Zanzibar

So the bare bones of it is that we caught a bus from Moshi to Dar Es Salaam, spent a night in Dar, then caught an early morning ferry to Zanzibar. That doesn’t tell you even a fifth of the story!
The bus ride itself was about as comfortable as a whole day journey on Tanzanian roads can be. Nine hours and one rest stop later, in rapidly dwindling sunlight, we arrived at Ubongo bus station in Dar. The same Ubongo bus station that the almighty Lonely Planet had advised us to avoid at all costs because it was busy, dangerous and essentially insane. We had planned to circumvent this obstacle by staying on the bus until the Dar Express head office, but the official white-shirted guy cheerfully informed us that No, no, this was the last stop… AUGHH!!!! Feeling like the goat in Jurassic park, with the bus as our cage (safe-haven) and menacing spectators pointing at the mzungu/potential victims, we desperately latched onto the remaining two passengers on the bus – a lady (who gave off the least creepy vibes of anyone we’d met that day) and her brother. We found out that she was Tanzanian, living in the US with her husband and daughter for the last five years, and was back for Christmas holidays. Correctly comprehending our terrified wide-eyed expressions, she muttered about how she hated Africans who took advantage of foreigners as she ushered us across a hectic street towards a taxi. We realised shortly after the value of knowing enough Swahili to bargain/argue/yell at length with/at the taxi driver. We’d arrived at the YWCA looking forward to the local food the Lonely Planet assured us would be waiting, and a shower. As it turned out, the restaurant had closed at 7 (so we had to settle for a feast of tinned tuna we had with us), and there was no water in the entire building. The walls were thin and halfway through the night a large group of loudly giggling girls came in, later followed by someone who banged loudly on their door for what seemed like hours. Suffice to say we did not wake up refreshed. We got out as early as we could, buying ferry tickets and collapsing into a seat inside.
We’d heard horror stories about the ferry and prepared ourselves to regurgitate the small meal we’d gathered the night before. Fortunately the two hours went by quickly, the only downside being the ‘entertainment’. We got very excited when it seemed like they were going to put on a DVD, but our hopes were dashed when the screen lit up with WWF. The rest of the ferry seemed to get into it with a chorus of ‘oohs’ and ‘aahs’ and loud chuckles whenever someone got thrown out of the ring. And then… we landed in Zanzibar.
With a determined stride we set off in the general direction of Warere Town House, only to realise that an elderly man had attached himself to us and was determined to walk us to wherever we needed to go no matter how much we tried getting him to leave – in the end he did actually end up helping us, so it all worked out well. After the terrifying ordeal that was Dar Es Salaam, Zanzibar and Warere seemed like a tropical paradise and safehaven. It was full of mismatched furniture and characters. Our room was up two flights of stairs, but after the room in Dar, seemed luxurious what with its running water, clean sheets and giant beds. We were told that they’d make us tea while

Chi Chi

we put our things down, but when we went up to the roof dining area, we discovered a feast of breads and fruit. Zanzibar gives off such a different vibe to the rest of Tanzania. I’m not sure if it was the slightly bohemian set up we had found ourselves in, the fact that a multitude of mismatched, crammed-together buildings lay around us, or the fuss of the night before, but just sitting there made us feel incredibly relaxed.

One of the townhouse staff was sitting perched on the side of the roof, dreadlocks, cheap jewellery and rasta air in tow. He was cheerfully engaged in conversation with a man we initially thought was drunk and soon after thought was mad. He was emphatically relating his life story in Zanzibar and how he was ‘Born Tanzania! Gonna die in Tanzania! Gonna bury Tanzania!’ and then yelled ‘Where you gonna bury!’ several times to the first guy. We were too tired to care, and the other staff seemed to encourage the rant (we later found out that the guy also worked there). I think we were also so relieved that they gave us our own space in stark contrast to the taxi men in Dar and the port. The guy with dreadlocks was called Chi Chi and even though he looked like he was slightly off with the fairies, he was harmless. He took us on an impromptu walk to an ATM and seemed to know everyone he met. He’d amble along in no hurry to get anywhere, finding everything amusing and ending every greeting with a ‘Poa!’ (Cool) and a thumbs up or a peace sign. Another man at the townhouse (who looked a lot like the father of a friend of mine!) asked us what we wanted to do, gave us suggestions, then got Chi Chi to escort us to the spice tour place and back. This man later also helped

Door (and Dinusha)

organise our beach day, made sure we didn’t get swindled in price, and generally checked up on us whenever we needed help. I’ve got to say, I heartily recommend this place to anyone who comes here. We never felt safer. One night, after meeting our Swedish housemates for dinner and a late night, we were too scared to walk back with just the two of us, and didn’t want to take a taxi as it was too short a distance to be worth being overcharged. So we called Warere and ten minutes later one of them came to walk us back.

We wandered about Stone Town on the first day. It’s full of old whitewashed buildings, some of which have intricately carved Indian style doorways. Some are apparently passed down in families and are seen as sign of prestige. We came out onto a local beach just before sunset. It was packed with both locals and tourists, with boats coming in and restaurants opening on the beach. We sat and watched the children playing about, before a few of them started doing some amazing acrobatics into the water. Farodhani Gardens was just next

Sunset in Zanzibar

door, so once the sun had disappeared, we wandered over to find it transformed. There were stalls set up all along the small square – each with a man wearing a chef’s hat, a burning barbeque, and a table filled with all types of kebabs, salads, drinks, seafood. You only had to look in their direction for them to come after you and insist you come to their table. As there’s no power in Zanzibar, they only had small lamps to light the area, but it was still very pretty. Had to leave earlier than anticipated to avoid two more persistent hasselers :S. We’d arranged to go on a Spice Tour the following day – which basically involved walking around a spice farm with a guide who pointed everything out/gave us freshly cut fruit and then a swim at one of the north western beaches. There were young boys at the farm who followed us around and made woven rings, bracelets, necklaces, ties, bags, etc., and draped them on the group as we walked by.

Bling

Chi Chi also found us a taxi driver who took us to Paje (one of the eastern beaches) and back. We got to see Colobus monkeys on the way, and then ended up on a really beautiful beach with white sand and waist high, warm, turquoise water that stretched out far in front of us. We swam out and realised that (almost) directly east of the same body of water, was Perth!
Apparently the traffic police who line the roads of Zanzibar have to be given a tip (which is concealed in a handshake) whenever they stop a vehicle, and they never seem to need a reason to stop someone. If there are foreigners on board the tip has to be substantially more, so Chi Chi and the driver passed us off as ‘Fatima’ and ‘Miriam’ from Dar, as we look/are Indian After a lovely day at the beach we had to race back to Stone Town with a brief stop-over at Forodhani gardens to buy some takeaway Zanzibari pizza before boarding the night ferry back to Dar Es Salaam. We’d bought ‘First Class’ tickets for the ferry so we were quite amused when more and more people kept coming in, and, when there were no more seats, every inch of floor space became

First class on the ferry

occupied by women and children lying down. After a night in the ferry, a frantic taxi transfer to the bus station in Dar, an eight hour bus ride back to Moshi, and a squashed journey in a Dala-dala, we arrived back at KCMC relieved but content with our little adventure.

 

Happy New Year

We celebrated New Year’s Eve with our Swedish housemates, Thomas (our German housemate and resident creepy-crawly killer) four Dutch guys, and

Mary, Thomas and us

Jean. We had dinner at El Rancho, a nearby restaurant which, as you can probably tell from the name (NOT!), does Indian food. After dinner, we came back to the house of some other elective students where we had a Maasai-themed party with dessert (we contributed a chocolate cake baked on an internet recipe!) and a countdown around a backyard bonfire.

After four hours of sleep, we began the new year with a run along Lema road (with its magnificent view of Kili!), then headed in to hospital. After a quick lunch at home, we marched with our backpacks to the dala dala where we were crammed in (as usual), only to board a bus to Arusha where the five of

The crowded bus to Arusha

us were crammed in even more to fit onto the back seat of the bus. The thing with buses to Arusha is that there’s no point trying to pick the bus with the least number of people as the buses will wait (45 minutes as it turned out) until they have as many paying customers as physically possible – so the ‘conductor’ told us to “squeeze!” We arrived in Arusha to meet Bobby, our guide for the hike we were doing the next day, who led us to where we staying. Arusha is bigger, dirtier and altogether more frightening than Moshi so after some fruitless attempts to find a nice local place to eat, the five of us ended up settling for the nearby Arusha backpackers restaurant, then retiring for an early night. The next morning, after an early breakfast, Bobby picked us up and we headed off in a minibus to the hike start point, where we met our local guide Samson. He

On the way to the waterfall

turned out to be a true gentlemen – he offered to carry some of our stuff, shared his food with some local women we met along the way and sang to us to encourage us when the trail got difficult.
We started off by going through a village where most of the houses were simple stone houses or mud huts, and there were plantations of banana, coffee, cabbages, tomatoes and other useful items. The hike soon became steeper as we ascended up a dirt path, but the views got better and better. When we felt ready to collapse, we came onto a relatively flat stretch of land where our guides had to organise permits for us. The local people/authorities cleaned (read: used a mop and a bottle of something that may have been disinfectant) the public toilet (Stage 5 on the JDSST – see below) before allowing us to see it. We then descended down into what felt like a tropical forest with gigantic trees. One of the local boys cut walking sticks from the trees that made us feel like we were hobbits. We climbed and scrambled down until we reached a river, where we had to change our shoes and roll up our pants. We walked along/in the river, feet gradually becoming numb to the cold, and followed it upstream until we came to the waterfall.

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The waterfall was stunning – a narrow stream that fell from an incredible height into a small pool. A local church group was playing in the water and we soon found ourselves being the centrepieces in their group photos. We braved the slippery slopes to climb onto a ledge, where we could stand right under the waterfall. After a quick lunch, we made our way back. Unfortunately it started raining, and the initially difficult dirt path now became an almost impassable mudslide. Needless to say our clothes suffered quite a bit on the trek. We ended up being wet, cold, tired and hungry on the bus home to Moshi, but at the same time very exhilarated, so that by the time we arrived at KCMC, the prospect of rice and beans at Jacobs seemed as appealing as a gourmet 5 course meal. (Dinusha: I think that was the first and last time I will ever finish my giant serves of rice and beans at Jacobs).

Jasmine and Dinusha’s Staging System for Toilets
1: bush
2: bush with handy tree
3: bush with handy tree and you remembered to pack toilet paper!
4: hole in ground surrounded by four walls +/- roof
5: hole in ground with foot rests
6: hole in ground with footrests OR western toilet not cleaned for minimum 4 weeks (flush broken) AND tolerable if you hold your breath
7: Clean western toilets OR clean Japanese toilets with good plumbing
8: Clean toilet with good plumbing AND toilet paper AND water and soap AND lockable door
Sub-classification:
A: 4 or more insects in cubicle or no lights
B: 3 or less insects and/or lights

 

Every grunt, roar, and snort, not a tale I distort on the morning report

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After an early (4.15am!) breakfast of pancakes and tea, we were collected by our driver Shombe in a rusty green jeep. We drove through still-deserted streets to Moshi where we met our surprise third companion. Destination: Ngorongoro crater, a 600km deep caldera that spans 260km2 and is home to a wide array of wildlife. We’d learnt from our Maasai guide that ‘Ngorongoro’ was actually a common description for the sound of cowbells as the herd was moved over hilly plains, but a British explorer mistakenly thought this was the name of the place. The Maasai are also the only tribe allowed to live in Ngorongoro, as they don’t hunt wildlife for meat and only kill animals to protect their cows.

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Baboons

We were welcomed onto Ngorongoro land by a parade of baboons, who also seemed to be heading up to the crater rim. We then followed a winding road down to our campsite where we dumped our stuff and our cook, had a quick lunch and then set off for a game drive.

Inside the crater, we went photo crazy as we were confronted by
zebras (who seemed to be posing for us), buffalo, a lion eating a zebra leg, gnuu (wildebeest), antelope (from the smallest Thomson gazelle to the largest eland), elephants, hyenas, warthogs (pumba!), a cheetah, hippos and rhinos. We also came across a wide array of birds, including flamingos, Kori bastard, storks, ostriches and really pretty small yellow and blue birds.

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Funnily enough, it was freezing cold in the crater and that night – not quite what you expect on safari! The next day we left Ngorongoro and headed towards Serengeti, home of Simba! (For all fellow Lion King fans, you’ll be pleased to hear that the soundtrack was playing in our heads for a considerable proportion of the safari – Adon very

When I was a young warthoooooog!

kindly came through for us and text messaged the lyrics of a few songs when we were stuck!) On our way out of the crater we encountered giraffes and had to stop multiple times along the road to allow migrations of wildebeest and zebras to cross before us. The drive between the crater and Serengeti was amazing, with flat plains punctuated by Acacia trees and herds of zebras, antelope and gnuu.

Zebras posing for us

I can’t describe how incredible it is to drive along a seemingly endless straight road, against a gorgeous mountainous background and see herds of grazing animals who don’t seem at all perturbed by the cars roaring past. We even saw a lion hidden among rocks and on the way back we also spotted a cheetah. The highlight of our Serengeti game drive was seeing a pride of lions, including four gorgeous cubs, pass within metres of our jeep in the pouring rain. Unlike Ngorongoro where the animals were all concentrated into a small area, the Serengeti was huge and it was pretty exciting to drive through plains and plains that seem deserted, then suddenly see something half hidden in the grass and realise you’re about 10m away from a lion!

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Gnuu

We were also fortunate enough to see hippos trotting around, leopards prowling along trees, giraffes pacing through the grass (Dinusha does a great giraffe-walk) and herds of zebras where some were fighting and others were embracing.

We spent the night at the Nyati campsite and our driver strictly forbade us from going to the toilet during the night – he told us a story of a British tour guide who had disregarded these instructions in 1986 and the next morning all they found were lion foot prints near her tent and her severed head! After a sunrise game drive the next morning, we drove back through Ngorongoro and home.
An important safari companion who I haven’t yet mentioned is Bubba the Rustbucket, known to his colleagues as ‘the Rhino’ – a name that strikes fear in the engines of other jeeps. Some of the roads in Ngorongoro and Serengeti were more like mud tracks with dangerous ditches that, when it rained, turned into pools that threatened to flood vehicles. On the trip back to our Serengeti campsite, several vehicles had to pull up short, blocked by a flooded road. As the light waned, we wondered if we’d have to sleep in the car, but fortunately Shombe knew a back way to the campsite – a way that involved racing through thick mud, half steering and half sliding, with the occasional hyena flashing past. It felt like we had to go at top speed because ifwe lost momentum we’d get bogged (or eaten by a hyena), which meant that we went flying with every bump and pothole on the road. Bubba proved his metal and got us safely back home.

Bubba

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Pole pole

We’ve been here almost two weeks now, but we haven’t really had time to relax or bum around. Christmas day was nice – a quiet day at the hospital and then an evening free to relax before we left on safari the next day. We had afternoon tea with the Australian girls who were leaving on the weekend. Unfortunately the lights went out and we had to run home when a thunderstorm rolled in. We’ve become quite used to blackouts lately, relying on candlelight and usually calling it an early night. It is a bit of a pain if we haven’t made dinner because we’ll have to resort to bread/fruit/cereal or anything we have lying around. For lunch though, we’ve been having the standard enormous helping of rice and beans at the student hangout Jacob’s Well. So we’re usually not that hungry in the evenings anyway. The road to the hospital here isn’t paved, so when the rains come it turns into a hazardous mud slide. Our shoes are usually caked with mud – we tried washing them on two occasions, but now we can’t really be bothered and we’ve resorted to lining the front hallway with old magazines. Our ‘lawnmower’ is actually a lady with a long machete.
We’ve been in to Moshi town a few times and we’re getting used to riding on the local dala-dalas (minibuses), packed in like sardines. I counted at least 25 people in the one we went on yesterday, so when there are only 15 or so seats, you learn to get used to the strong smell of the person sitting next to you. Since Jasmine and I are fairly thin we often get squashed to a side when an African lady sits down – it’s either move, or be crushed under a rather substantial behind.
Moshi town itself isn’t that big. There is dust everywhere and driving seems to be quite an art as they have to not only dodge pot holes and pedestrians but also other cars that don’t seem to follow any rules. We stick out as foreigners, so we often have to keep our head down and keep walking, ignoring or repeatedly saying ‘nothankyou’ (‘hapana, asante’) to people offering us tours or wanting to sell us stuff. The local market is brilliant though. We haven’t quite mastered the art of haggling but we should get points for trying . We are often laughing when, after haggling for a bit, the person puts the price UP so perhaps we are doing it wrong. In general, the people are very friendly and though we can’t tell if they’re laughing with us or at us, at least they’re laughing, right? We’ve been practicing our Swahili and we’ve reached the stage where we can start a conversation and then get really panicked when we don’t understand a word of what the person says back to us. We had to adjust to the differences in culture as well. Here, people tend to have more physical contact, and stare openly. It is very bizarre when a student shakes hands with you when starting a conversation and then doesn’t let go until it’s finished. People are also a lot more polite, saying ‘hello, how are you?’ to everyone they see (whether they know them or not), and always thanking everyone when they are leaving. What is also really off putting is how much people yawn widely or pick their nose in public! In the middle of morning report, the head of paeds was really giving it a good clean out whilst commenting on a student’s performance and no one batted an eyelid. So bizarre!

We’ve learned to appreciate the small luxuries of life – like bread, cheese, hot water, electricity, mortein, matches, tongue depressors, milk, flushing toilets, roofs that won’t leak, drinkable water, being able to hang your clothes outside without being worried about tsetse flies, and having an iron that you don’t have to hold into the socket with one hand as you iron with the other (somehow, it’s a European plug trying to fit into a British outlet). It’s also really strange not having much access to the internet, and the phone line here is unreliable. We’ve mapped out areas in our house where, if you don’t move, the line will hopefully not cut out in the middle of a conversation. However, having a full house (7 people) and just being so busy every day, makes it enjoyable. There are many things to distract us here. Tanzania in general is so green. We’ve got frangipani trees in our garden, as well as 2 mango trees that are filled with fruit. We’ve barely had time to come home and study the diseases we see on the wards. I fortunately took a few books over, and only had part one of Harrison’s on my thumb drive. Hopefully all the diseases we’ll come across will be in that half!

 

Merry Christmas

Somehow we had cornered ourselves into hosting a Christmas party – Dinusha and I have conflicting memories of exactly how this came to be, but over the last week the news travelled through the African grape vine and our guest list seemed to be growing… and growing… and growing even on the night. We ended up being 18 strong – complete with an assortment of begged/borrowed/stolen chairs, plates and cutlery. Our previous experience at hosting such dinner parties amounts to… nil. Throw in the added risk of

Spot the grater!

having no power (the light had been going out sporadically over the last two days) in a kitchen with an electric stove and oven, and relying on a bakery that (supposedly) did pizzas (when the chef happened to be working), it may seem to some that we were out of our depth. But luck and industrious housemates were on our side, as were years of watching Better Homes andGardens. Our guests arrived to a room filled with fresh flowers and candles – saucepan lids were turned into makeshift candleholders adorned with bougainvilleas and frangipanis, and our clothesline was pegged with long stems of red and pink bougainvilleas. The evening went off without a hitch (with absolutely no squealing or shoe throwing at an enormous cockroach – despite what our guests might tell you). Stuffed capsicum, tomato salsa, guacamole, bread sticks, garlic naan for starters followed by the ‘traditional’ Christmas food of pizza and delicious fruit salad (thanks to the Dutch boys for the extra fruit salad), brownies (thanks Tanja) and shortbread (thanks Gina and Sam) for dessert.

Christmas party

 

One week down

On Thursday night the elective students organised a trip to the cinema in Tanzania, which means a trip to the local expat hangout, the Watering Hole. It’s basically a small bar/restaurant affair an enterprising American family has set up in their back yard, which also contains a small outdoor cinema. There are several rows of deckchairs and a projector they’ve linked up to their laptop. After a last minute change in program, we ended up watching The Reader. The trip to the cinema, however, almost seemed worth the $3 we paid for the movie. There were 15 students crammed into/onto a jeep, hanging onto our seats (those of us who were lucky enough to have them) as the jeep bounced its way down the road. It doesn’t help that the road leading out of the doctor’s compound is affectionately nicknamed “the worst road in Tanzania.”
Our first weekend in Tanzania was spent at a Maasai village. Olpopongi is a

On a termite mound

tree that’s actually quite dangerous in that its sap is basically an acid and if people want to use it for structural supports in a house (which is the first thing I think of when I find a dangerous acid spitting tree) it has to be burnt, left for a few days, burnt again, left for a few days and then stripped down. The Maasai village we went to (with another German pharmacy student, Tanja) was named after this lovely plant. We were picked up in a jeep and then set off on a 1-2 hour drive on a very very bumpy road. I’m starting to suspect that Tanzania doesn’t have any smooth roads at all. We passed around to the other side of Kili before turning off the highway onto an even dirtier/bumpier road. The Olpopongi Maasai village is constructed adjacent to actual villages. It has around 10 huts that sit around a large ‘fenced’ open area which is lined with tables and a campfire (in traditional villages this middle section is where the cows are kept). The good thing about the village is that because it is constructed purely for visitors, you’re not barging into someone’s house and demanding they perform for you, like with many of the other ‘See A Maasai Village!’ packages going around. Actual Maasai are employed here to tell you everything about their culture and photos are encouraged, as well as whatever questions pop to mind. We were greeted by a group who welcomed us with a ceremony, and then we were shown the hut we’d be spending the night in, with quite a bit of pomp thrown into the mix. It turned out that we were the 5-7th people there, so everything was still well maintained. We had around 2 hours in a guided tour in the museum, before being called to lunch. And what a lunch it was! The food was AMAZING. They had made it in Maasai style – which was a bit like biriyani. Because the village has no electricity, he’d had to make everything with a woodfire oven. As J is vegetarian, the man had made pizzas for her, and the food tasted better than anything we’d had since we left Perth. The main organiser of the village was a Tanzanian called Eliud, who had spent three years in Germany so he and Tanja spent a lot of time speaking in German.
After lunch we waited for the sun to go down a bit, then set off on a walking safari. Two guides explained the medicinal/herbal properties of different

Freddy showing us a traditional antiseptic - elephant grass

plants, what they were used for, funny stories about their names or common folklore and how to use a Maasai spear. It was our lucky day as we spotted a wild elephant herd close by, but unfortunately they smelt us despite us trying to stay downwind, and scattered. We also spotted a dik dik which is a small antelope-like creature. We learnt about wait-a-bit acacias, elephant grass, their version of a toothbrush & perfume and of course, the olpopongi, not to mention played a bizarre game involving elephant dung. There were too many plants for me to list here. After that we saw (and took part in) some dancing before cleaning up – washing our hands as much as we could to try and get rid of every trace of the dung. The shower they had set up for visitors also had quite a view Dinner was followed by a campfire where we all toasted marshmallows, sat under a very starry night sky and had a slightly surreal moment when Eliud started

Us attempting Maasai dancing

playing German techno. They then announced that they were taking us to a Maasai nightclub… then stood up and started singing traditional Maasai chants and dancing around the circle. The next morning we were treated to another amazing breakfast before we headed back to Moshi. Turns out the fun wasn’t over yet, as on our trip back we had to make the driver pull over several times so we could see a warthog (Pumba!), a herd of zebras and a giant tortoise. We came back to Moshi to discover that Jean had arrived from Perth the previous Friday night, sans luggage. Fortunately one of her two suitcases arrived less than a week later, but she’d still been forced to buy everything from scratch. Still it’s nice to see a familiar face!

A Maasai sculpture

 

Jambo!

Our house

KCMC registration was first thing in the morning. After I got woken up by a chicken at 5am :S (Jasmine says she’s fine with chickens and can sleep through them). We went on an early morning walk and rounded the corner to see an amazing view of Mt Kilimanjaro that made us both incredibly excited and terrified at the same time. With the day free after that, we decided to hit up Moshi town. This time we did NOT get swindled by the taxi people. We figured we’d avoid embarrassing phone calls from my parents to the hospital by getting ourselves sim cards. Not as easy as it sounds. We walked in to find an enormous queue that wasn’t going anywhere any time soon. We joined a line that you could smell a mile off and waited…aaaaaand waited. There’s a phrase several people have told us since we’ve been here. ‘Pole, pole’ which stands for ‘slowly, slowly’. Tanzanian time runs even later than Indian time. After ten minutes we’d moved one spot and discovered that everyone else in the line was holding a thin piece of paper. Another ten minutes and another spot forward, and we decided to try and find one for ourselves. Another ten and another spot, we spotted a crowd around the teller. Dinusha joined the mob to see what was going on and returned twenty minutes later with 2 sim cards. Hurrah! Then a guy in front of us in the queue must have realised how confused we looked and helped us to fill out the registration form as we moved forward one more spot. The he said something in Swahili to Jasmine and said something about photocopy and pointed a place down the street. Turns out you needed one of your passport. So Dinusha dashed out across the street to a barred window with a lady seated inside next to a desk and a giant photocopier. After a transaction no one was really sure about, she went back in to find Jasmine had rounded the corner and was now on one of the seats. Turns out standing in a queue in Moshi involves playing a bizarre game of musical chairs with Backstreet Boys playing in the background. Two hours and a functioning sim card later, we stumbled home, visited the market, came home to cook fried rice (we’ve decided to survive on it until we get sick of it) and then got invited out to a games night at one of the other houses.
Staving off the urge to just fall into bed and sleep, we went off armed with flashlights. (Its pitch black here at night). Met a pharmacy student from Germany, a UK med student also on paeds, another UK student on internal med, two South Australians doing obs and gyn, and someone else who I’ve forgotten. We got invited to join them for a 2 day trip to a Masaii village this weekend – really excited! Also two other Australian guys had just returned from climbing Kili that day .
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So back to today… our first day at the hospital. A friendly UK elective student offered to show us around, and led us to the morning handover-type meeting – 70+ people (mostly medical students plus a few doctors) crammed into a room that was about the size of our kitchen back home. And I’m not exaggerating. The new admissions are rattled off by nervous Tanzanian students with “rule out malaria and meningitis” tacked on the end of every diagnosis. KCMC is run down at best. There are stone floors everywhere, often stained with suspicious puddles and strange odours that waft through the wards (that we try not to think about too much…). The beds have thin metal frames, and an even thinner mattress and sit 10 to a room. No dividers, no privacy, the beds are piled high with the mother’s possessions. Each bed has a mosquito net, which is no doubt very useful as the fly screens are torn and the first lesson we learnt today was that “fever = malaria until proven otherwise”. Medical notes are foreign with routine “BS for MPS” (blood smear for malaria parasites), often next to either SN or the dreaded SP (HIV seropositive). Babies are cannulated in their heads. I feel like I should explain that sentence – babies are cannulated using scalp veins. Ok that doesn’t sound any less ridiculous, but it’s the best I can do. We examined a 2 year old boy with ‘TOF’ – Tetralogy of Fallot (a birth heart defect that is usually corrected soon after birth in Australia), and a 5 year old with generalised lymphadenopathy (swollen lymph glands) so prominent that you could see it from the end of the bed. We also felt over 4cm-wide, bulging fontanelles on a 5 month old boy. Ward rounds were with an American paediatrician who has been here for 5 months and normally runs an HIV/AIDS clinic. We also went to an X-ray meeting run by an ancient German (?) specimen who held up films to a lamp and claimed to see “obvious” basal infiltrates “obviously” indicating pneumonia. We returned home around 5pm, absolutely exhausted, put our feet up, had tea, and wrote this blog. Until next time, kwa herini!

Our first view of Mt Kili

 

Creepy toilet guard

So the rest of the bus ride turned out to be as eventful as the first 30 minutes. The scenery was truly spectacular, but my spine was not so impressed. We stopped just before the Kenyan border for a toilet break near a handicraft store with lots of cool ornaments and carvings… and a creepy toilet guard. Next stop was the Kenyan border, where we got our visas stamped and then had to run onto our moving bus when the driver decided he couldn’t wait another 30 seconds. One lady didn’t make it on time and had to walk the extra 200m across the border to the Tanzanian immigration stop. We decided to stay on the bus this time, until we were alarmed to see dodgy-looking blokes scrambling onto the roof. Dinusha jumped off the bus and stood there glaring at them with her most intimidating stance, ready to run after him if he attempted to run off with our stuff. When she started looking a bit edgy, I joined her too and the two of us looked as threatening as two skinny Indian girls can look (we were both standing there in our sunglasses

Karibu Tanzania!

and hiking boots, arms crossed, expressions hostile). Turns out they were customs officers and were suspicious of the box of medical supplies from LINCS. Fortunately they were easily appeased by the official LINCS letter (aka a pretty letterhead and 5 minutes of waffling from Dinusha and Adon).
The bus continued on to Arusha, where everyone got off and we had to get on another bus to Moshi. The driver cheerfully announced that he couldn’t (wouldn’t) drop us to KCMC, as promised and we were told we’d have to catch a taxi from Moshi. Which we did, and got swindled, but hey, we’re in Africa and it was bound to happen. (Thanks Chesna for the 10,000 shillings by the way – otherwise we’d have been stranded).
So now it’s Tuesday and we’re lounging around in what will be our home for the next 6 weeks, sitting on the sofa, feet on the table. It’s a proper house, with a kitchen, toilet, bathroom + toilet, lounge room and 6 bedrooms. We have one double room, and our housemates are two Swedish nursing students who have already been here for 5 weeks, a Tanzanian med student from the West Indies on elective, and a Dutch occupational therapist who arrived yesterday. Thank goodness the Swedish nursing students were here when we arrived or we would have locked ourselves inside with no money, virtually un-contactable, had tuna and muesli bars for dinner and contemplated what we’d gotten ourselves into. Instead, we went for a walk around the compound, got money out and went out for dinner… Indian of all things!
Yesterday… a lot of stuff happened…

 

Wo-ow…. we’re halfway there

PICO man

We’re at Dubai Airport so halfway to Nairobi! We’re a bit sleep-deprived but otherwise in good spirits, and we walked around on the plane so we should be DVT-free! Dinusha is currently occupied taking a photo of a sleeping man with ‘pico’ written on his jacket (the med students reading this will understand why that is funny).

 

Nairobi seems to have the standard anything-goes-as-long-as-you-can-squeeze-in-without-hitting-anyone-or-damaging-your-own-car set of rules. Seatbelts optional, stuntman driving attitude a must. We’ve just arrived in Nairobi and we grip onto our seatbelts as our driver Nicolas veers in front of truck and two lanes on a roundabout, cruises through a set of red lights that everyone seems to treat as decorations and takes us to the hotel. Turns out Nicolas was one of the more careful Nairobi motorists. The next guy we went with reversed down a street with cars squeezing past and then held up the street trying to do a right turn. ATMs come with armed guards, as does the hotel (complete with a guard on each level). Despite this, everyone here is incredibly polite and friendly. Exhausted after our 21 hours of travelling, we decided to have an early night and get an early start on the next day. We grabbed our (potentially last) fantastic breakfast and were alarmed to see a 7 seater minibus pull up to take us to Tanzania. Cramming all our stuff inside, we went to pick up the other passengers – all of whom turned out to be French. Jasmine got along famously with them while I only caught 3 of every 10 words uttered. Turns out they were catching the Indian Pacific in July, I think.

Loading luggage onto the bus

Turns out this wasn’t the actual bus (\o/). The guy started off by chucking the bags to the guy standing on the roof of the bus, but seemed to calm down by the time he reached our bags. Which brings me to where we are now. Stretched out on the back street of the bus with around 10 others (on the bus, not on the back seat with us!) cruising down Nairobi-Tanzania highway. (Haha… “highway”). The best of the 90s is playing on the radio (Jasmine put her headphones in straight away. I stuck it out until ‘How can I live without you’ came on). Holy crap!! we both went flying out of our seats just then after the driver fell into a pothole. It’s a very bumpy road… oh phew, back to a sealed bit of road. Maybe the backseat was a bad idea. Jasmine’s laughing as apparently the rest of the bus weren’t affected… to be continued once my pen is able to stay on the page.

on the road