gymnastics ourselves. We rehearse the options. We sift through the myriad permutations. Years of bush medicine feed our thoughts:

• Might Keith get a lift and go alone? I could go to handover to fetch the phone and the car? But wait - Keith will need the medical kit. A non-starter!
• Might we arrange handover sooner? Perhaps in the morning? We try to contact Doc George. He is in clinic, so there is no reply. The idea is on ice.
• Might we go straight after handover? This would mean doing a quick handover. And then heading into the park. At best we could be on the road by late afternoon. A late afternoon start would mean an evening finish. Darkness adds peril. The park roads vary year to year. The river alters its course. A sandy dry river crossing to check out our diff lock. Phones are useless. Elephants patrol. All of my worst fears conspire. Nice idea. But not my cup of tea.

We puzzle away. We gather information and share uncertainties. Many of our ducks are already in a row: our medical indemnity is now live; we are now officially the Valley doctors; our diary is relatively clear. But two spanners are still in the works. No car. No phone. We temporise: Keith arranges to speak to the client. By WhatsApp video. Maybe that will solve the problem?

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: we bolt down an early lunch; negotiate an earlier handover. An extra half an hour may be pivotal. 13:30 is the earliest that we can snatch the baton and sprint off.

Baboons start playing loudly outside our kitchen. Juveniles. They jump on and off our window sill. Using our gas cylinder as a launch pad. Kids will be kids. It’s all fun until it is no fun: A loud crash. And the sound of gushing water. One of the little devils has landed on the junction between our geyser and the water tap. It snaps in two. Water pours out of the pipe. Our geyser is emptying. Keith hurriedly puts on shoes and heads outside. The stopcock his goal. I head in the opposite direction. To the Time and Tide offices. Just nearby. In search of a plumber. We both prevail. Within 10 minutes, the plumber, Evancy, is on site. The issue is fixed. No standing and scratching of a chin. No, It’s gonna cost you mate. No bill whatsoever. An instant fix. A cheerful smile.

Keith has a brainwave. He asks Evancy if anyone is heading into town. We need a lift into town. To start our journey. To handover. Evancy promises to ask. We prepare our doctors bag and our survival rations. Ten minutes later, a car arrives outside our door. It's Lameck. I have come to drive you to town. He tells us. Wow. A plumber and a lift, just like that.

Lameck drops us at the taxi rank in Kakumbi. We head to the discount, shared-taxi stand. Expecting to haggle. To avoid paying a premium for the colour of our skin. But our quest is foreshortened. Our friend Kiki, a knight in shining armour, comes to our rescue. His safari vehicle is invitingly empty. He rashly offers to give us a lift. A lift that would take him away from his precious downtime. We check his sincerity. And share our conundrum with him. But we gladly accept his kind offer, and set off toward Just Africa.

Kiki waits as Keith’s phone chirps up. A triage call confirms that complexity cannot be dealt with by a video consultation. The writing is on the wall. The dye is caste. The rest of our day is booked. The chicken will not get it’s grain today.

Handover is quick and to the point. No 3 days of gentle introduction. Over a drink of water, we get the car. The phone. The medical kit. The medicines. A list of what we have, and what we do not have. The pharmacy can plug the gaps tomorrow. No patients handed over. A quick discussion about billing. Paperwork. And we dash off. With the baton.

Back through town. We enter the park at 15:00. We wend our way through the bush. Pausing momentarily to applaud the pride of 9 lion, as they devour their new catch. The buffalo a shadow of its former self. This is our commute. But not as you know it. The sighting is unshared. Precious, whilst guests and guides siesta in the heat of the day.

Our consultation is complicated, but we reach a shared and very satisfactory conclusion. We leave at 17:15. The sun sets at 17:40. But darkness pauses for 20 minutes. We decline the kind offer of a colleague to chaperone us for the drive home. Growing in confidence that we can find the breadcrumbs that we laid down earlier.

Somehow, we negotiate all the complicated junctions before darkness envelopes us. After sunset the sun quickly covers its tracks. Darkness takes charge. We cross safari vehicles on their night drives. Flashing their torches. Looking for eyes. Nocturnal animals. Leopards. They look for lions. But we know where the lions are.

The lions’ den is just by the park gate. One feisty male is on the road. Looking menacingly at two vehicles which are barred from free passage. We hang back. With our windows closed. Glad, this time, to have windows.

This lion is in a bad mood. He eventually sits down, to the side of the road. The cars slowly leave. But another car comes past us, from behind. The lion gets up and threatens to pierce his tyre with fierce claws. Not to be messed with tonight. We drive past him. Holding our breath. We don’t want to have a third puncture next to lions. Even if it would make great press.

We reach home at 18:30. Not bad for a first day on call. We scoff the chicken and the grain and send the fox packing. Problem solved.

Screens put in an appearance at the tree clinics. A worrying development.

This giraffe must be very laden with tics. The ox-peckers working symbiotically.

Lilian's love birds 

Our water feature gets emptied in one short suck.

The farmer takes his fox across the river