At last

On Saturday/Sunday we drove down to Hluhluwe-Imfolozi Game Reserve. We were accompanied by two other doctors. Having previously stayed on the Hluhluwe side, we had hoped to find accommodation this time in Imfolozi. (The two were once separate parks. For some time they have been joined. However, the landscape is quite different. Imfolozi is flatter and less spectacular but the terrain is more conducive for spotting cats). Arriving just before nightfall at our accommodation in Hilltop (Hluhluwe), Mary enquired about vacancy at Mpila (Imfolozi) and she was thrilled that there was! We accepted their offer of transferring our booking and set off for the other side of the park.

Strictly, only game vehicles are allowed to drive through the park at night. But this was waived for our 50k drive to Mpila. Driving for twenty minutes we spotted a number of hyena. Thus we were completely prepared to see another as we rounded yet another bend. And there it was, walking in the middle of the road. Looking for food.

But then the strangest thing happened. For the hyena turned. And on turning, we did behold a great miracle. For it was not a hyena. But a leopard! Yes a leopard! Definitely a leopard! Orange. With spots. And a white dot on the tail. Smaller than a lion. Not as slender as a cheetah. Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! Feeling great emotion, I wanted to get out the car and kiss this legendary creature. Or at least greet it, formally, ‘Mr Leopard, I presume?’ And then pass on my regards.

Unfortunately, the leopard was in no mood for niceties and quickly returned to his night time exploration.

We followed it for about a minute. Initially, it disappeared into the bush. Then it reappeared and walked a short stretch before disappearing for good. Nevermind. I know I will only wait, perhaps another twelve years for a glimpse.

The rest of our 24 hours in the game park were packed with animal sightings. Having had several extremely hot days, the temperature had suddenly dropped. Predators that had not eaten for several days, were ravenous. Close to our camp, lions and also wild dogs had both had successful killing sprees (we saw the lions; we missed the wild dogs as they had been chased away by hyenas). Both sites attracted huge numbers of vultures – fighting each other for any available scraps. In addition to the carnivores, we saw buffalo, rhino, elephants and much more.

Still without our car, we drove round the park in our borrowed Mercedes. And we got to enjoy all its quirks. A light spell of rain revealed the windscreen wipers did not work. We also learnt that the electric windows functioned only when I opened my car door. And sometimes they would not close. But why would we need windscreen wipers and windows on this glorious day?

Driving home, we got our answer. Reaching Jozini at 1700, 70ish kms from home, the heavens suddenly opened.

Immediately, I pulled off the road. Parking one wheel in a ditch. There we could wait for the rain to pass.

But after half an hour it was clear the rain was not going to pass. Worse, the previously empty ditch was now a metre under water. Fortunately, we managed to get the car back onto the road (two of the wheels were still on tarmac so had good traction).

Now we were in the middle of a narrow road. Our hazard lights were working. But we became a challenging obstacle for a drunk Zulu driver.

My initial suggestion was that we call a friend from the hospital to come and collect the three doctors. I would then stay with the car and drive it back when the rain stopped. I realised that I might be there until morning. But I had a book and food. And I was fearful that the car might be treated as loot.

Once our friend had arrived, the plan changed. Outvoted on my ‘sit-tight’ proposal, all the others felt that we should drive slowly back to Mosvold in convoy.

And so began another truly African experience. With the rain pouring down, I could still see nothing through the windscreen. But by opening the window and leaning out I could drive slowly and see the road, potholes, cows and other drivers.

There is definitely a technique to driving with your head out the window in the rain. And slowly, I discovered it. The heaviness of the rain fluctuated quite a lot as we began to drive. And at times it whipped into my eyes. But, once I had formed an effective visor with my left hand, and got my eye in, I was able to drive at 40-50 kms.

Though the journey was still very slow, it was also exciting. We had little celebratory snacks as we reached different landmarks (although eating biscuits without removing my visor added extra challenge). And, with my head out of the window, I could keep a good eye on road life. Imagine my joy, then, when I got a particularly fine sight of a long bright green snake crossing close to the car. My best sighting so far.

The final part of the journey was particularly interesting – up narrow windy mountain roads in thick fog. Thankfully there was little else on the road, so we could keep a reassuring distance from the drops.

And so, after a couple of hours of ‘head out of window’ driving we reached home.

More car troubles

So the car saga continues. Nearly two weeks have passed and we are still without our dearly beloved. So here is an update on the story. But before reading it, to help you empathise with the frustrations we have been feeling, you must know that we have had to sort out everything over the mobile phone. In an area of the country with almost no reception. Using a phone with a very limited battery life. Meaning almost every call has broken up several times. And with regular confusion caused by very different English accents. Anyway, here we go.

So, in a previous posting we mentioned that our car had to be towed to Jozini (about 70 kms from us). Unfortunately, the mechanic there was unable to fix the problem with the computer. Instead, he decided to send the computer box to Johannesburg to a specialist. This took several days to happen. On arrival in Jo’burg, the specialist took little time to pronounce it permanently broken or more precisely f….. (a word that many English speaking Zulus believe translates literally as unfixable). Worse still, a new computer for the car would cost us approximately £550.

Given that we are in the land of the unnew, I set about trying to find a second hand version. Today, I had a triumph. I have found one for the bargain price of £285. Unfortunately, the garage is in Durban. The garage itself cannot fit the computer. And it doesn’t offer any courier service. But by great good fortune, one of our friends is going down to Durban this weekend. So she will purchase the item (a Bosch 1S6D12a650AV) and bring it up to the mechanic at Jozini. The car and computer will then be driven down to Ricards Bay (about 200 kms from Jozini) for a fitting. Assuming all goes well, it will then be driven back to Jozini. And I will then fetch it.

In the meantime I have (very generously) been lent the use of one of the doctor’s cars. Indeed it is Baba Heese’s car. Baba Heese and his wife are true Ingwavuma legends. He has worked at Ingwavuma hospital for several decades. In that time, she has set up a secondary school, a craft/stitching cooperative and Ingwavuma’s only restaurant. Anyway, his car is an early 1980s Mercedes. Painted a classy olive colour. And while its engine may be past its prime, its character lives on. However, there is one draw back to the interior design. Its leather seats. Today the temperature was 45 degrees and I was unable to park the car in the shade at school. As a result, I had to peel bits of flaky leather from my back when I got home.


School life continues to delight and depress – in equal measures. In the first camp, we have been practising for an inter school athletics event. We have three ‘track’ events. One hundred metres – or once across our field. Four hundred metres – or once round the field. Eight hundred and 1500 metres – two and four times round the field. Practice takes place during the middle of the day. Yet nobody grumbles about setting off for four laps round the field. Our jojos are almost empty so there is a shortage of water for the runners.

Staying on the positives, we have recently planted about 20 saplings around the school to try to create more shady places. There are currently almost none.

And now to the downbeat stuff. Lessons for lots of the children have been very disrupted recently. We only have sufficient teachers when all are present. At the moment teachers keep having to attend workshops – cleverly scheduled during the school day. These seem to be absolutely pointless. The only thing my colleagues take away from them are big handouts containing masses of indigestible information about how and what they should be teaching. This makes no difference to their performance in the classroom. But it means days without classes for some of our children. Complete madness!

More depressingly, our local NGO visited last week to bring new uniform to the orphans at the school. I’m not sure how many we have in total. But the Principal’s room was full of children trying on clothes. Many of the parentless seemed to be in the bottom grades. If I were able to post pictures of them (especially dressed in their new attire) you’d get a good idea of how moving I found the spectacle. But I didn’t have my camera with me.


This weekend is likely to involve a trip to the city and a visit to a game park. Once again, I’ll let you know if we see a leopard.

Back to Reality.

Henry and I are back in Ingwavuma after a lovely two week holiday in the UK. It was a very busy time seeing family and friends but great fun. Thank you to all for your kindness and generosity. Of course we are already missing you.

We arrived back to Ingwavuma on a Sunday night and I was straight back onto my ward (Male) on Monday. There had been a big Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) the previous Friday which resulted in my ward being full. The driver of one of the vehicles arrived with the side of his skull missing. Travelling at over 100 km/h his head had bounced and scraped along the tarmac. Every morning as I approached my ward, I hoped he would still be alive and we could continue chatting about things. By the Thursday, I had eventually convinced our referral hospital (3.5 hrs away) to take over his care. I look forward to having him back after the plastic surgeons somehow reconstruct his skull.

Last Thursday, I went to my clinics – named Nondabuya and Khwambuzi. Every three weeks, I am responsible for driving to them (I feel like Mma Ramotswe in the Number One Ladies Detective Agency books as I battle the potholes in the dodgy 4x4) and then seeing the patients that are waiting for me. The nurses at these clinics are meant to prioritise the complicated cases for me to see. We should only be seeing 20 patients at each clinic but often we see more – especially the children waiting for anti-retrovirals. One interesting case involved a child of three. It is often difficult to know if an infant is a girl or a boy because they all tend to have short hair and aren’t dressed in blue/pink. Anyhow, the nurse presented the case to me and said the child was a homosexual. I looked up baffled. First of all, homosexuality ‘does not exist’ in rural South Africa. Secondly, three year olds don’t tend to have a sexual orientation. It took some time (and confusion on my part) to clarify that in fact the child was a hermaphrodite. I examined the child to confirm and suggested they saw a surgeon. I can only imagine how much trouble the child and mother will receive in their community.

Being responsible for approximately 20 men on my ward, I expect smelliness. In fact, I have found Zulu patients to be much cleaner than UK patients when it comes to daily washing. However, given many have limited access to sanitation facilities and lack shoes, I regularly see very smelly feet. For the sake of the audience, I think it is best if I do not describe the amount of pus that I often extract from these wounds.

Despite my exposure to manky feetitus, I am still occasionally shocked. Over the past two weeks, I have had a patient who was missing a fair amount of skin on his foot because of an infection. Given this, we treated him with antibiotics, debrided the wound and gave him a skin graft. We then left the wound for one week before seeing if the skin graft has been successful. This past Thursday, my patient informed me that the wound was itchy. As I unravelled the bandage and took off the gauze, I saw approximately 40 maggots on the wound. I felt like vomiting but instead took forceps and removed each one. The patient did not seemed fussed at all. In fact, he told me the next day, that he thought they had cleaned up the wound nicely. Male Ward is dominated by male nurses. Yesterday, I was told by one of them in front of the others that they had been very impressed with me the day before. This is a massive compliment from a Zulu man!

I am working this weekend and so far the hospital has been relatively quiet. Long may that continue!

Vomit, Jellyfish & Dolphins

On our arrival in SA, Mary and I set ourselves a mini Phileas Fogg challenge. It involved seeing all the countries of Southern Africa by the end of July. We set our goal knowing it should be achievable without high drama. Indeed we built in lots of cheats. For example, we visited several countries (Zimbabwe, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya) in a previous trip to Africa. We gave ourselves a year instead of 80 days. And we excluded three countries Angola, Congo (both too dangerous) and Madagascar. All this means our escapades are unlikely to become the basis for a great work of fact or fiction. But what does that matter!

Up to last weekend, we had visited SA, Swaziland and Lesotho. Mozambique became our fourth ‘conquest’. Conquest in this context means that we travelled 10 kms into the country travelling up from the southernmost tip to the nearest beach – at a place called Ponto D’Ouro. (Before we receive complaints about the legitimacy of claiming this constitutes ‘seeing a country’, please know that it does. Particularly in the case of Mozambique. As there isn’t much to visit other than the beautiful beaches. And these are all very similar.)

There are three main obstacles to visiting Mozambique. Firstly, they like to shut the border at 1700. For us this meant a race after Mary had finished work. Secondly, they charge lots to enter the country. Unless you are South African. Or you are friends with the men at the border post. As we weren’t able to prove we were actually mates with Carlos, we paid £40 each (but felt less aggrieved when we got a big visa stuck into our passport). Thirdly, we needed a 4x4. Fortunately, our weekend away had been arranged by a friend. And he drove us in his big car. Once past the border post, there are no roads for us to use (there are some in other parts of the country). So anything without 4 wheel drive gets stuck in the sand.

The relatively recent civil war in Mozambique means that the infrastructure of the country is very basic. And signs of the war are still visible through the bodies of the locals and their missing limbs. However, it is one of Africa’s fastest growing economies (albeit largely because it is starting from such a low base and is up against a weak field). And there is a great sense of freedom to the place.

Our main aim for the weekend was to swim with dolphins. We organised this for Sunday morning. On Saturday, we arranged a dive. The reef at Ponto is a continuation of the one we dive at Sodwana. And the experience was quite similar. We had worse visibility but saw an amazing amount of life – moray eels, octopuses, turtles, scorpion fish, sting rays. Unfortunately, Mary felt particularly sick during the dive. Bringing an 80% vomit success (or perhaps failure) rate into the dive, this had crept up to 83.3% after we had finished.

Our diving with dolphins experience did not start well. After an hour driving up and down the coast looking for flipper, we had not seen one. This had though, been plenty enough time for Mary to vomit again (now 85.7%). Obviously fearful that we wouldn’t see anything, we were encouraged out of the motor boat to enjoy some snorkelling. Seeing any sea life was utterly impossible, given the depth of the water and the visibility. It did though give us ample opportunity to be stung by the very abundant jelly fish. So began an experience equivalent to running scantily clad through a field of stinging nettles. After ten minutes we got back in the boat.

Having almost given up hope, some flippered friends turned up. And our experience was transformed. Into the water we went. And for the next ten minutes bottlenose dolphins (the most intelligent and playful) swum round us. Swimming extremely close, we followed previous instructions not to try and touch them. Instead we gawped as they swam round and round us. Thankfully, the cost, the jellyfish and the vomit had all been worthwhile. Eventually the dolphins swam off. We caught up with a second larger pod ten minutes later. But they were less curious.

And so ended another weekend in SA. Mary is on call this Friday and Sunday. So we are unlikely to get away. We will spend some of the time planning our trip to the last target on our Southern African hit list – Namibia.

Back in the Bush

Our return to SA after a two week absence was made very special by a surprise on the road up to Ingwavuma. Driving the last bit of the journey from Durban to the big ‘I’ in the dark, we rounded a bend to begin our ascent into the mountains. And lo and behold! For sitting in its usual spot, was Ntabayengwe School. But lit up spectacularly by a beautiful outside lighting arrangement. The following day, the Principal confirmed the exciting news telling me with great joy, ‘Mr Toulson, do you see we now have electricity.’ I told him about my wondrous experience the previous night. Unfortunately, we currently have no use for our power supply, other than night time illumination – the one time that children are not in the school. But, we are working on changing this.

Other than the arrival of electricity little else has changed. This week has been unbelievably hot and we have had no rain for three weeks. And, to welcome us home, our car has begun playing up again. This time it is the immobiliser that is faulty – something I find intensely irritating. There are two obvious reasons why our car should not have an immobiliser device. Firstly, it is rubbish (even by South African standards) and so low risk to break in or theft (a great pity!). Secondly, it has so many other unintentional immobilising devices. Now the car has been towed off to Jozini (70 kms from us) to have a new part fitted and key made.*

This weekend we are going to Mozambique with friends. There are three main reasons. Firstly, to say that we have been there. Secondly, to sing the Bob Dylan song. Thirdly, to try and swim with dolphins. My wife has been particularly looking forward to number 3; I will be quite satisfied with numbers 1 and 2. We’ll let you know what happens.

* Please note that favourable car reviews are likely to follow in the next few months to coincide with our attempts to sell the car; any praise will be entirely fictitious. UK doctors coming out here have been directed towards our blog to get an insight into life in rural SA. We will be aiming to sell the car to one of these unlucky sods. Hence the need to create a false impression.

Ntabayengwe hit the beach

A while ago we received two cash donations. The first was from Ashlawn School to be spent at Ntabayengwe. The second was from a mystery source to be spent on something for either the school or the hospital. After much discussion Mary agreed that I could use all the money to fund a school trip.

For some time I had been keen on taking Grade 7 (the class I teach and also the oldest year group in the school) on an excursion to the beach. Most have never been, despite living only 60 kilometres away.

So began an investigation into the logistics. First I approached the nearby Sodwana Bay Nature Reserve to ask for free entrance into their park. Firing off a number of emails to locals I got lucky. Back came a reply from the resident conservation officer, promising me not only free entrance but also guided activities. Guhle Kakooloo (excellent). Step 1 complete.

Next, I began the process of gaining approval from the Principal, teachers and local educational chieftains. Having fabricated minutes for fictitious meetings and completed a thorough risk analysis, I submitted my paperwork for inspection. Verbal assent was granted on condition that nothing should go wrong. Step 2 complete.

Onto informing Grade 7. Cue joyous scenes and huge excitement as I distributed letters to be taken home and signed. All 24 letters were returned with signatures from home within a couple of days. Step 3 complete.

Finally, I sought out the most reasonable local taxi/minivan operator. Wary of striking an overly good deal and landing up with cow drawn carts, I may have overpaid. Nonetheless, with a week to go before B(each)-day, all was in place. For the next five days I rang the taxi company to remind them of my booking and the importance of arriving at our school by 0630 (60 minutes before actual departure time to give full allowance for ‘Ingwavuma time’).

As Friday drew close, I was not without reservations about Ntabayengwe’s first school trip. Would our taxis arrive, and at what time? How roadworthy would they be? Would the children enjoy/be able to follow the educational activities set up for the morning? Most importantly, could we get 24 children with no swimming experience, in and out of the Indian Ocean unharmed.

My concerns were slightly allayed by my success in persuading my wife to accompany me on the trip. Now I had a doctor and Baie D’Urfe Pool’s winner of the 1997 Life Guard of the Year Award (still seemingly my wife’s proudest moment).

The Thursday before the day of the trip, the Principal was in gloomy mood and using the language of his favourite Shakespearean doom mongers. My attempts to remind him that everyday life (especially for our local children) contains huge numbers of risks, only seemed to unnerve him more.


Arriving at the school at 0650 on Friday, I was greeted by a wondrous sight. Two taxis and 22 children. The two missing students were to be picked up from a bridge two miles up the road. Some of the children had managed to find other clothes to wear for the trip; about half could only wear school uniform. All looked deliriously happy.

I had identified two big risks for our excursion. The first was getting safely to and from our destination. Thankfully both of our taxis were very (by Ingwavuma standards) new and had seat belts. A complete novelty to the children (they rarely use transport of any kind and would never have been strapped in) Mary and I made sure all were fastened.

So, with trepidation, I gave the signal to the drivers to start the journey. Immediately, the music system was turned up to the max. And, despite being on a relatively smooth section of Ingwavuma road, after two minutes the vehicle was lurching up and down. Slightly puzzled, I turned round to see all of the children dancing wildly. Still within their seat belts they were jiving left, right, up and down. Faces were beaming. My attempts to tone down their bouncing failed completely and thus we hopped our way to the beach.

We had a brilliant morning with our educational supervisor picking up very weird organisms from the Sodwana rock pools (see our pictures of some of nature’s less attractive participants). By late morning, having eaten, our guide moved onto a talk about turtles. These come and nest on the beaches. Again, pictures are attached.

And then, the moment the kids had been waiting for – swim time. Setting up a 10x10 metre corridor with me at the front and Mary at the back we advanced into the sea. Again, the pictures tell the story. None were hurt, no lives were lost – though plenty of items of ‘swimming costume’ (pants and bra) regularly disappeared as the waves crashed. Fortunately, Zulus aren’t body shy.

And so, having safely negotiated the SA roads for a second time, we arrived back at the school. All happy and exhausted and very keen to go again next week.