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.

There's a first time for everything

Having spent most of my life in California, I’ve become assimilated into the rich and diverse cultures of my communities. I have forgotten what it was like to be an outsider. It was and is an uncomfortable experience to be stared and hollered at while walking down the street and to be asked constantly if I was from China or Japan after introducing myself as an American. According to one of the nurses, I must be a “mixture” (White and Asian) to identify myself as “American”. I’ve realized how much I took for granted: my life back in southern California and my relationships and experiences with friends from various ethnic/socioeconomic backgrounds.

Before coming to Tanzania, I’ve spent a good number of years traveling and volunteering in various underserved communities. I thought I was prepared to face the poor conditions and health disparities in Arusha. But my encounter with patients and the medical staff at Mt Meru left me somewhat speechless. On my first day doing rounds with Ob/Gyn physicians, I’ve watched a deceased patient, who passed away due to infection from an unsafe abortion (dead fetus was left inside the patient for months), being left unattended in a room full of patients waiting to be seen. She was finally taken to the morgue after the doctor examined her body and checked for a final heart beat, with students and patients all in attendance. I was also drawn to another patient: a 13 year old girl was raped and admitted for HIV and syphilis testing. She sat silently with her mother, waiting for test results to come back. I left the ward with the sad haunting faces of the women imbedded in my mind. Their fates seemed so bleak and hopeless.

A few of my firsts:
1. Watched Dr. Lee perform a leg amputation, manually and with a dull saw
2. “Scrubbed in” for two C-sections and then sat in the dark for an hour, waiting for the power to come back on
3. Held a woman’s hand while she sat naked, shaking and crying on the operating table—with physicians and nurses laughing and chatting about music on their cell phones
4. Rocked a baby to sleep after she was delivered, cleaned, and placed in her mother’s blanket
5. Witnessed a mother giving birth by herself, without physicians or nurses assisting
6. Clamped and cut an umbilical cord and delivered a placenta
7. Felt a baby’s head while doing a pelvic exam

Skills to work on:
1. Blood draws
2. Give shots
3. Put in IV lines
4. Suturing
5. Casting
6. Deliver babies
7. Assist in surgeries

Mambo!

Two days of sitting in airports, twenty hours of sleep, three Swahili phrases, and five movies later, I finally arrived in Tanzania. Amy, Lindsay and I got off the plane and were greeted by the warm night breeze and strange scent that reminded us that we were no longer in comforts of our home. Dr. Lee met us at the Kilimanjaro airport and brought us to the Centre House hostel in Arusha, where we are sharing a one bedroom. It’s quite small and rustic, but it keeps the mosquitoes and bugs out. I feel very lucky to be in a place that has electricity, (somewhat) warm running water and a flushing toilet.

We spent the first few days roaming around and getting acquainted with the city. Our checklist:

1. Hunt for drinking water
2. Visit Mount Meru Hospital
3. Obtain a map
4. Buy SIMS card
5. Exchange currency
6. Find an internet café
7. Learn Swahili phrases
8. Bargain for used running shoes
9. Craft market for souvenirs
10. Search for a new place to live

Notable events:

1. Went to bed at 7pm and woke up at 5am, voluntarily and without an alarm
2. Found banana trees and a river in the backyard
3. The Blue Heron restaurant—saw monkeys and met a bunch of Brits who thought we are idiots for spending summer break volunteering in Tanzania
4. Mini si daktari = I am not a doctor
5. Started marathon training and exercised on the balcony while watching the sunset
6. Korean food for dinner with new friends from Korea and Canada
7. The Greek Club bar—USA vs. Ghana world cup game and obnoxious/drunk Americans singing and dancing to Miley Cyrus’s “Party in the USA”
8. Ran into two Canadian men at the hostel who left their jobs in Europe to go on a year-long expedition around the world
9. Hiked to a nearby village, heard beautiful church choir, and trudged along the river to find waterfalls
10. Orthopedic clinic with Dr. Lee at Mt Meru Hospital—man lost four fingers from accident, young girl with congenital finger malformation, baby with sixth digit foot surgery

Tanzania here I come!

Done with packing! Will be leaving on a jet plane in T-10 hours.

Itinerary:

Wednesday, June 23

Departs:	6:05 am from Portland, Oregon
Arrives:	2:29 pm at New York - Kennedy, New York

Departs:	3:55 pm from New York - Kennedy, New York
Arrives:	6:00 am (June 24) at Amsterdam, Netherlands

Thursday, June 24

Departs:	11:00 am from Amsterdam, Netherlands
Arrives:	8:25 pm at Kilimanjaro, Tanzania

T-12 Days

Only 12 more days until I am on my way to Tanzania! I've booked my flight, found a place to live, completed all my vaccinations, and bought a sleeping bag. Not quite ready to go.

To Do List:

1. Search for a safari hat

2. Costco trip

3. Study for my final exam

I'm all about prioritizing.