For the first time since I’ve arrived in Karakalpakstan, and I suspect the last, the weather is unexpectedly and strangely reassuringly reminiscent of that from my home of England.
I miss our monthly staff meeting because I am in the field visiting two sick patients that I am worried cannot wait. When I return to the office, I am greeted by a smiling Marielle.
I am in the Uzbekistan capital, Tashkent, for less than 24 hours before I fly in an old Soviet twin propeller plane over cracked mud, wasteland steppe (akin to the moon’s surface) to Nukus, the mai