Ndanda

I'm in Ndanda, Tanzania now! After a month of training and language classes, I'm so happy to have settled into my house in Ndanda and to begin to start work!
Yesterday I flew from Dar Es Salaam to Mtwara, the largest city in the south eastern portion of Tanzania. The flight was about an hour and a half. We made one stop in Lindi, a smaller town. I wish I had a picture of the airport - on the roof of a small house in big letters reads Welcome to Lindi Airport. It was the first time I've landed at an airport without a runway. The runway at Lindi is barely a dirt road with patches of grass and weeds scattered about. It made for a little bit of a bumpy landing! The flight from Lindi to Mtwara was only about a half an hour but with beautiful views of the Indian Ocean along the way. In Mtwara I met my "line-manager" who is the in charge hospital doctor and we drove about 2 hours to Ndanda. We stopped once along the way to buy some coconuts.
In Ndanda, I was greeted by the hospital administrator, a very friendly dutch man and the three other volunteers working here, a medical doctor from the netherlands, an american lab tech, and a community HIV counselor. I took a little driving tour of the town of Ndanda with the hospital administrator and volunteer doctor. This small town is amazing - both beautiful and very self sufficient! It is more than 100 years since a German mission post, when the town and soon after the hospital was established. There is a large German influence and presence of german monks and nuns that live in the Abbey here. Also an increasingly large African diosese is growing in the community. For a very small town, Ndanda has impressive self-sustaining sites - a hydroelectric power supply, large water filtering system, vegetable farm, stone carving and masonry shop, a nursing school,bakery, butcher, natural pond for swimming, and of course St. Benedict's Hospital.
After a tour through the town, I had dinner with the hospital administrator and the three other volunteers who prepared dinner in their house.
My day started at 8 this morning with morning report. After a quick prayer, a nurse reads a list of the census of patients in the hospital including all recent admissions, discharges, diagnoses, and pt's scheduled for surgery. I wish I had arrived one day prior, because I was told that yesterday a woman delivered twins and she had "two uteruses" or possibly an extrauterine pregnancy. I don't have the story right - what was described in board report was that a laparotomy was performed, and on inspecting the abdomen, two uteruses were seen. Both babies were delivered without complication and are doing well. I wish I was there to see!
Today's surgery schedule included one total abomdinal hysterectomy for fibroids, as well as a couple of orthopedic cases. I met the general surgeon who performed the c-section yesterday, and who was doing the hysterectomy today. She is a german nun who has been working as the sole general surgeon at the hospital for some time. I was told that the last ob/gyn to work at the hospital did so more than 5 years ago and worked for some time until he passed away.
After morning report, I was given a tour of the hospital. For a mission hospital I was very impressed. The 300 bed hospital has a separate medical and surgical ward for men and women, an antepartum unit, post partum unit, Labor and delivery. There is a main operation theatre, where general surgery, gynecologic, orthopedic, urologic, and ent procedures are performed. There is a lab, with blood bank, radiology department, an ultrasound (I didn't see today), a TB unit and an HIV/AIDS treatment care unit. After the tour I picked up some hospital attire and then had lunch in the abbey. I didn't see my line manager this afternoon, so I spent more time getting settled.
I'm going to meet the others for dinner and have an early night to make the most of tomorrow....