This Is Africa

This last week was…testing. Monday, Rebekah and I went to KIWAKKUKI’s daily morning meeting, which consisted of morning worship in a circle, everyone announcing what they had done the day before, more singing, the introduction of Rebekah, meaning Rebekah was forced to dance while everyone sung and laughed, some sort of snake line where we greeted every…single…person, and more singing. That took an hour. Gotta love Africa.

After our “informational” meeting (which is what they had told us), we went to work writing up a 28 page grant for KIWAkKUKI’s children program. Only after an hour of working everyone seems to think they need a break, which means tea time. The whole building stops to drink chai tea (I think they lie to us and it’s only milk and sugar) and eat plain boiled potatoes and peanuts.

Tuesday, the Norwegian girls and Rebekah and I went to Rombo for Home Based Care or something, we don’t really know because they never really told us. That was one of THE most patience testing days of my life.

After an hour of driving with four people to three seats with all the windows rolled up because of the dust and no air conditioning we get off the bus to an orphanage or school or something and are told to wait there while the ladies from KIWAKKUKI disappear. While we are waiting we walked over to a group of kids and gave them a bunch of balloons the Norwegian girls randomly happened to have. Then we piled on the bus, added three more people, and drove to some office. We all got off and sat and waited while people whispered in Swahili then we got back on the bus. Then we got off at a school where we walked into a room, introduced ourselves, people whispered in Swahili, then we left and went to another room. Same procedure. Same thing happened at the next school.

We did however learn that at the school there is a garden where the kids can volunteer and learn to grow vegetables. If they put effort into working in the garden they are then allowed to take some of the produce home to their family if they are struggling or sell it at the market and keep the profits. Then…we saw our first goats of the day.

The next stop, we weren’t even on a road but instead driving through a freakin’ corn field on a footpath. We got to a point where there was just too much corn so we had to get out and walk the rest of the way. What was the point of this whole trip? To see a goat. We said hi to the goat, the made us pet him then we turned around and walked back to the bus. Next stop we pile out, walk for a mile in a sunflower field, and get to see the male goat which travels every other day from every goat owner to do his thing. What a life. We said by to the goat, then walked back and squished back onto the bus.

It was like that all day with just more of the same thing. I still have no idea what the purpose of the goat tour was.

Wednesday we decided to stay at home and work on the grant which ended up being a lot more productive. Thursday we went in and sent it off then checked out before tea and decided not to go back.
Friday, was Rebekah’s last night so we just hung out all day packing, shopping and then we all went out to dinner at a hotel. Kristina came back from Arusha for the weekend and joined us, which was nice. I miss having her around and now that both her and Rebekah are going to be gone, it’s going to be a bit lonely. But we are suppose to get 8 new more volunteers next week so that should be interesting.

Saturday, Kristina and I went to town to meet up with Craig, a computer technician who moved to Murangu from Bristol and is planning on staying in Tanzania. I love meeting people like him who have such a heart for helping others and really admire his maturity. We met up with Jasen, Fatuma, Ally and Rijabu (Fatuma’s boyfriend/our taxi driver) at a lounge to watch the football (soccer) game. On our way back home, we got pulled over for having too many people in the car (only 7 in a 5 person taxi) while Dala Dala’s are speeding passed us with people hanging out all sides. They ended up just talking to him to make a point I guess and then said Hakuna Matata and we were on our way.

After dinner we went down to a bar with everyone, including four-year-old Sumia and all hung out talking. I can honestly say that was my best night here so far.

Totally rocked scrubs and converse today which was my first day at St. Joseph’s Hospital with Sophie and Jasen. The hospital is off a series of random dirt roads, of course, up the hill from town. For African hospitals, I was told it is big, but for our hospitals it’s tiny. It’s set up in a square like architecture with a courtyard in the center. All the rooms and wards open up straight to the courtyard and the patients sit on the outskirts. I met the head nun and most of the doctors (who by the way go to school for a total of 4 years here which includes basic degrees and medical school), then we wasted no time getting to work in minor surgery.

Nothing too bad today. Lots of abscesses in literally EVERY place you can imagine, lots of stitches and removal, a few castings, and lots of wound maintenance and redressing, which Jasen let me do. Some of the wounds though were pretty gnarly though. One guy was missing a toe, another lady broke her foot and somehow spit her big toe side from the rest of the foot, which had gotten infected and then part of her foot had rotted away, another guy had been beaten with a lead pipe, and this grandma had fallen while drunk and severely severely torn up her leg, which had also gotten infected. However, over the weekend another one of the doctors had cut off the flap of skin which Jasen was suppose to sew together today now that the infection was gone. Now it looks like a shark has bitten a chunk out of her leg and they are going to have to do a skin graph which they are afraid won’t take because of the size of the wound and her age. We also had a catheter that the balloon wouldn’t pop. When I got the other doctor, he literally got a thin piece of wire, cleaned it and just stuck it in and popped it. They all were laughing and said T.I.A (this is Africa).

I am so much happier with this program and I am very excited to be working in the medical field. I look forward to the rest of the week.