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...