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