Orphanage and Mawenzi pics

Pics-
Operating room(the nicer one)
Orphans and Canadians
Jump rope masters
Boys room(the only one)
Orphanage sign when you walk in

Shopping in Arusha

Habari zenu, (how is everyone)

This weekend we went back to Arusha for the second time to conquer the crafts market. We went with the two Canadian girls, counting on the advice of shopping experts. We arrived in Arusha at around noon, and walked immediately to Mt. Meru Crafts and Curios Market. The market consists of friendly shop sellers and others who are the spawn of Satan. The market consists of seven or eight rows of twenty or so huts on both sides. Walking down a row is like plunging into the depths of Satan's playground where ferocious demons grab and pry at your soul. Every time you walk two feet, another two set of hands grab you and the person says (in an almost desperate tone) "karibuni" and "look is free." Even though they say it is free to look, the second your eyes linger on an item for more than 2 seconds, they start to pick it up and ask if they can wrap it for you. Getting into the store is the easy part, but trying to leave without buying something is like trying to politely ask a lion not to eat you. Even if you did want to purchase something, an extreme amount of haggling is required in order to get a good price. When you ask how much something is, we learned to assume that the starting price that they gave was at least two or three times the price they would be willing to sell for. Andy was a God among men when it came to haggling. He figured out the ultimate strategy. Merely walk in, name a price and just threaten to leave until they cave. This strategy was effective because many of the shops had similar/identical items and each shop owner was desperate to sell something. For example, a bad ass mask that we bought for our door was originally listed as 75,000 shilling and we ended up paying 25,000. Between the constant apologizing for not entering someone's shop, promising to come back later, and non-stop bargaining, after two hours of shopping we were exhausted. After lunch, the girls decided, to our dismay, that they wanted to return to the market for a little more shopping. We were pretty much broke at this point and barely had enough money to get home. But alas, we shopped and haggled for another hour and managed to get a cool African chess set and table for about $35. We had a great time, but we are definitely done shopping for a couple of weeks.
We are leaving for our safari this Friday and are really excited. We are going to meet with the tour guide tomorrow to figure out what we should bring. That's it for now but we will have some cool pictures to show you when we get back from our safari next week.
Kwaheri,
Andy and Ryan

Orphanage and surgery

Habari jioni (good evening)-

It is hard to believe that we have already been here for three weeks. When you eat dinner at 9:00 and then pass out at 9:45, the days can go by quickly. Anyways, we have spent this week in the children's ward, both in the diarrhea section and the intensive care unit. Basically, after a child is admitted with fever, the default medication is quinine, a type of anti-malaria medication. If that doesn't work, then it usually is pneumonia or a UTI. We spent the first half of the week we spent doing rounds with Dr. Sho (shaw) and Dr. Maya. They both speak better English than Dr. Ruga and did a better job of explaining the patient's diagnosis and treatment. However the highlight of the week at work was today, when we scrubbed in and assisted in several surgeries. It was pretty sweet. Basically, Dr. Ruga and us were the only people in the rooms. We assisted in holding forceps, dabbing the blood with gauze, cutting the sutures, and adding comedic relief when Ryan almost feinted (only in the first surgery). Every patient except one, was under spinal or local anasthesia, and none were given pain-killers after surgery. We saw two umbilical hernias, the removal of a large cyst on the forhead (especially bloody), and an exploratory surgery of the abdomen. We switched off assisting after each surgery. We finally felt like we deserved the doctor status that everyone assumes that we as mzungus already have.
Also this week, we visited the Tunahaki orphanage, about 3 miles from downtown Moshi. The Canadian girls raised money to build a chicken coop, and we went with them to visit the kids. There are about 25 kids from ages 3 to 13 living there. The children sleep two to three to a bed, and the orphange itself is run by the director and his wife, who started it 10 years ago. The kids were all very positive and full of life. They are amazing at jump rope and seem to like sports very much. We even got Erasmus to join in on the jump rope extravaganza. We hope to back again soon and bring some gifts becuase the kids have very little.

Usikumwema ( have a good night),
Andy and Ryan

Random pics from arusha

Pictures in no particular order:

-wedding procession
-view from hills at base of Mt. Meru
-Andy at snake park in front of croc
-Ryan posing as doctor in Dr. Ruga's office in Moshi
-The fam + Canadian(Laura) and Eli and Rose
-Pic of Arusha

Arusha

Habari mchana (good afternoon)-

Phrase of the day- baba/mama (father and mother)

Well, needless to say we had some internet problems and somehow accidentally posted 10 blogs with one click of the button.

Anyways, we had a blast in Arusha this weekend. On Saturday morning, we woke up early and met with Eli and Rose, friends of Erasmus. We went the bus station in Moshi and caught a bus going to Arusha. Just like with the dala-dalas, the bus would not leave until every seat was full. Every seat means "every seat plus one extra person so that breathing is restricted." After waiting 45 minutes, we set off on an hour and a half journey through the plains of Africa. Once you pass the town of Moshi, the landscape opens up for miles in each direction. The scenery was beautiful. When we arrived in Arusha, we walked through town to a famous craft market and Eli pointed out several important buildings along the way, such as the UN building for the International crime tribunal for Rwanda. The craft market consisted of several small huts with all sorts of interesting jewelry and handcrafted figurines. AND FRIKIN SPEARS TOO!!!!(Ryans outburst). There was an abundance of Massai weaponry and cultural items(that might come in handy as gifts). After lunch(which we paid for Mom), we jumped on another dala-dala to go to the snake park and Massai museum. The snakes were pretty cool, but the highlight was when a small python peed on Erasmus(see above picture). The Massai museum was kinda boring but there were some interesting scenes depicting ceremonial circumcision for boys AND girls. After the circumcision, it is customary for the boy or girl to drink a liter or two of cow's blood to make up for the blood lost during the ceremony. YUMMY!!! O yea, THEY put MILK in it too!!
After the museum, we headed back to Arusha, where Baba and Mama Agatha left to return to Moshi. We then went with Eli and Rose to Eli's parents house at the base of Mt. Meru. This required another interesting pick-up ride on a bumpy path (doesn't merit road) to their house. The weather was much cooler as we ascended the mountain. Eli's father was Massai and everyone in the village around the house speaks Massai as a primary language. We spent the night in a guest house with Eli's youngest brother Benjamin, who was 17. Next morning, after a hearty breakfast, Eli said we would go for a walk and then come back to eat lunch. Since it was 9 in the morning, we assumed he was exaggerating since it was only a "walk." NOPE. We went on a beautiful 3 hour HIKE to the edge of the forest and then through the rolling farmlands of Mt. Meru, passing very remote Massai villages along the way. On the way up, we were stopped by one old farmer who knew Eli and offered us both an entire stalk of sugar cane. He literally led us into his farm, whipped out his machete and hacked two stalks down for us to have. The hike was definitely a highlight of the trip so far, although exhausting. After lunch, we made our long journey back to Moshi. When we arrived at home, we were surprised to find two Muzungus in our living room. They were two Canadian girls who just graduated from college and are volunteering in an orphanage downtown. It was nice to finally have an extended conversation with others who were in a similar situation. Since they had just arrived, we gave them some pointers for town and taught them a little Swahili (we are pretty much fluent now). This weekend, we are going to accompany them back to Arusha to do some shopping and possibly visit Mt. Meru national park. By the way, the picture on the left is of Mt. Meru and the one on the right is Mt. Kilimanjaro.
Asante sana,
Andy and Ryan

Week 2: Mawenzi hospital

Habari asubuhi (good morning) -

Word of the week: sowa (okay-Dr. Ruga says this about every third word)

Our week with Dr. Ruga has come to an end. While we have not done a ton, we have definitely experienced alot. We have probably heard more screaming this week than we have in the rest of our lives. Not to paint a dreadful picture, but in a hospital where painkillers are not handed out freely and doctors/ nurses may not be the most tender handed, it can be pretty loud. Most of the screaming comes from the smaller children when gauze is being removed/applied to their burns or their broken legs are being set old-school style (we will explain in a minute). Our daily routine consists of arriving at 8:00 and attending an early meeting with all the staff to discuss special cases or any problems that occured overnight. The meeting room is a converted classroom with chalkboard and wooden chairs. After this, we head over to Dr. Ruga's ward to make the morning round. Sometimes we helped folding the gauze that would be later used for the burn victims. Charts for the patients consist of a brown folder with any scrap paper available to write down vitals, treatments, and the like. On Thursday, we attended a surgical clinic where Dr. Ruga saw roughly 30 patients in 2 hours. We saw several interesting cases but we were not able to understand Dr. Ruga's explanation half of the time because he speaks in very accented, mumbled Enlglish. ( eg. Calcium= cowshum). Today, during rounds we were a little more active and able to assist in the setting of a girl's broken femur. The fracture was very severe, completely broken. Since the girl was too large for the previously referred 'slaughter house traction,' they had to set her leg using weights ( or i should say rocks). First, we taped along each side of her leg with tape and attached a wooden square to her foot that would hold the weight. During this process, the girl nearly shattered every window (oh wait there are no windows) with her screams. At one point, Dr. Ruga got pissed at her lack of compliance and proceeded to smack her across the leg (thankfully the non-broken one). They are not evil people but in general, the doctors and nurses seem to have less sympathy for pain tolerance.
We then weighed the girl in order to determine the traction weight (10%) of the rocks to be attached to the end of her foot via pulley. Anyways, things have been interesting (in a good way) and next week we are looking forward to a new adventure.
Last night, we had another good experience with the locals. After completing our daily run, we saw some children playing soccer and feeling only slightly intimidated, we asked if we could play. We kicked around the ball ( compilation of grocery bags with rubber bands attached) for a little while, and then decided to bring out our hacky-sak (we had been practicing). We proceeded to get schooled by an eight year-old boy, who is better at soccer now than we can ever be. One of the boys who we played football with joined us, and we played a game of (every man for himself) soccer.
We are going to Arusha tomorrow and we promise to take many pictures and post them on Monday.
Hope everyone is doing well.
kwaheri,
Andy and Ryan

Mawenzi Hospital and Football

Jambo,
Two nights ago, Andy and I were invited to visit one of Dilis's friends from work and her family. It was about a 15 minute walk from our house. The couple was recently married and they were very friendly and hospitable. The husband was very intelligent, spoke english very well, and is now studying for his masters in geography and biology. We talked about the same US political issues that everyone seems to be curious about, again over some beers. Erasmus brought up our idea to travel to Arusha one weekend and he graciously offered to accompany us (Andy, I, Erasmus, and Dilis) to Arusha this upcoming weekend. He is from Arusha and offered his family's house for us to stay the night. He is also going to give us a tour of town and take us to the Snake Park(whatever that is).
Yesterday afternoon, we finally connected with some of the locals our age. We met some of them earlier in the day when we were walking around with a football, and later they showed up near our house wanting to play. We started off teaching them how to throw and catch(which didn't go very well) and then we tried to organize a small game of 3 on 3. Neither of us knew enough Swahili to communicate the rules very well, so we brought out Gloria to translate. After about a half an hour, they started catching on to the rules(after many failed attempts). Before we knew it, half of the village was in a circle watching our game(maybe 40 people). Each of us was the quarterback for a team and we tried to teach them simple routes to run(which they also didnt do very well). They didnt quite understand the idea of a touchdown, but they did understand GOALGOALGOALGOAL!!!!!!!! In the end, Ryan's team was obviously victorious in a close 6-5 touchdown game. It was a lot of fun and we will probably try another game soon.
Today, we went to Mawenzi Hospital for our first day of work. The layout of the hospital is extremely different from that in the US. The hospital is split up into small buildings for each department(most built around the 1950s), each acting as a ward for 20 to 30 patients. The wards are split into male and female, sometimes with more than one person to a bed. There seems to be around 10 active doctors in the entire hospital. There is very little isolation between the patients and the environment, in fact most patients have family members with food(and whatever else) direclty outside. Privacy(and sterility to a certain extent) is practically non-existent. We saw some pretty serious cases of burns and diabetes today. We started off following Dr. Ruga, who is a GP and said that doctors here generally cover all fields because of the shortage of doctors in Tanzania. One interesting practice that we immediately noticed was how they reset bones for small children. When the children had broken legs, they were laying next to each other with their feet tied straight up in the air. It had a striking resemblance to a butcher's shop. In the same room, we saw a lady who had an extreme open wound on her foot, revealing the ankle bone and all of the tendons of her toes (her big toe was gone). The doctor explained that her foot would have already been amputated at other hospitals, but becuase she could not afford a prosthetic limb and had to work to support her family, the doctor had not amputated it. Lastly, we got to see a minor surgery done by the same doctor. A member of the staff, the dentist, had a pain in one of her hands and Dr. Ruga performed a biopsy to examine and remove any tissue that was causing the pain. The operating room (theater as they call it) was a little rustic. Ventilation was provided by open windows and the sole sterile requirement for us was to wear a pair of rubber boots. Although the settings were a little different, the doctor was very professional and precise.
Lastly, we found a little piece of heaven today in a small cafe near the internet shop. It is an Indian restaurant but they serve a little bit of everything, including HAMBURGERS. It was extremely nice to change up the food, because we have been eating the same three or four things everyday for lunch and dinner.
Sorry we havent taken any pictures of the hospital yet, but we are just getting started and there will be more to come.
Asante sana,
Ryan and Andy

Video

Here is a video from the trip down from the village. It is a youtube link.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74hDQyXVgBI

Erasmus's fam

Habari,

Phrase of the day- shinboni

First, we feel compelled to reply to some controversial comments. NO, we do not sleep together. We have bunk beds. Secondly, F U Jingbo for insulting my writing(from Ryan). Anyways... Yesterday we embarked on an epic journey to see Erasmus' extended family. They live around 30 km from Moshi and it took several interesting means of transportation to get there. After taking a dala-dala from Moshi, we arrived somewhere close to the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro. Ryan(I) then embraced his mexican roots and boarded a 1954 pick-up truck along with 15 other people. We then proceeded to drive up the roughest dirt road we have ever encountered. After being thrashed about for around 7 km, we arrived at a remote village and had to walk an additional 3-4 km on foot. The people of this village usually speak their matadan(tribal language), so Erasmus taught us how to say hello(shinboni). Many people laughed at us when we tried to greet them in their matadan. It is even rarer to find a muzungoo(white person) in the village so we got even more stares than usual. Also, all of the women in town carry incredible amounts of bananas on their heads. Erasmus's family was very nice, but only his two brothers were able to speak English. Since bananas are THE main food in the village, they make a local brew called bege, which is a mix of fermented bananas and ground millet. It has a INTERESTING taste of decomposing bananas. Later we sat around with Erasmus's brothers and drank some beers and talked about the political and economic situation in Zimbabwe, where Erasmus's younger brother was studying philosophy. The rate of inflation in Zimbabwe is 2300%. One US dollar is worth roughly 230,000 of their currency. Lunch was, you guessed it, bananas! Before we left, we took a picture of the family(above) that includes Erasmus' parents and 2 of his 8 siblings. On the way down the mountain, we volunteered to ride in the back of another pick up. It was like riding a BMX track. The views were spectacular. It was dusk and you could see an unbelievable view of the surrounding country. We went down the mountain very quickly and almost flew out a couple of times. "It was a surreal experience"(Andy's words). "It was super cool!!"(Ryan's words). We have also added a picture of the infamous dala-dala so that you can see what 25 human beings can squeeze into.

Kwaheri

Andy and Ryan

KCMC and Town

Hello friends and family,
phrase of the day- sinunui( I dont want to buy)
After we left the internet cafe when we wrote our last blog, we went to a cafe to get some cokes. We managed to order them in Swahili but when we got the bill, they charged us 1200 shilling, around twice as much as they charge to the locals. Ryan, in his infinite wisdom, had the foresight to learn the swahili words for "lower the price" (pongusa bei) and "liar" (mongo), and thus we were able to negotioate to a reduced price (to 1000). While we were drinking our cokes, we were accosted by several people selling DVDs and travel trips. Since we were interested in buying some DVD's for Erasmus' family, we obliged and followed one of the men to the bus station. There we were lead to a sketchy display stand of all kinds of foreign DVD's but managed to get both Spiderman 2 and Spiderman 3 (yes 3!) for the price of about 15 dollars total.
Yesterday we went to KCMC hospital, which is one of the largest hospitals in Tanzania and actually closer to our house than the hospital that we will be working at. We only walked around for a short time but we could see that the hospitals are quite different here in Tanzania. Every room with patients has at least five and all of the beds had mosquito nets above them because there is significantly less air-flow control. Overall, we still have much to learn about how the hospitals are run here.
Last night, we amazed Erasmus' family with our American technology. We showed them our Ipods and phones. They absolutely loved to take pictures of themselves and the girls, Christina and Gloria, love to dance to our music. The girls also don't understand that when you have headphones in, you have to talk softer.
Today we met our first white people on the dala-dala. The dala-dala is the bus that we take to town. Different ones travel in different loops throughout Moshi and the surrounding neighborhods. The bus itself is not really a bus, but rather a glorified Hippy van, that is supposed to seat around 12, but usually fits around 25 (needless to say it can be VERY tight). Anyways, the people we met were German medical students who were in their last year of school and were required to spend a semester abroad. They spoke very good English and we shared stories of our experiences thus far. To our surprise, they said that there have only been five serious cases of malaria at KCMC hospital in the last four months.

Sikujema (have a good day),
Andy and Ryan

Hello,

Phrase of the day- siqulewi(i do not understand)

The town of Moshi was totally different than anything in the U.S. It has the feel of an oversized flea market. Many people travel around selling second-hand goods and the town as a whole has the smell of rotting fruit. Almost all of the roads are dirt and most people travel by foot. There are few indoor shops and all of the food we saw was out in the open and supremely unsanitary. At one point, we came to a place where chickens were held in cages. I(Ryan) tried to take a picture, and some men came up to me demanding 1000 shilling(1 US dollar). Erasmus later told us that the chickens did not even belong to the men and they were just trying to scam the muzungoo(white people). Town was also exciting because it was the place where we saw other white people(at the internet cafe and cell phone store). Many people have tried to convince us to buy goods and get us to go on safaris. We are writing this blog on our first trip to town alone, and we have survived up this point. Many people carry goods in push-carts that have random tires on the back as brakes(for downhill sledding). We took this picture in the rooftop cafe, one of the tallest buildings in the town at a monstrous 2 stories. Erasmus offered us some beer, which is apparently expensive here at the price of 1000 shiling per. Tomorrow we are going in for orientation and hopefully get the chance to see the hospital. We will try to upload more pictures, but it is hard to take good photos because you get harrassed or stared at.

Kwaheri(bye-bye)

Ryan and Andy

Intro

Habari family and friends,

Jambo! This is our first attempt at blogging. Pictures take very long to upload onto the blog site so we will only be able to pick select photos to show you. Everything is great so far. We are safe and healthy. Things are quite different here, especially in town, but we are being well taken care of by Erasmus and family. This first pic is of his daughter, Agatha. She is 4 years old, adorable and has already latched onto Andy's hip. Our house is very comfortable. With all of our luggage, it is a tight fit inside of our room, but we worked out a creative arrangement that works. We are living with Erasmus, Dilis his wife, Agatha, Dilis's sister Gloria, and Christina the baby sitter. We speak mostly with Erasmus and Glori, who speaks the second best english in the house. We also talk alot with Agatha but she knows no english and we mostly babble and play games with her. Suprisingly, they have a tv and a DVD player but only own about 3 DVD's and receive 1 tv channel. Food consists mostly of rice, beef and beans. It is pretty good, but a little heavy on the fat. Check our next blog for info on the town and other interesting experiences so far.

Asante Sana(thank you very much)

Andy and Ryan