A Day in the Life:
It has only been two weeks, but I feel like I am starting to get the hang of things. The landmarks are becoming more recognizable and the people more familiar. After the chaos of the first week, I feel like I’ve finally developed a comfortable routine: breakfast at the hostel, morning walk to the hospital, labor and delivery ward or surgery with Dr. Lee until the afternoon, errands or miscellaneous activities (i.e. reading/blogging/baking at the Blue Heron) after leaving the hospital, work-out/jog around the neighborhood in the early evening, dinner and catch up with friends until bed time. All this is subject to change on a day-to-day basis.

Celebrating Canada Day at the Via Via Café:
During my stay at the hostel, I’ve had the wonderful opportunity to meet people from different parts of the world: medical students from Switzerland and Ireland, girls from Norway on holiday, a bunch of Canadians, high school kids from New Zealand on a missionary trip. My favorite so far is a group of nursing, dental, and medical students from Canada. We all bonded while celebrating Canada Day. It was a Thursday night, so we all decided to go the Via Via Café for some music and dancing. If I was a local and wanted to take advantage of a bunch of foreigners, this was the place to be. It was packed with students, interns, and volunteers from various countries and NGOs. Although we were all there with the same purpose in mind, we were still very much segregated. Even half-way across the world, some things never change.

Happy Independence Day:
A week in the labor ward and surgical theatre made me appreciate the little things in life. Things like having hand soap in the operating room, reliable source of electricity instead of cell-phone light for surgery, running water to wash up after a messy delivery, private examination rooms instead of shower curtains, scissors that are not rusty or dull, gloves and lubricants, anesthetics for patients undergoing surgeries, vaccinations for babies, lab tests for STIs other than HIV, medicine other than amoxicillin to treat any and all illnesses. I see the inconsistencies between my life here and the life I lead back in the states, and I feel guilty and helpless that I cannot restore balance between the two worlds. So what to do when stuck in an unsolvable situation? Escape reality. If only for a few days.

Amy, Lindsay and I decided that it was time to leave Arusha. In honor of July 4th (and of being crazy Americans), we hopped on a minibus heading to Moshi and played a game of how-many-people-can-fit-in-a-minibus. It was approximately a 2:1 ratio of people to seats. We tagged along a group of American/Canadian/Polish students and took the daladala to see Mount Kilimanjaro. The trip took us about three hours (six hours total on the road) and we ended up hiking through the Wachagga village and saw the Ndoro waterfalls. We got back to Arusha just after sunset and haggled with a group of men for a cab ride home. Dinner consisted of a bag of M&Ms and a granola bar. All in all, it was a successful spontaneous adventure, a great celebration of independence, and a perfect excuse to get away and recoup before the madness starts all over again.