Mt. Meru Public Hospital

The second half of Africa Adventure 2k9 is really hospital intensive. I get up in the morning, ride to the hospital with Dr. Sedute, spend a couple of hours doing rounds in the pediatrics ward, head over to the preemies for a while, and then usually back to peds before we take off for the day. I have pretty much nothing to offer in terms of useful skills but I am learning a ton. I can listen to a chest and hear pneumonia or a heart murmur. I have seen terrible rickets, hugely swollen internal organs, and a giant puss-filled abscess. I am also great at diagnosing and treating mild to severe malaria without a sweat. The sad thing is that we have had four deaths in the last four days. It's extra frustrating because you know that if these kids were someplace better equipped it wouldn't be a problem. This hospital really has nothing. No blood pressure cuffs, no monitors of any sort, very limited medications, no instruments to look into ears or down throats, they can do x-rays (if they have films, which they currently lack) and they can test for HIV but that's about it. Most of the doctors don't even have stethoscopes. It is certainly a whole different world than the hospitals and clinics that anyone in the US is used to.

This is the pediatric ward, intermediate care. Better attention than normal, but not quite the ICU. Just a concrete room with some beds lined up along either wall.

Full ward during rounds. This picture makes it look much cleaner and cheerier than it really is. The paint on the walls is peeling and cracking, the windows are dingy and old, the beds are rusting, and at least twice a day you'll find unwrapped syringes with needles on the ground.

Three patients to a bed is not uncommon. At night all three patients and all three moms will have to find a way to fit together.

The best door label I've seen in a long time.

A nurse and the medicine cabinet on the ward, getting ready to dispense medication for the day.

The ICU. Every morning they kick all of the patients out of the wards so they can clean. They take buckets and splash water on the ground, then wipe it up with old t-shirts because they don't have mops.

Preemies in the NICU. Each little bundle is a brightly wrapped baby in distress.

Safari Shots

Ok, here's the thing: I know that the pictures I took while I was on safari are pretty much exactly like the pictures taken by everyone else who has ever been on safari with a pocket camera. However, they are my pictures so that means that I find them infinitely cooler. I have included a sampling below. Enjoy!

Hippos are totally lazy. The most excitement to be found at the hippo pond was one bored baby hippo rolling around in the water and one fairly bored looking male hippo doing a half-assed job of trying to get on a lady or two. Side note, the ladies were not having it.

One thing that I did notice while on safari was that almost all of my thinking about African animals stems from either The Lion King or Madagascar (one and two). Disney made warthogs very likeable and, I'll be honest, when I saw them in real life they were just as awesome.

Monkeys are sneaky. If you'll notice, I got my close-up picture at the lunch spot. It's because they love nothing more than to steal food. The whole time we were eating our poor guide was throwing rocks to keep them away.

Baboons, on the other hand, are much less devious. They like to hangout and play on cars and eat bugs off each other. What's better than that?

Zebras. Are. Awesome. This picture shows one of my favorite things about them. They just really love to cuddle with each other. Under a tree, in a field, in the middle of the road... it doesn't matter where they are, they will nuzzle up with one another. Also, baby zebras have fuzzy brown fur instead of black. Just thought you'd like to know.

That's me in our sweet ride after a dirty day of safari-ing. One reason I like this picture is because I look tan. In reality I was just really really dirty.

Baby elephants are the best.

After lions eat they are very lazy. Notice the mostly eaten carcass on the right and the full lions panting in the sun. One thing I learned on this trip is that you should not get too close to lion food until you're sure the lions are finished with it. There was a spotted hyena who hadn't gotten the memo and paid dearly for his transgression. (Back to The Lion King... as it turns out Simba is just Swahili for lion. I was sort of disappointed to learn that the king of all lions was just named Lion.)

Giraffe! One of the most amazing things I saw on safari was a single giraffe running full speed through a big field... they are incredibly graceful.

Little things

So here is a funny thing about Tanzania… everywhere you go they use celebrities. The place where Dr. Sedute gets her hair done is the Beyonce Salon. I know where to turn to get to the house because it’s right past the barbershop with a giant picture of Will Smith as their sign out front. All the busses are themed for various celebrities: you could take the Eminem bus on the yellow line in the morning and then on the way back in the afternoon hop on the Kobe. On TV tonight we were watching a show that featured O’prah as the main character. On the way to the hospital this morning we stopped at a gas station with a convenience store called Viva La Bam. Seriously.

 

Additionally, pretty much all the clothes here are second hand so I see a lot of funny gear from the U.S. Just today at the hospital I saw t-shirts from Jackson Hole, from a summer camp in West Virginia commemorating the summer of ’97, and one from the University of Illinois.

 

The other weird thing about the second hand clothing here is that it makes it that much harder to guess the gender of babies and kids. Up until about seven years old it’s almost impossible to tell the gender of the kids here just by looking at them, adding to the difficulty is the fact that they’re dressed in whatever random second (or third or fourth) hand clothes the parents have. Today we saw a little boy in a pink flowered sweatshirt and a little girl wearing a Thomas the Tank Engine turtleneck. You don’t notice how much you take cues from clothing until you keep realizing that you’re wrong. Fortunately most of the parents in the ward only speak Swahili so they don’t notice that we’ve been using the wrong pronoun for the last ten minutes. 

more pictures!

I got to play pharmacist at our clinic in Langasti. Note the bucket in the background for hand washing.

Another satisfied customer!

The best thing about taking pictures of kids around here is that they get SO excited to see how it turns out... right after this they swarmed the camera to see themselves.

Pictures!

Just hiking the sacred Maasai mountain. No big deal.
BEST outfits. Everyone is so colorful all the time.

Watching the welcoming ceremony at Langasti, the Maasai village.

I think I am the only person in the country that doesn't have a cell phone. Cool soda shop though, huh?

This is the kitchen at the center in Dar... in the foreground you can see the pots they cook with, in the background is the wood burning stove.

vacations are great.

Monday August 17-

The last week was amazing. I went on safari (which I highly recommend) and then spent a few days lounging around Zanzibar, which is really an island paradise.

On safari we had a great guide/driver who was super knowledgeable and had the best eyes. He could spot a leopard from about a mile away… which he did. We saw tons of zebras and elephants, got caught in the middle of wildebeest herds at least a couple of times, and had a lion walk so close to our Land Cruiser that if I had put my hand out I could have touched her. I decided to keep my hand though, so I decided to keep all limbs inside the vehicle.

The place we stayed was fairly amazing as well. It was modeled after a maasai village… but a five star maasai village. You turn off a paved road and go about 10 kilometers on rocky, bumpy dirt tracks, passing small villages and children herding goats and cows. On the way there on the first night I was silently wishing over and over again “please let it be nice. Please let it be nice.” The farther and farther we went the less and less hope I had. Once you pull up to the reception desk all of a sudden you’re out of the dry scrubland and in a beautiful, lush valley. There are about 20 huts situated on the property, but looking at it you wouldn’t guess that there were nearly that many. I had my own hut and the veranda looked out over banana trees, papyrus, and crystal clear lake. Having my own space for a couple of days was incredible. I really don’t notice how much I love having a little bit of alone time until I finally find some after two weeks of constantly having tons of people everywhere. It felt amazing to come back from a dusty, dirty day on safari, take a hot shower and then walk down to the pool and dangle my feet in the water while enjoying the view and a big cold beer. The whole time I just kept thinking about how this is the place that Hemmingway would stay if he were still alive.

After I reluctantly and sadly said goodbye to the safari we raced back to Arusha, swapped out some clothes, and were on the way to the Arusha airport for our Zanzibar adventure. The first night we stayed in Stone Town, the capital, and took it easy with a nice swim and delicious Indian dinner. The second day we had a walking tour, visited the spice market, and went to the old slave market. Zanzibar is cool because it was on the spice route when that was big business and has a really interesting and diverse feeling to it. It is almost completely Muslim and has a very strong Arab influence. Coming from the mainland you almost wouldn’t believe that you’re still in Africa. For the second and third nights we went up the coast to the Ocean Paradise resort and that is exactly what it was. I swam in gigantic pool, frolicked in the Indian Ocean, walked on the perfectly white sand beach, and ate until I actually ran out of space in my stomach. It was sad to leave that place too.

Now it’s Monday and I’m back in Arusha, getting ready to head to the hospital. The woman I’m staying with is a doctor at the same hospital where I’ll be working so I’m getting a ride with her. Ideally, we should be at the hospital at 9:00. Currently it is almost 10:00 in the morning and we’re still hanging out at the house. African time is just not the same as western time. Even with the local airlines… if your flight is scheduled to leave at 2:10 you should plan on boarding around 2:40. When I first got to Arusha I saw a bumper sticker with an elephant on it that said “No hurry in Africa!” I thought it was sort of funny at the time, but now I see it really is a true statement. It’s weird to try to readjust your concept of what it means to be on time to something.

tons o' update

Quick programming note: the internet is too slow for pictures right now... I'll get them up ASAP. Stay tuned for those, they are way better than my writing!

Thursday August 6, 2009

 

Greetings from my new home in Arusha! I’m staying with a doctor and her family and I’m sharing a room with Anna, a student/volunteer from Austria. The accommodations are comfortable and everyone has been very welcoming. I’m grateful for this wonderful place to stay, but still getting used to the bucket showers and squatty toilet (it flushes… but it’s still pretty much a porcelain hole in the ground.)

 

Here is a list of things from today:

 

-       I went to a million meetings… including one with the CEO of the company that makes up 2% of the GDP followed by a meeting with another super rich business man who is the head of the Coca-Cola company in Tanzania, among other things. The latter was at his crazy huge/nice compound. He fed us a delicious five-course lunch, which required eight separate pieces of silverware.

 

-       At another meeting today there was a woman wearing a traditional African style outfit and the fabric was printed with “God bless the friendship of United States and Tanzania” and had George Bush faces all over it.

 

-       I learned that when you are involved in a motorcade, it is best to have a police car in back in addition to the one in front. We have been traveling exclusively via police escort and when there isn’t a cop car in back there tend to be lots of hangers on. Not that it makes any difference to us… but it’s good info if you’re ever to plan one.

 

-       We traveled from Dar es Salaam to Arusha today. We flew into Kilimanjaro Airport and on the way had supposedly great views of the mountain. I slept through it. 

Here is another little tid-bit about traveling in Africa: just because you’re in Africa and hanging out near the equator doesn’t mean that it won’t get cold! I am freezing! I wish that I brought way more warm clothes. My old gray fleece will be getting lots of use this trip.

 

Now I am exhausted. Peace out.

 

Saturday August 8, 2009

The plan for today is to head out of Arusha and to Rafiki, where there is another orphan center. After time there we will make our way to Langasti, a Maasai village, where we’ll spend the night. It will be cold, cold, cold.

 

Yesterday was a great day. Anna and I went to the Orphans Foundation Fund office in the morning via bus to meet up with the rest of the group. It was only about three stops but that was enough for me to feel WILD. Crowded and loud and chaotic and very small. Anna was kind enough to let me tag along with her for the day so I got to skip out on all the meetings. Booya. From the office to the center (where they were blasting 50 cent), then to delicious lunch, and then to check in on one of Anna’s special projects. She is sponsoring four or five families by fund raising at home and then working with the families to get them to a place where they can start to help themselves. At this place she had helped them build a chicken coop and then stocked it with 75 chickens. The single mother died three months ago so the kids were on their own and down to only 10 chickens. Anna figured out a plan to get them more chickens, water near their house, and enough money to send the kids to school for another term. We walked back to the bus stop and jumped on for a cross town ride. So much yelling and pushing and honking.

August 9, 2009

 

Just getting in bed after two days and one night in the Maasai village. It was so beautiful and amazing I won’t do it the disservice of trying to explain it too much in words. Langasti is not tourist village, but a real place (deep in the bush… over an hour on rocky, dirt tracks with small ravines and two-foot-deep potholes) that the foundation has partnered with in order to provide some help. They currently have to walk 18 kilometers each way for water and the land is so dry right now that the cattle, their most important asset, cannot find enough food to eat and are starving. Unless there is a water solution found soon, the people will have a fairly similar fate. They live in small mud huts and cook inside so they are constantly breathing in dark smoke. I visited one of these houses and had to leave after 10 minutes because the bad air was too much. We had a clinic today for the children an 95% had problems relating to all the smoke (ear infections, bronchial infections, cough/colds, and asthma). Many thanks to go Gladness, our Maasai mother, for being such an amazing and gracious hostess.

 

P.S. we climbed up the almost vertical face of the sacred Maasai mountain and were rewarded with great views of Kilimanjaro… not too shabby. 

 

P.P.S. Dr. Saduti, my hostess/mother in Arusha was watching some music channel on tv tonight. I think Swahili rap might not have a huge audience because the quality of the music videos just weren’t that great. Surprising, huh?