New house in Lindi

I like my new house. Its pretty spacious - 3 bedrooms, two baths, living room and kitchen. The water isn't working yet, but hopefully the plumber will come on Monday. The house is mostly furnished, there's sofas in the living room and bed and dresser in the bedroom, but i'm still waiting on a couple of pieces of furniture to come this week.

I love the backyard, its really a lot of space. There are two mango trees and two banana trees. In one of the pictures you can see the back of my house from the the backyard. In the front, there is a little cabana like house that is supposed to house the "askari" - guard, however, I haven't hired a guard, yet, I like to use this space for outdoor cooking or reading, etc.

There's a dog house! Sadly, though, they told me that my dog ran away! I was so sad to hear this bit of news. Though at least i won't have to worry about feeding a dog or listening to any barking noise at night. If I find anyone selling puppies, i might have to get one.


The pictures above = the little cabana like space in the front yard where an askari can work (= sleep). The other picture is the front of my house.

There is a large gate that surrounds the house and the white gate with black doors is the "front" of the gate.

Above = the dog house. The picture above the dog house is a view of the back of my house from the backyard. Its probably a hundred yards of space surrounded by a gate.

Mangos waiting to fall. There still not yet ripe, maybe by next month

banana trees

The bed in the "master bedroom" The two other bedrooms do not have furniture in them yet, hopefully this week.

Work, weather, life, and other frustrations

Work has been going well. But very busy. Worked in clinic last two days and felt like i saw about one hundred patients. Had one case in the OR - a salpingectomy for a ruptured ectopic pregnancy. Tomorrow we have four cases scheduled, two VVF repairs, one hysterectomy and one anterior colporraphy. Hopefully we will have electricity because the last time we tried operating, the electricity went out in the middle of the case.

It is so hot!! By 9am it feels like about 100 degrees. This morning the hospital driver forgot to pick me up at the hotel so I walked to the hospital. Only a 15 minute walk but it was uncomfortable to be in the sun for that long! I'm trying to remember to consciously drink extra water because its easy to quickly get so dehydrated here!

Finally saw my house! Its nice! 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, kitchen, etc. The house is almost on the top of a very large hill/very small mountain. maybe 300 or 400 feet above sea level? Its about a 15 minute drive from the hospital, the first 10 minutes is a drive up a very steep hill.
House comes with a dog. Have yet to see the dog, but looking forward to meeting him/her!
Too early to tell if electricity will be a problem, but seems likely that it will be an issue.

People are very friendly here! But sometimes they stare at me like i'm a alien from another planet with 3 heads. Its not too bad in the hospital because people assume i'm a doctor, but in the city, there are very few wazungus, so if people see a white guy, they definitely give you an extra long look!

My diet hasn't been great. I've been eating two meals a day because its been so busy during lunch time, i skip lunch. I eat a hard boiled egg and bread with margarine for breakfast and dinner is local tanzanian food which can be very tasty but usually is fried and unhealthy. There is one new very nice hotel which seems to have a nice restaurant but I haven't tried the food yet.
Solution seems simple. I have a "household helper" who is waiting to come and help take care of the house and who also is capable of cooking! And the market in town has some good looking vegetables. The fish is very fresh and there are plenty of butchery's scattered about.

That's it from here! Hope everyone's well back home.

Hotel Chemi Kumi and Hospitali Sokoine

I've been staying at the Hotel Chemi Kumi for the past week.
The hotel is located right on the beach with a beautiful view looking out into the ocean. Often spend quite a lot of time, while away from work, sitting at the restaurant chilling out, relaxing with a drink. Its so hot during the day that its nice to get a cool breeze from the ocean to cool you off.
There's a family who owns the hotel and the children and their friends manage everything and do a very good job. The kids do everything - cook, clean, wash clothes, etc. The other day there was a party at the hotel and about a hundred people came for the party. Local tanzanian flavor music was playing all night.
The rooms are small but "cozy". There is usually no running water so I shower pouring water from a bucket over my head:) At least the water is hot:)

Electricity is an issue, in town and at the hotel it usually shuts on and off and the most unpredictable times.
Work has been going well. Spent the last couple of days working in the clinic. There are enough patients to keep me busy until mid afternoon. I usually finish work at 3pm if its a light day or by half past 6 on a busy day (last Thursday). Normally every Wednesday and Friday the Ob/gyn department has cases scheduled in the OR but didn't have any cases to do today. The main OR is under construction so we have been using a temporary OR near the eye clinic. The other day the electricity went out in the middle of a c-section. Luckily i had some light coming in from the window close by the OR table and we were closing the abdomen when lights went out, so it wasn't too difficult to finish the case:) but i'm not sure what happens when lights go out at night during a c-section. One of the nurses said that the anesthestist shines light from a cell phone onto the field to help the surgeon see. I'm not sure if she was joking or serious but wouldn't be surprised if she was serious. Fortunately there is a generator in the hospital so I think that the generator usually functions during the black-outs. There's also a lantern sitting in the changing room but i'm not sure if it works.
The hospital actually had 2 Gynecologist from Holland working up until last month. One of whom worked in the hospital for 4 years and made a very large contribution to the hospital - taught staff, brought in a ton of equipment, medications, and even started 3 research studies. Its definitely nice to have some foundation upon which to hopefully build upon. One of the Tanzanian medical officers was trained in some gyn procedures and now is capable of doing VVF repair and a few urogynecologic procedures in addition to routine general gynecologic cases.

The pictures are from Hoteli Chemi Kumi, and view of the ocean.

Lindi

Things are going well here in Lindi. Arrived Wednesday evening and met the Doctor-In-Charge of the hospital at a hotel where I'm staying for the next couple of weeks until the house that I've been assigned to is ready. Spent the day yesterday becoming familiar with the hospital and meeting a ton of new people. Again today, spent the day getting to know people and had first case in the OR - Anterior colporraphy for cystocele.

One of the biggest challenges is going to be to improve my Kiswahili, because fewer people speak English here in Lindi compared with Ndanda, so I'll need to get a better grip on speaking in Kiswahili - it will definitely make things much easier.

I've decided this blog will be a short one, the internet connection at the internet cafe here is decent compared to those in Dar and up north but its at least twice as expensive and I'm quickly running out of minutes!

Tomorrow afternoon I'm going to Mtwara. I'm going to take a Dala Dala (overcrowded minibus) to meet a bunch of other volunteers for Renee's farewell dinner. Renee's been working as HIV doctor for a gov't hospital in Mtwara for the last two years.
Will hopefully write more this weekend.

Arusha National Park

What a way to end a mini vacation up north - on safari in Arusha National Park! Spent the day yesterday enjoying the sites of Arusha

National Park. The park is one of the smaller parks among the Game Parks in the Northern Tanzanian Circuit but it was more enjoyable than the last safari I went on in Mikumi National Park. Arusha NP is supposedly the only park where you can get out and walk/hike around, which we did for a couple of hours and were able to get much closer to the animals than we had been in the car. You won't be able to see all of the "Big 5" (Lion, Rhino, Elephant, Giraffe, and Leopard) here but you will be able to see a bunch of giraffes and baboons and if you are lucky a few elephants. Also impressive were flamingos and eagles above the lakes.

My tour guide Guardan led me and two other "mountaineers" :) throughout the park carrying a loaded gun. The buffalo is the only predator in the park that would potentially attack people. Guardan has been working as a tour guide in Arusha NP for 5 years and he has only had to fire the gun once! We were glad we did not make it number two.

Arusha NP is more 'hilly' and 'woody' than Mikumi National park and is much smaller, but has beautiful sites - its known for the Ngurdoto Crater and the lakes - we saw a couple of hippos sunbathing out of the lake but from quite a distance. Also caught glimpse of a group of flamingos and eagles soaring but was difficult to photo despite my advanced training in photography:)

above: Kilimanjaro peak (~5900 meters/19,000 feet)

below: Twiga = kiswahili for Giraffe

above: family of giraffes. The male giraffe has two horns on the head, the females can be recognized by the hair standing up along their backs.

below: the waterfalls - source of water from Mt. Meru. That is Emily in the picture - she was on safari with her boyfriend James from the UK. Nice couple.

above: a herd of buffalo - the only animal that would potentially attack us. Apparently we didn't look very appetizing or the buffalo were not hungry during our safari

More Twigas

above: pair of twigas (male and female)

below: couple of hippos sunbathing out of the lake

above: Ngurdoto crater - a "mini Ngorongoro crater" the base is mostly swamp land. We saw a herd of buffalo way out in the distance, too far away to photo.

below: twiga on break

The baboons. While we drove past a large group of baboons up in the trees we caught a brief shower of baboon droppings through the opening in the roof of our car, making baboons a dangerous animal for a different reason.

above: pundamilia is Kiswahili for zebra

I'm back in Dar Es Salaam now. Will meet with my manager tomorrow and then fly South to Mtwara on Tuesday.

Looking forward to finally getting settled in a house and starting my new post in Lindi.

Arusha

Arusha is a beautiful.... Situated at the foot of Mt. Meru (about 4500 meters), the city has the beauty of the mountains along the skyline and the hustle of city life in the city center. Arusha is only about 60 km from the Kenya border and much closer to the equator than my house in Ndanda, but the higher altitude makes the climate much different with temerperatures this time of year on the cold side! It was actually cold, rainy and windy this morning. Reminded me of fall in Chicago!

Arrived in Arusha a couple of days ago on a one hour flight from Mwanza to Kilamanjaro International Airport. Luckily for me I chose the correct side of the plane to sit on so I could see Mt. Kilamanjaro as we began the descent. The first glimpse of the mountain towering above the clouds was awesome. I took a bunch of pictures from the plane, but the flash into the window made the pictures blurry and you don't get the mountain's full effect.


From the airport I took a 45 minute shuttle bus into Arusha.

I'm staying at the New Meru Inn Hotel - rates are affordable and its close to the city center. The hotel is nice but has a hostel feel to it because there are a ton of college kids from Europe and UK staying in the 'hotel' who are backpacking around. There are also 50 or so students from UCLA here working for an organization to develop an orphanage.

Arusha is definitely the Safari Capital of Tanzania! In the city centre there are by far the most 'wazungu's' (white European's) that I've seen in Tanzania. The first day while walking around, I made the mistake of carrying a guide book, map and camera. The camera and guide book made it easy for the locals to spot me and strike up a conversation that always leads to an offer to do business or to sign up for a safari. I was frustrated by the never-ending greetings i get on the street like 'mambo rafiki' (how are you my friend) and the offers for safaris that I just started speaking in Kiswahili. I get a little bit more respect by speaking in Kiswahili, but this doesn't stop the next guy down the block from doing the same.

Yesterday I spent the day walking around the city center and along the perimeter of the city taking in the views and getting a feel for the people in the city. There are beautiful views of Mt. Meru but yesterday we had overcast skies, not great for pictures.

Received good news from my manager in Dar who yesterday confirmed that I will be starting my new post in Lindi Region next week! I'll be traveling to Mtwara on September 2nd and begin my new assignment at Sokoine Hospital as early as next Wednesday. In Mtwara, I'm scheduled to meet the doctor-in-charge of Sokoine and together we will drive to Lindi. I will temporarily be staying in the guest house in Lindi for two weeks until final arrangements on my house are made.