Week 1

We have been here a little over a week and our really enjoying ourselves. Audra is currently spending most of her day at an orphanage named Upendo and helps teach there. She says it is amazing and really moving how the nuns devote their whole life to helping these children. She is also getting involved with a group that does some social work in rural villages. They will primarily be using her with children that have special needs. She will trying to leave a long-term impact by teaching the children's families how to teach them life skills and educate them. 

I have been working pretty hard in the hospital. For any of you who have been to Africa, you can imagine how things run. I am the most senior person that ever sees any of my patients from what I can tell. We typically meet in morning, take a tea break, then start rounding around 9:30. I typically have 30-35 patients on my service that I round on every day.  It is unique because you may order medicines for a patient, but when you see them the next day you will find out they never got the medicine b/c if the medicine is not in the hospital they must send a family member to another place in town to pick up the medicine and often the family member does not do it. You must really change the way you practice medicine. The other unique thing is that you must do most of your own procedures.  Sorry for the medical lingo but I have already done a bone marrow biopsy on my own, countless lumbar punctures and thoracentesis, and will being doing pleural biopsies, liver biopsies, and pericardiocentesis in the future. I am quite excited. Typically I am doing bedside rounds 5 hours a day. I will save some of my very intersting cases for another blog. 

Last night, Audra and I were walking in the city and we saw one of the patients I had discharged that day. He was so grateful for all of my help and insisted that we come with him for a drink. I agreed and followed him to his sister's shop. There he proceeded to buy me several beers and we talked about the history of Tanzanian politics for an hour, it was fantastic. 

Last Sunday was our coolest day to this point. I am not sure how many of you have heard of a Hash, but they are so much fun. These are done throughout the world and are essentially a grown up "scavenger hunt"- kind of. Some makes up a course that is anywhere from 6-10 miles marked by flour. Everyone starts together and functions as a team to find the finish. Throughout the course you will find an X and that means everyone must break up in different directions to find where the trail starts again. When someone finds it they yell on-on and then everyone starts following them again. It last around 2 hours and is so much fun. At the end you arrive to a finish line where burgers, hot dogs and beer await you. Ours was so much fun, it was set in field right at the bottom of Kili and we ran through corn, coffee, sunflower, st. John's wart and flower fields as well as many little villages. I had to also cross a river twice where I was waist high in water. It was so much fun. I acutally saw a baboon when I was running around. 

The people at the hash were so cool. It is really amazing to here the stories of the many people that live here. There is a guy named Simon who is an ultra-runner and owns a trekking business here. He is a native Tanzanian. He holds the record for going up and down Kili- HE RAN THE MOUNTAIN UP AND DOWN IN 8:30 HOURS. Unbelievable. Apparently if his climbers need something he just runs up the mountain and gives it to them. There are many other incredible people here as well. Most night we end up getting together with some and playing cards. 

It is great to here from everyone and we enjoy your comments. We will keep you posted on all our new events and I promise to provide more entertaining stories in future. 

Cheers, 

Chris and Audra