It's about time for another post. I realize that weekly blog posts will be pretty long, I might have to try the biweekly post.
Since last post, I feel like I have three sides to my story:
1. Tanzanian culture and Swahili class.
2. Engineering class and hospital application.
3. Safari Time!
First of all, I am so grateful for Swahili classes. We have divided into three small classes with three fabulous Tanzanian teachers that rotate through the classes. We are learning in a way that we can practically apply the things that we learn in the places we are exposed to, like at home, at the hospital, the market, etc. I am so thankful for this opportunity to communicate with the local people, and have a chance to understand them as well!
Our home, where Lauren and I stay, has been amazing as well. It is wonderful to return home after a day at school and have a family to practice our Swahili with. Every day, Lauren and I pull out our books and do our homework with Baba James. It is nice and helpful to be immersed in the language and have so much opportunity to practice. I find myself spending lots of time with Brenda (4 years), getting her to teach me simple words in Swahili. She's more at my level...
I also want to say how grateful I am for my Tanzanian family. Besides taking care of our immediate needs, they have really made us feel like part of the family. Baba James often refers to us as his daughters, and lets us know that he is happy to take care of us. Everyone here is always taking into account where we are and what we might need. I know that he would come and rescue me if I was ever in trouble. This feeling of home and family means so much tome; especially now that I am so far away from my own family. I am totally blessed.
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Secondly, the technical side! First of all, I've been interested to learn how the health care system works in Tanzania. One layer of the story is that there are private hospitals and there are public hospitals. Public hospitals are open to the public, and receive their funding from the government. Private hospitals are obviously run privately, and cost money to use. Although I haven't seen with my own eyes, I've heard that the care a patient receives is consistently better at a private hospital considering the resources, facilities, prescriptions, etc that they might have on hand. The hospital I will be working in next month is a private hospital, and was planted by Lutheran people from German.
In addition to this, there is also a hierarchy of hospitals. In the smaller towns and villages, there will be small hospitals, or dispensaries. It is rare for these to be staffed at all times. From here we have clinics, which are still small. There are bigger hospitals, called regional hospitals. These are better equipped in terms of staffing and resources. Beyond the regional hospitals there are national hospitals, which are the best hospitals in the country. Someone might get referred from a clinic to a regional hospital to a national hospital.
This past Friday, we spent the day at Mt. Meru Regional Hospital. We will be spending several days here as a big group to get some hands on experience with supervision before heading to our placement hospitals. Already the experience from this time here has been invaluable to me. Some things I noticed at the hospital are:
-it is definitely a hub of energy: people are everywhere, there is a lot of activity, and a central part of the town.
-it is mostly outdoors. Separate one story buildings are used for different wards, there are walkways and gardens from one ward to the next.
-it is difficult to find what you need. For example, we wanted to clean a machine, and basically just needed a bucket, cloth, soap and water. The nearest water was 200m away it the closest bathroom, and we had to improvise with a cup and tissue. It will be my goal to create an inventory of tools and supplies when I move to my placement.
We discovered a back room away from the bustle of activity that contained a lot of buried hospital equipment. It was fire fighting time. We were able, using simple skills we've already been over in class, to put several things back on the floor. These included two oxygen concentrators, three wheel chairs, three blood pressure cuffs and a surgical lamp. We have a couple projects on the go that we can revisit this coming Friday, including a hospital bed and a couple of autoclaves.
It has been eye opening to do this work. We were surprised how much we were able to accomplish in our first day. It was also encouraging to directly see the need that there is for better resources and working equipment. For example, as soon as we returned the wheelchairs to the staff, there were patients to sit in them. It was also good to experience a taste of what we came here to do. As a big group it is easy to settle into enjoying each others company, but the quality of hospital facilities here is real.
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Lastly, I wanted to mention safari! Our group of twenty two headed out this past weekend on safari. The thing is, we're in Tanzania, the safari hot spot of Africa. We had to go. We were able to find a safari company that would take us all out on a two day safari for a decent price.
On Saturday we say Lake Manyara. It was a beautiful forested area filled with ancient dusty trees, and we saw lots of animals enjoying the vegetation. One of our cars was cut off by an elephant! We slept in a tent 'hotel' and spent the next day in Ngorongoro Crater. It is no wonder this is one of the 7 wonders of the world. The crater is basically a huge sunken volcano that has turned into a self contained ecosystem. Here we saw herds of animals: zerbra, wildabeasts, elephants, hyenas, worthogs, ostriches, to name a few. We even saw a couple lions, enjoying the afternoon sun.
We did also gain a bit of wisdom...don't go for the lowest price on a safari. We had some significant car trouble, and would encourage future safariers that it's worth it to spend money on a safari from a respected company :)
It is really great to get to know our group better. The more time we spend with everyone, the more I realize how great our group is! This is going to be an amazing summer.
Since last post, I feel like I have three sides to my story:
1. Tanzanian culture and Swahili class.
2. Engineering class and hospital application.
3. Safari Time!
First of all, I am so grateful for Swahili classes. We have divided into three small classes with three fabulous Tanzanian teachers that rotate through the classes. We are learning in a way that we can practically apply the things that we learn in the places we are exposed to, like at home, at the hospital, the market, etc. I am so thankful for this opportunity to communicate with the local people, and have a chance to understand them as well!
Our home, where Lauren and I stay, has been amazing as well. It is wonderful to return home after a day at school and have a family to practice our Swahili with. Every day, Lauren and I pull out our books and do our homework with Baba James. It is nice and helpful to be immersed in the language and have so much opportunity to practice. I find myself spending lots of time with Brenda (4 years), getting her to teach me simple words in Swahili. She's more at my level...
I also want to say how grateful I am for my Tanzanian family. Besides taking care of our immediate needs, they have really made us feel like part of the family. Baba James often refers to us as his daughters, and lets us know that he is happy to take care of us. Everyone here is always taking into account where we are and what we might need. I know that he would come and rescue me if I was ever in trouble. This feeling of home and family means so much tome; especially now that I am so far away from my own family. I am totally blessed.
----------------
Secondly, the technical side! First of all, I've been interested to learn how the health care system works in Tanzania. One layer of the story is that there are private hospitals and there are public hospitals. Public hospitals are open to the public, and receive their funding from the government. Private hospitals are obviously run privately, and cost money to use. Although I haven't seen with my own eyes, I've heard that the care a patient receives is consistently better at a private hospital considering the resources, facilities, prescriptions, etc that they might have on hand. The hospital I will be working in next month is a private hospital, and was planted by Lutheran people from German.
In addition to this, there is also a hierarchy of hospitals. In the smaller towns and villages, there will be small hospitals, or dispensaries. It is rare for these to be staffed at all times. From here we have clinics, which are still small. There are bigger hospitals, called regional hospitals. These are better equipped in terms of staffing and resources. Beyond the regional hospitals there are national hospitals, which are the best hospitals in the country. Someone might get referred from a clinic to a regional hospital to a national hospital.
This past Friday, we spent the day at Mt. Meru Regional Hospital. We will be spending several days here as a big group to get some hands on experience with supervision before heading to our placement hospitals. Already the experience from this time here has been invaluable to me. Some things I noticed at the hospital are:
-it is definitely a hub of energy: people are everywhere, there is a lot of activity, and a central part of the town.
-it is mostly outdoors. Separate one story buildings are used for different wards, there are walkways and gardens from one ward to the next.
-it is difficult to find what you need. For example, we wanted to clean a machine, and basically just needed a bucket, cloth, soap and water. The nearest water was 200m away it the closest bathroom, and we had to improvise with a cup and tissue. It will be my goal to create an inventory of tools and supplies when I move to my placement.
We discovered a back room away from the bustle of activity that contained a lot of buried hospital equipment. It was fire fighting time. We were able, using simple skills we've already been over in class, to put several things back on the floor. These included two oxygen concentrators, three wheel chairs, three blood pressure cuffs and a surgical lamp. We have a couple projects on the go that we can revisit this coming Friday, including a hospital bed and a couple of autoclaves.
It has been eye opening to do this work. We were surprised how much we were able to accomplish in our first day. It was also encouraging to directly see the need that there is for better resources and working equipment. For example, as soon as we returned the wheelchairs to the staff, there were patients to sit in them. It was also good to experience a taste of what we came here to do. As a big group it is easy to settle into enjoying each others company, but the quality of hospital facilities here is real.
---------
Lastly, I wanted to mention safari! Our group of twenty two headed out this past weekend on safari. The thing is, we're in Tanzania, the safari hot spot of Africa. We had to go. We were able to find a safari company that would take us all out on a two day safari for a decent price.
On Saturday we say Lake Manyara. It was a beautiful forested area filled with ancient dusty trees, and we saw lots of animals enjoying the vegetation. One of our cars was cut off by an elephant! We slept in a tent 'hotel' and spent the next day in Ngorongoro Crater. It is no wonder this is one of the 7 wonders of the world. The crater is basically a huge sunken volcano that has turned into a self contained ecosystem. Here we saw herds of animals: zerbra, wildabeasts, elephants, hyenas, worthogs, ostriches, to name a few. We even saw a couple lions, enjoying the afternoon sun.
We did also gain a bit of wisdom...don't go for the lowest price on a safari. We had some significant car trouble, and would encourage future safariers that it's worth it to spend money on a safari from a respected company :)
It is really great to get to know our group better. The more time we spend with everyone, the more I realize how great our group is! This is going to be an amazing summer.
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