Hakuna Umeme, Hakuna Matata

No power, no worries…although we have had to live by this mantra since I arrived, the situation has been greatly improved for the first two weeks of November. Nevertheless, of course it was out for our first attempt to have a doctors’ compound movie night last week. That night turned into a nice candlelight and Chinese food get-together in A33 though, and the beginning of a weekend full of new international friends and experiences (good and bad) in this unpredictable country.

For months, Malavika and Dr. Wilkinson had been working hard to put together a big blood drive in Moshi. Working in KCMC’s surgical theater, he often sees women whose surgeries are delayed indefinitely just because there is no blood available at that particular time. The good news for Moshi is that there is a blood bank across the street. The bad news is that it is typically poorly stocked (despite being well funded), partly because it is stretched thin being one of four such centers in a country of 45 million people. Although a number of recruits for our blood drive had flaked out citing anxiety over testing, mistrust of anything medical in Africa, and disdain for KCMC, the turnout more than doubled our expectations (cue Cameron Crazies) with a final count of 61 units. I was one of the first to donate in the morning, and the process went very smoothly. Compared to Red Cross procedures, the donation was stripped down to the bare essential steps: medical history, hemoglobin check, blood pressure/pulse, cleaning the site, filling a bag, stopping the bleeding, and snacks. Absent were the private cubicles, extra collection test tubes, bar code scanners, repetitive questions about my name and any iodine allergies, and exit paperwork. Either way, I gave some blood without any issue, and at no point did I feel uncomfortable about it. Malavika did a great job talking the blood bank folks into spending a whole Saturday on this, all while turning on the charm to convince anyone with a heart and veins to donate. We’re hoping to duplicate this effort again early next year to make it into a sustainable event including ex-pats, KCMC staff/students, and townies.

Take that, Red Cross donation exclusion criteria.

Saturday night’s post-blood drive celebration introduced me to some new people, including the Aussies David and Josh, as well as the Germans (who were happy to meet someone who speaks German) Daniel and Judith. By the end of this, what had been a small maybe-trip planned for the next morning to the waterfalls at Marangu turned into a 12 person entourage. See the attached pie chart for a breakdown of the nationalities represented:

And a partridge in a pear tree...

The day started out just fine…the Moshi veterans showed the newcomers the ropes in terms of taking the dala dala to down, most of the group having arrived just that week. The frustrations started when we found a dala dala to drive us the half hour to Marangu. Being beckoned by conductors wanting to take us to every other part of the region, we dodged through a few cars before finding one man calling out “Marangu Marangu Marangu.” He told us it would cost 1,000 shillings (75 cents) and we departed with no issue beyond the engine’s suspect performance. Ten minutes down the road, when the time came to pay up, of course the conductor started asking for 1,500 shillings. While we didn’t care about paying the extra 30 cents, a price list and word from friends confirmed the more expensive price as the real one…meaning we had been lied to. With that more or less settled, we jumped out of the dala dala in Marangu to be mobbed by 4 or 5 self-proclaimed independent guides willing to take us on a combination of cultural and nature tours in the area. Prices offered were in excess of five times what friends had paid in the past, so we moved along. One particularly persistent guide named Kenneth ran after us and bargained with us to cut his price in half and show us everything we had come to see. Cut to 20 minutes later, and we are at the first waterfall arguing with him about why he suddenly raised his prices to include admission fees at each of the stops we would be making. The sitting around while waiting for an explanation as to why the guide kept changing his story really killed any early excitement the big group had for the day’s hike, but we finally found another guy who spoke more English and talked Kenneth into a modified route for the same price. Outside of him asking for another price hike at the very end of the day, everything else went fairly well, as we literally took the roads less traveled to see a few smaller waterfalls. Back at KCMC we heard several other stories about Marangu guides taking advantage of tourists in all kinds of ways to make an extra buck, so it looks like we won’t be back there anytime soon without a Tanzanian friend who knows what they are doing. Still, we grabbed some nice pictures and spent quality time with a group that should be together here for another month or so.

David demonstrating Marangu policy on entrance fees outside the "underground cave"

Other than that, life in Moshi has been pretty standard the past two weeks. When I haven’t been busy with Thursday lectures and field visits with the med students, I’ve been working on a few databases at work. It’s actually a surprising amount of design and layout work (thanks, yearbook skills), which should simplify data entry in the future and hopefully help transfer a few processes around the hospital to digital formats rather than paper records.

Some children gather water from a natural spring in the village of Rawuya Mamba, where I've been doing work once a week

Winding down from this past week at work, a bunch of people came over to my place for the first time to watch a movie. Of course on Friday the 13^th Murphy’s Law was in full effect, as the bulb in the projector burned out after five years and the readability of the subtitles for Slumdog Millionaire suffered from the poor quality of the 40 in 1 DVD. These miracles of modern technology can fit anywhere from 10 to 40 movies on the same disc, and typically cost about 3,000 shillings downtown. Video quality and whether or not the disc will actually play…that’s another story. It’s still nice to know that I can watch Speed 2: Cruise Control and Mission: Impossible 3 on the same Keanu Reeves vs. Tom Cruise DVD whenever I want. Don’t tell the economists now, but I’m pretty sure this is the reason behind any success they’re seeing in China and Dubai.

Falls near Marangu, but not the cliche tourist ones

I’ve also had to find ways to pass time in the evenings after work. Since dusk is between 6 and 6:30 year-round here and it’s not easy to get around outside the compound after dark without your own car, there’s not really much to do. Not to worry though, as I typically listen to a few Stuff You Should Know podcasts while making dinner, then watch an episode of The Office (with deleted scenes and commentary). Dinner usually means some kind of pasta or ramen, but on Fridays Beatrice started making some special rice dishes for me. Snacks or appetizers usually take the form of a PB & J sandwich, or a nutella and banana sandwich if I’m lucky and the kitchen is stocked.

One of the many obstacles on the hash

The largest wild animals I’ve seen here in town have been hedgehogs, but the most prevalent by far are ground termites. In the process of digging out their complext networks of underground tunnels, these blind insects create spontaneously placed mounds that I’ve seen reach up to at least ten feet in height. Another weird aspect of living with these termites is the sound they make. My first experience with this occurred when I was walking home at night from across the street. When I reached the end of my driveway, it suddenly sounded like the ground was moving in response to my movement. Naturally, my instincts told me I was surrounded by giant snakes and would have to make like Indiana Jones if I ever wanted to reach my front door. Frozen in place and scanning the area with my cell phone flashlight to no avail, I walked on unscathed. The next day, Aaron and Sarah told me these were just the termites scurrying around as I walked on top of their domain. Luckily, these guys stay outside (knock on termite-free wood)…the lizards, on the other hand, enjoy being indoors about as much as I do. Actually, most of the bigger lizards I have seen stay outside, but my house has plenty of geckos that live in the garage and venture inside every once in a while. Thankfully, they prefer bugs to the food in my kitchen, so in the end it’s a feel good story of mutualism in action. I even witnessed one of the geckos in my garage take out a grasshopper his own size one night:

The Planet Earth film crew would have been jealous.

Back to current events, my fourth hash (the 174^th in Moshi) was yesterday, and it was probably the most adventurous one yet. Hanging back with the walking group this time, we crossed the same river at least five times (without the benefit of stepping stones), pole vaulted across an irrigation canal, waded through some mud, and saw a few loud monkeys in the trees. This was the first time I remembered both to bring my GPS watch and to start it on time. Hopefully you can see a map and some stats about the course here.

The pole vault challenge...

...and the result

I almost forgot to mention that I returned to Arusha National Park, about an hour away from Moshi, for another day trip safari. Although Dr. Wilkinson, Naz, and I had a few run-ins with a grumpy tour driver about park rules, we saw plenty of zebras, giraffes, baboons, and colobus monkeys. We also had some great views of Mt. Meru doing its best (active) volcano impression and heard that one of the other groups spotted an albino baboon, which is apparently once-in-a-lifetime rare.

Who took all the baking soda and vinegar?

Dala dala themes:

Tommy Boy

FANTASTIC

Happy Star

The Blues

Love Boat

Unreasonable Doubt

Bushbaby

The Limousine

Rose Trumpet

Jeans

Air Force

Back Town

Additional team attire spotted:

Atlanta Braves

Buffalo Sabres

Colorado Rockies

Kansas City Chiefs

Florida Panthers

Dallas Cowboys

Tennessee Titans

This week’s sountdtrack:

Bob Marley – Small Axe

Weezer – (If You’re Wondering If I Want You To) I Want You To

The Strokes – Under Control

Toto – Georgy Porgy

Lucky Dube – God Bless the Women

Coldplay – Green Eyes

Sammy Stephens – Flea Market Montgomery

Queens of the Stone Age – I Was a Teenage Hand Model

Interpol – Who Do You Think

Detroit Cobras – Cha Cha Twist

Herbie Hancock – Rockit

Empire of the Sun – Walking on a Dream

Boy Kill Boy – Suzie

Dave Matthews Band – Let You Down

Coldplay – Lovers in Japan [Osaka Sun Mix]

Nada Surf – La Pour Ca

Scorpions – Wind of Change

The Guggenheim Grotto – Philosophia

The Shins – New Slang

The Golden Republic – She’s So Cold

No Fi Soul Rebellion – Let’s Pretend

Big Audio Dynamite – Rush

The Walkmen – Another One Goes By

Bonus video:

Next time:

A weekend on the lake in Kenya and the irony of ex-pat Thanksgiving festivities in Moshi

In other news:

I can’t forget to send along congratulations to Brandi and Scott after the birth of their daughter Katie on Friday morning. I know she hasn’t been here yet, but I’d be willing to bet that baby probably already has a taste for wali maharage and Stoney.

Please leave comments...your updates, questions, complaints, requests, etc...

"This one will affect you psychologically."

            Life here has been good.   For my second international trip since arriving here, I joined Malavika and a group of her friends for a long weekend in Uganda.  We got to spend about a day and a half in the capital city of Kampala, where two members of our crew have been conducting different types of health research since the summer.

The view of Kampala from Miriam's place

There wasn’t much of a plan going into this leg of the journey, but just in the first night we experienced an African art gallery, a blackout speed dinner with the assistance (and entertainment) of head lamps, an outdoor street ball-style basketball game under the lights, and Ghana beating Brazil for the Under-21 World Cup (on TV).  As if that wasn’t interesting enough, the power was also out for the art gallery.  As far as we could tell by the light of our cell phone flashlights, some of the paintings were amazing, and all were nowhere near our price range.  The basketball game was also unforgettable.  Team Power ended up narrowly defeating the Falcons despite a miraculous fourth quarter comeback, but the basketball was outstaged in the end by a “loose cannon” fan determined to entertain.  We started to get the idea that he may have been under the influence of something after his over-the-top performance in a halftime shooting contest.

Devastated after losing the contest

For the rest of the game, he took it upon himself to practice his moves (with or without a ball) out on the court during timeouts.  He was eventually forcefully removed from the premises, later to return with a bandage around his head.  He did a good deal of wandering around the court after the end of the game, and managed to find his way to our group to tell us about Diego Maradonna and [unintelligible].  All in all, the game was a success.  The next day we all met up again for lunch in a modern shopping mall food court, where we were swarmed by waiters in a 1:1 ratio and presented with just as many different menus.

Kampala's two shopping malls (left and right), and probably the future site of the third (center)

We then walked through what has to be the busiest part of Kampala (or K’la for the cool kids): the bus stand.   The five-minute walk from the main road to the bus we eventually chose was exhaustingly overwhelming for me.  People traffic, road traffic, and and endless stream of aggressive wandering merchants combined to create a perfect storm of “get me out of here.”

            Luckily, we did make it out of there after some miraculous shuttle bus maneuvering.  Oh yeah, and the bus took us north to the city of Jinja, where we were to go rafting at the source of the Nile River.  Minor detail.  I think the whole group (seven of us at the time) had either read or heard something about this rafting experience, and only two or three of us had been rafting at all before.  Another four joined us for a fancy dinner complete with “hot banana brandy” for dessert, before we shared some time cringing at the stereotypical extreme sports/snowboarder party taking place in front of us at the campsite’s bar.  On the bright side, this bar had a porch with an amazing view of the river from the top of a cliff.

At the post-rafting barbecue

While waiting for our ride to the rafting company’s headquarters in the morning, a talkative Scotsman named “Fraggle” guaranteed we would have the time of our lives that day.  He also tried to point out the falls in the distance that would be a 30-meter sheer drop.  We found out later that this was a slight exaggeration, probably because the party was still taking place that morning for Fraggle.  Next came breakfast, a safety briefing, and a cattle car parade of foreigners through town to the river.  Let’s just preface the rafting story with the undeniable fact that I applied two (2) generous layers of SPF 50 sunscreen before we departed.  My group of seven ended up with the coolest rafting guide ever, hands down.  His name was Tabani Tabani (meaning “be happy”), and he was the steady elder guide with realistic expectations for what the group could do.  During the day, he showed us around his “office” and took us through a series of class 1-5 rapids.  He gave us a thorough on-boat safety crash course, and we would typically stop for a few minutes before each serious rapid to discuss the plan of attack.  During one of these pep talks, Tabani bluntly informed us, “This one will affect you psychologically.”  Thankfully, we handled that one well and our psyches emerged unscathed.  We went for a few swims (voluntary and involuntary), had some water wars with other rafts, saw huge monitor lizards, and had fresh pineapple for lunch on the boats.  I ended up in the front of the raft for the whole day, I guess because I was the one who didn’t want to go on the “easy raft.”  In reality though, everyone took some spills and nobody was seriously hurt.  There was one possibly broken finger in our boat, but only two of the five minor injuries I ended up sustaining in Uganda were rafting-related.  Speaking of spills, my group only ended up flipping twice, including the last run in “The Other Place,” sister falls of the infamous “Bad Place.”  The first flip was actually much more fun than it sounds.   Our raft made it through one big swell, but suddenly was turned to the left in a trough as we approached the next wall of water.  The next thing I knew, I was floating down the river with my paddle and scanning for the helmets and life jackets bobbing up and down around me.  I swam back to the raft and grabbed onto the rope as Thabani pulled himself up and stood on top of the flipped vessel, spontaneously bellowing a triumphant song of joy, before hooking onto the rope with his paddle and leaning back to flip it over again.   Everything about the day was so perfect that something had to go wrong, right?

Probably the worst picture ever created of me, but Tabani is loving life

Well, let’s just say I was marked with my first equatorial sunburn that day.  The tops of my knees and feet took the brunt of my 2^nd worst sunburn ever, but improved greatly after a week of aloe and painful walking.  That said, the trade-off was fair, but I’ll take some long pants next time.   Unfortunately we couldn’t take cameras along on the river (obvious reasons), but you can get a feel for it by reading this article or visiting the website of the company we went with.

Last weekend I just kind of hung out around Moshi.  The international school across the street had a sports weekend in honor of its 40th anniversary, so I went over and joined in on a soccer game with my neighbor and some of his middle school friends.  I'll probably try to start going to play pickup soccer if it's possible, since this was the only time I have engaged in competitive sports I've since I arrived here.  At college it was tough for me to go a full week without joining an intramural volleyball game or playing some hockey, so these two whole months have been a challenge in that sense.  At least I got to see a big rugby tournament at this school a few weeks ago.  Teams came in from Kenya and Uganda, and at the end there was a drum/dance celebration that was cut short by rain.

The crazy guy with the short-sleeved blazer and polka dotted straw hat wonders if the red cloud means rain or impending doom

It has actually rained probably 8 of the past dozen days, which is a huge change after it rained maybe three times in the first month and a half (two of those in the first week).  Monday night we had torrential rain, which made getting to work on Tuesday tricky and messy.  The short rainy season isn't supposed to be until December, but maybe it's getting an early start after the long drought.

Two weeks ago I actually added an element to one of the projects I’ve been working on at the hospital.  I have been working on preparing three versions of a village survey for the Community Health class all the first year medical students at Tumaini University are currently taking.  Because of my background and time spent with the survey, the professor invited Sumera and me to give a lecture on interview strategies and etiquette.  We learned that morning that at least 90% of the students are straight out of high school, but it’s still tough for me to think that I’m at all qualified to lecture to medical students.  Nevertheless, the talk went pretty well.  We actually had people asking a few questions and coming up to us afterwards to clarify things.  This past week we went with the same group on field visits to different villages in the region.  I spent the day with a group that will be interviewing leaders and families in a town called Mamba, near where most Kilimanjaro climbs start.  It was a very small town and 100% of the group interview was in Swahili, but it was nice to see a different setting and learn some new things (after translation).  The day as a whole was one of the strangest I've had in a long time, though.  On top of the fact that there was basically zero English spoken the whole day, the shuttles set up for the students were about as organized as dala dalas.  We were delayed in the morning when it was time to leave because, surprise...50 people can't fit into a 30 person bus.  The solution?  Squeeze everyone in and drop off ten to take a dala dala the rest of the way.  The interview time also had an unusually high concentration of awkward silences, especially when things shut down for a 15 minute peanut break and silence prevailed.  All of this is from my moderately acclimated American perspective, however, and I think the day was beneficial for everyone in the end.  That night some folks from the hospital went around the corner to the tiny grocery store for their special pizza night.  This old German couple who has been here off and on since 1961 and have run the radiology department at KCMC basically ever since treated all 11 of us.  The wife was born in East Prussia, so I spent some time speaking German with her and discussing the work (and pronunciation) of one of my major advisor’s favorite public health minds: Rudolf Virchow.

            For Halloween a bunch of people got together to return to the ex-pat bar called the Watering Hole for a little party.  It was mostly just a chance for the Europeans to laugh at the Americans, but at least half of the people ended up coming in costume.  Due to a lack of real costume resources, I decided to go as “mzungu sana,” or “very white/foreign.”

"I'm not from here."

My head lamp, travel guides, hand sanitizer, and Nalgene bottle actually came in handy, plus I learned what IKEA stands for.

            Today was my third hash, and I actually decided to run it for the first time.  My cross-country coach would be proud—this course took us through a huge coffee plantation and across a river.  While it wasn’t necessarily the same as running XC (because you need to find the proper trail), we covered about 7.5 km in less than an hour.  This time I even actually remembered to bring my GPS watch along, which is the true sign of a dedicated hasher.  The walking group ended up pretty significantly off course, but all was forgiven after an assisted shortcut and pizza for dinner afterwards.

Notice I'm behind even the older crowd

            The internet saga at home continues for me, and it's only working in one of the two offices at work.  Basically I received a “special free offer” for the first month when I bought the my modem.  I was told it might be a little slow, but then it ended up being very fast.  Two weeks ago I renewed it and bought another month of airtime thinking it would still be fast...and it was very slow.  So we know it's possible for my modem to be fast, but they say they don't know why that happened.  In reality, I know there’s a guy sitting in a cubicle at the office who pushed the SLOW button when I renewed.  After way too much time researching the issue, I have found that this particular provider (rhymes with Slowdacom) has two options:

- Unlimited usage internet at a very slow speed and reasonable price

- Limited usage (1GB, 2GB, or 5GB over 3 months) at a moderately fast speed and high price

I’m really hoping more than ever that the mysterious fiber optic cable will inspire them to flip the switch back to FAST sometime soon.

            I didn’t set my clocks back last night, but that’s because we don’t observe daylight savings here.  That means the time difference just jumped from 7 hours to 8 hours, so keep that in mind if you’re trying to get in touch from the States.

Dala dala/Matatu themes:

Big Boss

Big is Big

Back to Jesus
Obama Express
Fun is a Must (Land Rover, but I'll count it)

Not sure why this was parked at the mall...

Additional team attire spotted:

New York Rangers

Texas Rangers

New York Mets

Pittsburgh Penguins

Toronto Maple Leafs

Houston Astros

San Diego Padres

Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Toronto Blue Jays

New Jersey Nets
Golden State Warriors

This week's soundtrack:

Phil Collins – One More Night

Cyndi Lauper – Time after Time

Arcade Fire – Neighborhood #3 (Power Out)

Incubus – Are You In?

Sublime – Jailhouse

The Beach Boys – Good Vibrations

Fatboy Slim – Build It Up, Tear It Down

Modest Mouse – Trailer Trash

Modest Mouse – Fly Trapped in a Jar

Counting Crows – Round Here

Led Zeppelin – Kashmir

James Brown – Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag

Hockey – Song Away

Arcade Fire – Windowstill

Ronnie Hudson – West Coast Poplock

The B-52’s – Rock Lobster

Timbaland – Here We Come

Next time:

Another day trip safari, a blood drive, and Thanksgiving in Kenya, among other things of course.

In other news:

I don’t think I mentioned that I actually saw Lake Victoria for the first time.  Awesome. Below is another picture of the river to make up for my lack of pictures of the lake.