Visiting Old Friends

Wow another week flew by quickly! Our schedule has been so packed, it's been difficult to find time to get online. Our Swahili classes have been getting progressively more difficult, and they split us up by skill level today. By the end of last week, I felt like my brain had reached capacity. When talking with native Tanzanians, they say my Swahili is getting better, but I'm not sure that I believe them. I still feel pretty lost when conversing. The labs have also been getting harder. Allie and I made our first homemade flashlight one day and constructed a bridge circuit another day. It reminds me of working in circuits and electronics labs again. Working with a plain proto board instead of a breadboard is very different than a regular breadboard. It's a struggle to twist all of the connections together rather than having a bus you can easily place components in.

Homemade flashlight

Our classroom at the school

On Friday, we went to Mt. Meru hospital again. We continued work on the suction pump we had been working on last week, but found that we could only create enough pressure for a temporary fix. An original part in the machine was missing, so we ended up using an eraser to plug the hole that needed sealing. It was kind of disappointing that we could not fix it permanently, but at least we learned a lot about how suction pumps work. 

The notorious suction pump

After lunch, Jaya, Raiyan, and I started looking through the "Children's Ward" in the hospital, which was really acting as a large warehouse to keep unusable medical equipment. There is a huge open room there filled with broken equipment. We considered fixing some IV holders that needed new wheels, but they seemed to be too rusted to even be useful. Eventually, Collyn came back to the area where we were working with yet another broken suction pump. The pump would only turn on sometimes when the switch was pressed. We opened everything up and took a look at the circuitry inside. We soldered some loose connections, but were still having problems. We traced the problem back to a faulty plug through much multimeter testing and hope to bring back a new fuse to fix it next week. 

This weekend, Franael arranged to have me visit and stay with John, Anna, and their kids, the family I had stayed with the last time I was in Tanzania. It was very exciting to see everyone again, and all of the kids grown up so much. I got to meet Danny, their five year old son, who was very excited and energetic the whole time. He was usually jumping around everywhere and babbling in Swahili a mile a minute, but seemed quite excited to meet me. Baracka and Godluck had a lot of questions about America like what we do for fun and the kind of music that I listened to. It was very interesting to compare our cultures. Maybe one day they will be able to visit our family in Wisconsin.

From left: Baraka, me, Anna, Godluck, Danny, and John

On Saturday, Franael, John, and I and some of their friends from church took the hour long drive to Moshi to attend a wedding reception. There was much music, food, and people. The bride and groom even carried out the African tradition of feeding each guest African "cake", which is actually goat meat. On Sunday, I went to church at Kombelewa parish with Franael and John's family. The service was quite different from the service at the Pentecostal church last week, but similar to our Lutheran services in America. Pastor Peter and Franael asked me to give a greeting from our church near the beginning of the service, and I had to stand up in front of the congregation. I was able to follow along in the worship hymnal and even sing some of the hymns. Pastor Peter gave a sermon, and Franael translated most of it so that I was able to understand. 

Sunday evening, I traveled back to TCDC to stay with my host family again. I'm ready to take on another week!

The tree my mom and I planted 8 years ago

Kombelewa church

Pastor Peter

Coffee Plantation and Church

I've officially survived a week in Tanzania! I can't believe how quickly it flew by. This Friday was our first day in a hospital, and we went to Mt. Meru. We took a bus, and there was a lot of medical equipment ready for us to look at when we got there. Unfortunately, it was also raining a bit as well, and we were planning on working outside. We made due by working under some overhangs. The first project I worked on was creating ear pieces for a broken stethoscope. We were able to replace the broken pieces with some spare tubing.

The second project I worked on was a suction pump that wasn't exerting enough pressure. To begin, we took the entire machine apart. We found the reason it was not working properly was that the moving parts in the vein pump were sticking, so we had to clean it out with alcohol and lubricate it. The big challenge was finding a place to purchase machine lubricant. We ran around Arusha for almost an hour before an owner of an electrical shop just gave us some.

On Saturday, the group went on a trip to a coffee plantation. We had to uncomfortably squeeze all of us onto a small bus. It ended up taking about three hours to get there because the driver was driving quite slowly. Once we got there, it ended up being more of a hike than any of us expected. Since it had been raining, the trail was pretty muddy, and we were all slipping around a lot. We arrived at a small home, and the owner came out to show us to where he grew the coffee plants. He told us the process and the history behind the coffee plant. Then we made our way to the caves there. The caves were man made as shelter and defense during a wartime. We got to climb down and explore the them, while the tour guide told us about how the chagga, or warriors, defended themselves and their families. We ended up staying later than we thought we would, and we got back to our homestay at around 7:30PM.

Today, Wangui and I went to church with our homestay family. It was pretty fun! There's a lot of singing and dancing, with many different groups leading each song. I really enjoyed the music. During the service, they had all of the visitors introduce themselves, including me and Wangui. Our homestay sister, Deborah, was kind enough to translate for us. After that was the sermon. Sadly, I couldn't understand much of it. At the end of the service, they had a small reception for the pastor who had recently recovered from a stroke. Everyone was very warm and welcoming. I'm looking forward to starting another week of class tomorrow.

First Lessons

On Tuesday, we started Swahili lessons by learning all of the different greetings. So far, it’s pretty fun, and I especially like our small group and our instructor, Edward. I hope that these lessons will help a lot, so that I don’t always feel lost when Tanzanians speak to me. Our host mom likes to test us by only speaking in Swahili unless we ask her what she means. I generally just nod along, not understanding a lot of it. Lab wasn’t anything too exciting on Tuesday, just going through our tool kit. At the end of the day, some of the guys tried to play the season finale of Game of Thrones on the projector, and everyone was really excited. Unfortunately, it didn’t want to cooperate, and we didn’t get to watch it. I was also disappointed because my computer stopped connecting to the Wi-Fi, and it took me until this afternoon to get it working again.

Wednesday started out great, with delicious rice cakes for breakfast. During Swahili lessons we worked on the verb “to be” which covers a lot of get to know you questions. We usually get to sing a couple songs during class which makes it easier to remember some words. Acting out scenes in Swahili is another activity we do every day and is always good for a few laughs.

We went through our first real lab on Wednesday! My lab partner, Allie, and I practiced soldering different types of wires and resistors together. I think we will make a good team this summer. At the end of the day, Franael, who works at Nkoaranga parish called to say he was coming to visit me at TCDC. He and Pastor Fred stopped by shortly after. It was good to see them again.

When everyone was ready, the group walked into town to the supermarket. It was a little scary walking right on the highway because cars do not stop or slow down to go past you. It was interesting to see the supermarket with many shops, restaurants, and a bar nearby. I want to try to be more diligent in taking pictures soon. When Wangui and I got back to our homestay, the daughter Deborah was there. We asked if she could show us around the farm outside. She showed us the cows, pigs, chicks, and goats outside. She’s quite interesting to talk to. She told us about her goals; she wants to become a Swahili teacher one day and learn to keep a small garden herself. Our host mama also invited us to church on Sunday, which I am excited to attend.

Today, our lab was making an extension cord. We had to strip the wires and connect each one to the correct spot on the outlet. Our lecture was primarily on electrocardiograms, which I’ve covered a lot in school before. During lecture we always talk about common problems we might have to troubleshoot in the hospitals. Tomorrow is our first day in a hospital, and we’re going to Mt. Meru Hospital. I am very excited to be able to work on actual medical devices. We will also be close to downtown Arusha, so I hope we get the chance to walk around a bit.

The Beginning

After a long flight from O'Hare to Amsterdam and then Amsterdam to Kilimanjaro, the last of the students for the Engineering World Health (EWH) Summer Institute arrived around 9 PM in the airport. About ten of us met our coordinator, David, loaded our suitcases onto a bus and traveled down the highway (which looked more like a country road compared to American freeways) to the Danish TCDC Language School. There, my host "parents" Chrystina and Isuya were waiting to pick me up. They loaded my things into their car and drove us to their home, which is right across the path from the language school. Even though it was late, they had food waiting for me when we arrived. My roommate, Wengui, was already fast asleep. I was exhausted from the trip, so I quickly got ready and went to bed.

Early the next morning I was awoken by a variety of animals, including birds, dogs, cows, goats, and of course, roosters. Chrystina had prepared a big breakfast for us, including fresh yogurt. We walked over to TCDC and went to language orientation. Throughout the morning I met many of the students there. There are people from all across the United States, England, and Denmark. Most of the day was spent learning some basic rules of Swahili and going over general information about the program. When we got home, their son, Isaac, was there. He came right up to Wangui and I, but wouldn't say a word. I gave him the coloring book I brought, and he seemed to love it, and started coloring right away.

Franael from Nkoaranga parish contacted me again, and I'm anxious to plan the visit, however, I think he wanted me to visit more weekends than I expected. I think that our group is trying to plan a safari for a weekend, and I wouldn't want to miss out on that. 

It's been an exhausting few days, but I can't wait to get started on the instrumentation labs and get to know people better!