Day 190 – Thursday 5th August 2010

A new day begins!

Armorel started the day heading to see one of her patients, a 15 year old boy with severe learning difficulties, who has just been placed in the Catholic orphanage. He seems to be doing well. On the way back to the clinic they popped into the hospital to see the bleeding lady from yesterday. Amazingly they found her sat up in bed eating. A true miracle!

The rest of the day came and went, and soon it was time for sports at school. Armorel again ran the netball and I tried to get some decent football going. We are getting there, but the trees on the pitch and the big rocks don’t help. The hot weather is also certainly on its way because today was very warm. I mean very warm!

This evening we have been out for dinner. Pretty much all the short term expats leave in the coming weeks so they had arranged a big get together for everyone. We had some lovely food, but I certainly have eaten too much.

Day 189 – Wednesday 4th August 2010

This Wednesday was the outreach clinic to Mwakashindye, so Armorel was off and out early this morning.

They were so busy!

418 patients in one day!

But today also had added stresses for Armorel and the other staff. Early in the morning a lady arrived with pregnancy difficulties and severe bleeding. She was about 24 weeks. The nurses told her she had to go to hospital and fast. BUT when they were packing up to head home, around 3pm, they found the lady sat outside the clinic building. She hadn’t gone to hospital. She had waited for a lift. Why, we don’t know, but she had lost a lot of blood, and was not well. The staff rushed her to the hospital, but we fear for the worse. The frustrations, and why?

WARNING – The following account is distressing but we feel we need to share to show you what life is like here. It is real and hard.

However, the shock continued when they arrived at the hospital. They got the lady into a bed, but opposite was a sight, hard to comprehend. A local lady had arrived first thing, 7am, from a village with a breach delivery and her baby’s head stuck. It was now 4pm, and the lady was still sat in the same position, her baby still not delivered. Words fail us at this point. We don’t know why, we can’t understand, we are lost!

Day 188 – Tuesday 3rd August 2010

After 7 months, we finally have our Tanzanian driving licenses, but the story of today highlights why it has taken us so long.

The journey begins at 8am as we head to the traffic police headquarters. We have our friend Nuhu with us to help us out.

We register with the police but need to head to the Tanzanian Revenue Authority (TRA) to purchase a provisional license. The TRA office is about 5 miles away.

We arrive, get our provisional license, and then have to return to the traffic police to get the license signed. This takes over an hour.

The comedy begins. Now our provisional license is signed we can return to the TRA to get our full license. I know!

We then had to head to the main police station, on the other side of town, to get our final license signed. Hold onto your hats! We arrive at the police station, go around the back, and meet a police officer sat under a mango tree!

He signs our license.

We aren’t quite done. We then have to return to the traffic police, again, to get our licenses registered. It is now 12pm!

What a relief to be finished!

 

Exhausted we arrived back at work but were soon out again, as we headed off to the farm. I had to pay some of the workers so Armorel  came along to, and we got stuck into helping with the brick kiln construction. We had great fun, racing the locals with bricks and just generally messing around, though it really is hard work.

This evening, we have done nothing.

Just wonderful!

Day 187 – Monday 2nd August 2010

Waking up in the dark is tough, and something we had hoped to escape after leaving the UK behind. It is so hard to get out of bed.

My punctuation master class seemed to go well, though I think some students got a bit confused when I showed them semi-colons and colons. But don’t we all!

After my busy morning I headed to the farm to check on the brick progress. We have made 16,000 so are now ready to start firing them. You build a type of kiln out of the bricks and then light a fire inside. 24 hours later you have finished, hardened bricks. We hope to fire them this weekend.

Armorel continues to be busy at the clinic, running the ward, being a nurse and a doctor. I think the lack of training of the nurses got to her today. Their knowledge is so very basic.

This afternoon we had fun and games with Baraka and Zawadi, which ended up with them hiding / sleeping in the dog baskets. Hilarious!

We are very tired at the moment, mentally, physically and spiritually. We hope we sleep well tonight.

Day 186 – Sunday 1st August 2010

When Armorel declared ‘A pinch and a punch for the first of the month’ I must say I was shocked. Is it really August?

We decided to treat ourselves to breakfast out, as we heard the local hotel did a very good meal.

We heard wrong, or at least, not today. There was no sausage as promised, and no jams, but at least toast and egg is healthy.

After church we popped to the market to do our shop. The highlight was this huge and abnormal aubergine.

We had to buy it! 40p well spent!

Armorel popped into work this afternoon, while I planned lessons at home. I am attempting a punctuation master class tomorrow.

Tonight we were back on to our nature night, and a quick ER before bed.

Day 185 – Saturday 31st July 2010

Tanzanian wedding number two.

We don’t know the couple but pastor John, who lives on our compound, is taking his first ever wedding so we have gone to support and see.

The wedding starts at 12pm.

It’s 12:45pm and we have no sign. The bride gets a phone call.

The groom and best man, patiently wait!

She thought it was at 3pm. They send a motorbike to hurry her up.

Amazingly she arrives within the hour, and walks down the aisle at  1:45pm.

The service was lovely, though with no translation we got quite lost. Following the service was a nice lunch which we were invited too, and then it was home just before 5:30pm.

A lovely day!

Day 184 – Friday 30th July 2010

We both woke craving ‘Fish and Chips’ this morning, and so are heading out tonight to do just that.

The clinic was very busy today, nine patients on the ward, and a long and complicated cardiac clinic for Armorel. I also spent most of the day in the office, after my short teaching day. I arrived to find the staff in a slight panic as they had got some unaccounted for money from pay day. So we set about to find it.

When you have 30 staff all being paid in cash, it takes a while to count everything and cross-check it all.

2 hours later and we discover the error!

I then headed off for Friday football, but we had one large problem. No ball!

The kids seem to go through one every two weeks. They have a habit of bursting of getting too many holes in them.

Instead my exercise was an impromptu cycle up the only big hill in town, and I decided to see how fast I could do it.

Slowly!

Well the second half was. I flew up the first half, but certainly paid the price.

As promised we treated ourselves to fish and chips, which was lovely, but we wish they had tartar sauce.