TIA - This is Africa

Driving home from dropping off a friend last night at around 1am, Megumi and I pulled up behind an ambulance cruising what was the last of the quiet weekends in Lusaka (national mourning ends on Tuesday). Druuuunk.

Keeping a safe distance between the ambulance and my car, we pondered how messed up the entire situation was: Was the ambulance on duty and the driver just decided to get wasted? Was it off-duty, but an emboldened paramedic decided to take the car (one of just a handful of ambulances in Zambia) for a joyride? If the ambulance got in a critical accident... they'd call for another ambulance? What if that one was also drunk? Does this probably happen all the time?

Probably the most blatantly drunk driver I've ever encountered on the road, it was a relief when the ambulance finally sloooowly ran a red light to make an illegal left turn and disappeared. And we almost got home thereafter drunk-ambulance free until, 2 blocks from our flat, we ran into the ambulance again (same one, assuming) - still drunk and weaving across the incoming lane.

Definitely throws into sharp relief the difference in values and practice of thing not only drunk driving (which happens all the time here. "Roadies" or drinks to drink while driving or in the car are a normal thing, and even sometimes offered as a parting gift from parties or drinks at a friend's house. Yikes, right?) but the fact that there's no one to enforce sober driving, that health care systems are enough of a shambles that a drunk-driven ambulance isn't a total shock, and that this happens. It's pretty messed up.

And makes me realize that for however settled and suburban I start feeling here - playing wiffle ball, braai-ing on the weekend, bitching about working in an office during weekdays - life isn't really as mundane or familiar here as in the U.S. All of my trash is burned in a pile outside of my house; I have to sleep under a mosquito net to avoid malaria and iron all of my clothes to avoid having putsi flies lay eggs in my clothes. When I see police on the street at night, I cross the road to avoid them; there's currently no president or political leadership in the country and now, in Southern Africa, no criticism of Mugabe (with Mbeki now heading SADC - Zim is fucked. Different discussion though.). I lock my doors whenever I get in my car to prevent being carjacked at a red light. And now to add to a long list, there are drunk ambulances to look out for at night.

Some of these are logistical adjustments in living, but others - like police corruption or widespread drunk driving (death from car accidents in Zambia is unsurprisingly extremely high) - are pretty big social problems that directly affect life outside of the sexy work of AIDS and public health. And what are you supposed to do about these? Wait and see doesn't seem ok in these cases.