Day 6: Tanzania (Usa River, Nkoaranga, Arusha)
Today was supposed to be our first day spent totally at the hospital, which, of course, did not happen.
We left the house around the same time as yesterday after a delicious breakfast of French toast, got to the hospital and then waited. Well, at least, Doris and I did. We were supposed to be riding into Arusha with the hospital's procurement officer, Mary, to get some more paint, but she was apparently very busy this morning, so we waited patiently in the OR waiting room while everyone else went to work.
After about an hour or so, she was finally ready, Doris convinced Michael to go with us, and we headed off to Arusha.
It probably took us *at least* a good half an hour to forty-five minutes to get there since
A) It's pretty far.
B) Since it's a fairly big city, there's traffic on the way in (as opposed to here in the Mount Meru area where there's only one road and only the rich have cars, so slow traffic is paradoxical).
On to Arusha...picture all the shadiest parts of L.A. blown up to the size of a city and that's Arusha. It has none of the untouched beauty of the Mount Meru region and instead has almost every bit of it filled with roads, dirty little shops, and huge, gawdy buildings.
On our way to the alleyway with the hardware stores (aka rows of open Darrel's mini storage units), we heard whistling and yelling coming from down the street. It was a fight.
Some young guy was on the ground getting kicked by a growing mob of men around him, as anxious onlookers ran over to watch/join in. It reminded me of how I imagine hockey fights would be if the fans were allowed to run on the ice to cheer on/take part in the brawl. Totally barbaric.
After that terrifying bout, we made our way to the "paint store" where we bought 6 tubs of paint, only two of which were actually in the shop. The rest were apparently back in America as we had to wait--what seemed like--45-60 minutes or so for whomever the shop owner sent to retrieve the other tubs.
After a couple more stops, one of which included listening to a full call to prayer by some imam on a loud speaker, we made our way back to the hospital.
Since it was 2:00 by the time we got back, our painter friends were out eating lunch, and lunch was just about to be served for us (yeah, you read right...2:00). We had to wait about half an hour for all the food to make it into the OR waiting room, but once it did, I scarfed down the delicious chicken and white rice. THEN we finally got to work! And--surprise, surprise--Doris and I were actually allowed to paint!
Not the walls, of course, but the bedside dressers which were about as disgusting. So we got to work doing that when our little friend, Peter joined us, AND he still had his dog :D Today's conversation with him led me to figure out his name was Peter aaaaand that was about it :P Oh! I did point at myself and say, "Mzungu" to which he responded by pointing at himself and saying, "Mfrica", which means black person (I only knew since Dr. Rob had earlier told us to yell this back at any little kids who yell, "mzungu!" at us :P ). It wasn't much, but it felt good to communicate--for a second at least--in one language.
Michael joined us after a while with some filthy wooden curtain holders which looked like they hadn't been cleaned since they were made. Seriously, they were disgusting. He informed us that the painters told him, "The mamas can paint these." Which is some what of a promotion for me since I'm fairly certain "mama" is usually only used for moms, wives, adult women, etc, and I'm sure a lot of these people think I'm a kid (i.e. one of the Tanzanian OR workers asked me how old I was and when I told him, "24", he responded with, "No. 14."). Also a promotion in the fact that we're being trusted with more painting tasks. Woohoo!
We left shortly after starting our cleaning of the curtain holders since the medical team was about to leave for the house, but Michael stayed behind to finish up with the painters at 5:00.
After showering (still no sign of lice!), I finished the first chapter of my Lang. Acq. text book (only 5 more to go!), and we ate dinner. Tonight was fantastic! Cabbage soup and fish & chips. So good. We then sat around listening to Dr. Rob and Dr. Brooks trying to one up each other with rectal removal stories...yeah, that's right.
Now, I'm hanging out in my room, debating whether or not I should keep reading my textbook, or read Sherlock Holmes....Holmes it is.
Until tomorrow!
mjl.
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