Tanzania Journal: Greetings from Karatu

Habari from Karatu. That’s Swahili for “hello”. My days at home are filled with rooster’s crowing and an occasional mooing from a cow. My mama’s neighbors have lots of chickens, roosters, goats and one cow. The goats are off grazing in another area most of the time so I’ve not heard them so far. If the electricity is on, Mama’s son plays mostly country music from his computer library so we do have some entertainment. There is a battery operated radio but it’s hard to get a good station without a lot of static. During the day, when I’m in the lab, I hear one of the lab techs whistling quite often along with the usual lab sounds of busy techs with crying babies and children when getting their blood drawn.

I’m in the lab because they have the most consistent connection to the internet which I need to register and train docs on the use of Telemedicine (TM). If you’re not familiar with TM, it’s a tool to allow health professionals to get consultations with experts from all over the world. In AK, we had a special machine that was only used for TM but here we’re using a web-based system created by the Swinfen Charitable Trust. The Evangelical Lutheran Church of Tanzania (ELCT) who owns this hospital collaborates with this trust and other organizations to offer TM to their 43 hospitals located throughout Tanzania. (TM is also offered to any health professional, not just to the Lutheran Hospitals). When I first got here, I made up a schedule for the docs to sign up for their preferred time to train but they decided they would rather just drop by the lab when they have some time. So that means I hang out in the lab when I’m not on chai (tea) break between 10 & 10:30 or lunch between 1:30 and 2:00.

By the way, Tanzanians like to eat their meals late so the chai break is really breakfast but morning prayers start at 7:45am so one has a lot of activities before breakfast. I usually have a cup of coffee before going to prayers. Supper is usually somewhere around 8:30pm which is not that much later than I have it at home but I have snacks if I’m eating that late. But I’m trying not to have snacks or “bites” as they’re called here because I’m eating so much rice, potatoes and beans that I feel like I’m gaining weight. They insist on eating a big meal at supper so you’ll have enough energy for your morning activities. We do have meat including beef, chicken and more rarely fish but it’s all fried so just as at home, I don’t eat meat with every meal. However, Mama always put some meat on my plate at dinner (to give me enough energy in the morning) but I usually have lunch with her son as she is too busy at the hospital to come around 1:30. That way, I can decline the meat at lunch. I’m not sure when or if Mama eats lunch. She is the “Matron” of the hospital which I think is similar to “Director of Nursing” and carries a lot of responsibility. It’s not unusual at all for her to be called back to the hospital for an hour or 2 at night if something has gone wrong or someone needs “meds” and the staff on duty cannot give them. Mama is an RN so she has more privileges than say an LPN.

At any rate, I’m realizing I haven’t really told you about my first 3 weeks here which were in Arusha and 2 villages called Engikaret and Njoro. Arusha is a thriving, bustling & vibrant city of 270,000 people. It can be overwhelming at times with numerous cars, carts and bicycles not to mention the motorcycles. Crossing a street can be a major challenge as there are no stoplights in town. Traffic does have to stop periodically because there is so much of it so this is your chance to get at least halfway across. When you first arrive in Arusha, you’ll meet folks called “flycatchers” because they’ll approach you in the hope of selling you something. They are quite persistent and will ask time and time again even though you keep saying “hapanna asanta” meaning “no thank you”. However, after you’ve been here for several days to a week, they realize you’re not the typical tourist and they tend to leave you alone.

Lexa Koenig who is a rising sophomore at Columbia University in NYC was the only other person in my orientation group. However there were several other volunteers who had started earlier. One of them, Liz Elmore is from Asheville and lives on a farm out Leichester Highway. It never ceases to amaze me what a small world we live in. All of the volunteers who are or were with me here are college students. Several of them including Lexa are going home tomorrow but I said goodbye to them 2 weeks ago when I left Arusha for Karatu. I’m including some pics of the volunteers, the GSC office and the surrounding area. One of my favorite places to get pizza is the Arusha Maasai Café so there are some pics of it too. Next to the café is a small art gallery which I enjoyed as well. I’ve included a few photos from there as well.

The electricity is off today so I’m on battery power on my computer and need to sign off soon. I don’t want to deplete the battery completely so I’ll stop for now. So I’ll have to tell you about the villages in my next blog. Earlier I did get on the internet since the hospital had their generator on. I hope it will be on this afternoon as well in which case I’ll just “cut and paste” this Word document onto my blog. I also have planned to call my brother, Garry this afternoon but we’ll see if the generator is still on. The hospital leaves it on for as few hours as possible. My backup time to call Garry is tomorrow afternoon so we’ll see what happens. I don’t think I’ll ever take electricity for granted again as I did before coming here. Wishing you well and hoping things are going great for you and your family/friends. Bye for now and hopefully I’ll blog again soon. Take care.