From south wigston to south luangwa

摘要

'I'm suffering chifini,' says my patient. Chifini? I'm stumped already. He's my first patient at a small rural clinic in a remote region of Zambia and it's the first day of a U month sabbatical away from my urban practice in Leicester. Is this the Nyanja word for worms? Or perhaps he's referring to his HIV infection, or malaria, or TB. I've done my homework and my smartphone is loaded with apps on tropical medicine. I'm primed to administer exotic drugs like Coartem~R, praziquantel, efavirenz.I find a nurse and she kindly translates for me. Chifini, she says, means sneezing. He has a cold. Chifini. How beautifully onomatopoeic but also, how reassuring. Twenty-three years in UK general practice means I've had some experience in upper respiratory symptoms. I hadn't expected to be on such familiar ground. But outside there's a commotion. 'Doctor, come quick.' The nurse tells me that a young woman is struggling to breath.