Huruma Hospital

We arrived at our hospital on Tuesday afternoon to learn that our appointment with the head of staff Dr. Kyejo was canceled. However, we did meet Skola the housekeeper of the hospital hostel, and she showed us to our rooms, yes plural, each equipped with king sized beds. The only catch is that the water is only on for about half the day at seemingly random times, and of course, no hot water. For the rest of the week Allie and I tried to figure out a good eating schedule. We are on our own for food, which is very different from last month having all of our meals provided. Skola showed us to the market in town where we got a start on our grocery shopping. Allie and I are both hesitant to buy meat here, as it generally comes freshly butchered and on the bone, so thus far, we have stuck to mostly cooking vegetables and potatoes. I’ve also started washing all of my clothes by hand this week. I can already say that I will be very grateful for washing machines when I get back to the U.S.

The first day of work, we attended the morning prayer and debriefing meeting for the hospital staff. I think we only slightly butchered our introduction of ourselves in Swahili. After that we were given a brief tour of the hospital, and then we were supposed to meet with the hospital technician. Unfortunately, he was in Nairobi acquiring a spare part for an autoclave, and did not return until the next day. We did end up meeting some of the doctors, including a Sister who had gone to medical school in Ohio Dr. Daria. She has been very welcoming and friendly over the past few days and seems to understand American culture very well because of all the time she’s spent there.

While waiting for Charles the first day, Allie and I started looking at an infant incubator that was sitting outside. We were unsure what the exact problem was, but we got it running and just need to patch up a broken closure on the frame. The next day couple days we worked on doing inventory for the hospital, logging each and every piece of equipment the hospital has. It was slightly long and tedious, but we were able to see into all the different rooms, including maternity and surgical rooms.

Nights have been pretty low key here, since Huruma Hospital is kind of out of the way, nearing Mt. Kilimanjaro. On the positive side, the surrounding environment is beautiful, and we have a gorgeous view of the mountain not far from where we’re staying. There’s all sorts of little trails we can hike around in as well. Unfortunately, the internet connection at most cafes is too slow to upload pictures, so I'll be uploading them when I get back. This weekend we’re visiting some of the other students and staying in Moshi and going to a waterfall nearby on Sunday. We arrived in Moshi this morning after a long and crowded drive from our hospital. I'm looking forward to seeing the other students in the program again!

Goodbye TCDC

This week marked our last at the language school in Usa River. I'll be sad to say goodbye to everyone for the month. We will all be traveling across northeastern Tanzanian to work in 14 different hospitals in the Arusha and Kilimanjaro regions. Most of our classes this week focused on wrapping up and how to work in the hospital and do paperwork next month. It’s definitely going to be a lot of work. This week, some of the students started playing volleyball after class. I’m very disappointed we waited until the last week here to start playing because it was a lot of fun! I will miss being able to hang out with everyone frequently.

On Friday, we went to a new hospital, Tengeru. Our teachers told us that Tengeru is known for having a lot of thieves, which made us pretty hesitant to go there, but nobody had anything stolen. Right when we arrived at the hospital, I was allowed into an operating room where they needed a light and two autoclaves fixed, which are extremely hot, high pressure baths used to sterilize surgical tools. Camilla and I decided to work on the smaller autoclave, which ended up being a project that took up most of the day. After much testing, we found that the problem with the autoclave was a broken heating element by testing the resistance of the component. EWH will need to buy a new component to fix the autoclave. The second autoclave we found had a more dangerous problem, with a short in the circuitry somewhere that we could not find. Unfortunately while trying to find the problem, Camilla gave herself a pretty good electric shock, and we could not fix the autoclave.

Another adventure we had on Friday, was going out to eat at a local restaurant. At most sit down restaurants in Tanzania, it takes about an hour to receive your food after ordering. Being the impatient westerners that we are, we started getting antsy after an hour had passed. When we finally got our food, Wangui noticed that we had all received beef, when most of us had ordered goat meat. When it came time to pay the bill, there was much argument and debate over whether we had gotten goat, which is more expensive, or beef. This was also ten times more difficult because they only spoke Swahili. It ended up being about a two hour lunch break.

Saturday was probably the most relaxing day I’ve had on my trip thus far. I got to sleep in until 9AM! I walked over to TCDC for the morning and hung out outside and in the library a little. For lunch, our homestay dad took us out to eat at a restaurant where we had supu ya kuku na chipsi, which is chicken soup and fries. After lunch, he took us to see another house he owns which is close to a natural spring river. We explored a bit, and the river was beautiful. He also took us to see the new house he is building. As I was taking pictures, I showed his son Isaka. He loved taking many pictures himself, and he had a lot of practice. He’s soon to be a pro.

This Sunday, we visited a boarding school near Usa River to teach a lesson on circuits. The lab we did was building a heart rate monitor by soldering electrical components to a tinned circuit board. The students, who were high school age, enjoyed it a lot and did very well. Some of the students gave us individual tours around their campus, which was very modern, beautiful, and had many buildings. They were very excited to have us there. After the tour, we played some icebreaker games with them and talked a little about our different cultures. It was a very fun day.

When we got back from the school, many of us decided to hang around TCDC to play volleyball and soccer. It was also one of the Danish student’s 25^th birthday. One of the traditions in Denmark is to throw cinnamon on someone on their 25^th birthday if they are still unmarried. The trick is you also douse them in first cold then hot water right before throwing the cinnamon on them. None of the Americans had ever heard of this tradition before, but we all whole heartedly took part in it.

We said goodbye to our homestay family on Monday night, and they wished us luck and prayed for us. They have been so welcoming and gracious to us, and I’ve had such a good time staying with them. Allie and I are off to Huruma Hospital this morning, which is close to the bottom of Mt. Kilimanjaro. I’m ready to start the next stage of this adventure!

(pictures to come)

Ngorongoro Safari

Our class is getting better and better at speaking Swahili, and this past week we went on a field trip to the market. We prepared by learning a lot of vocab and phrases about fruits and vegetables, and bargaining. Unlike in America, where everything has a fixed price, there are many markets where you can bargain to get a better deal. Another cultural difference I've noticed is that many people assume you have a lot of money if you are white and may try to sell their products at a higher price to you. The school gave us each 2000 Tanzanian shillings (which is equivalent to about $1 USD), and we were asked to get as many fruits and vegetables as we could. My roommate and I walked away with a pineapple, four limes, green beans, and many tomatoes and peppers after we pooled our money. It was very busy in the marketplace. Young boys made money by walking around and selling plastic bags to people.

Lab last week seemed a bit more difficult and tiresome, especially after my partner Allie and I soldered one of our components too close to another on our power supply. After much time spent de-soldering the component, we were able to finish the next day and place the heat sink on easily. On Friday, we were at Mt. Meru hospital again. Collyn and I were able to fix the plug on our broken suction pump fairly quickly by getting a new fuse and wrapping a stranded wire around it to help increase the amperage rating. Once we put the new fuse in the plug, the machine started and ran nicely. We returned it to the maternity ward for use on the floor. After we finished, there weren't too many new projects to start working on, so I hopped around from group to group looking at their projects. Some people were fixing a cart, some space heaters, and one group even got an electro surgical tool running. 

Our room at the hotel

After working in the hospital all day, some of the group ventured into Arusha. We went to a cultural crafts market where we were crowded and pressured to buy anything and everything under the sun. We all got out okay eventually, but it was quite the experience. Going home, I had my first experience riding on a "dala dala" which is a van that drives up and down the main highway picking people up. They usually pack them very tight especially during rush hours, cramming up to 25 people sometimes! 

Lake Manyara

Ngorongoro Crater

This weekend our group went on safari to Lake Manyara and Ngorongoro crater. The parks were amazing, and my photos do not do the beauty of the landscape and the animals justice. We started out bright and early on Saturday morning on the long drive to Lake Manyara. We saw many baboons there and some giraffe too. That night we stayed at one of the fanciest hotels I've ever been to and were waited on graciously the whole stay. We went swimming in their pool, and they made us some bonfires and fruity gin drinks. The dinner was delicious, and I definitely ate too much. It was nice to just relax for the evening and get to talk with all of the other students. 

The next day, we woke up at 5 AM before the sun rose to get an early start at the crater. We got ready as fast as possible and headed out right away. When we got to the crater, there was some trouble getting in and our car impatiently waited as Amy and the drivers sorted out the paperwork. When we finally went in, it took almost 45 minutes just to drive up the mountainside. It was covered in fog in the morning, so we couldn't see anything for the longest time. When the sun finally came out, we had reached the top, and the view was gorgeous. We could see out across the whole crater. I've decided I'm going to buy a safari car to travel the world in because you can see everything from all angles. It's an amazing feeling to stand and feel the wind the wind while descending into Ngorongoro crater. It was colder than I expected it to be even as we drove down into the crater, and I put most of my layers on until we left. The day was filled with vast savannas and animal sightings of all kinds. My favorite were the elephants who came right up to the cars. Many of the animals even seemed to pose for us. We also got to see lions napping in the sun, along with herds of wildebeest, impala, zebras, warthogs, and many others. 

Driving down into the crater

At the end of the day we stopped at a Maasai village, where they greeted us with singing and their traditional dancing/jumping. One at a time they pulled us in to join them. They told us about their culture. Most Maasai men take more than one wife. Each wife builds a separate house out of mud and sticks. After a long drive back, we finally arrived back at our homestay, ate, and went to bed. The weekend was exhausting, but well worth the trip.