Last week here

I just can't believe how fast the time is going.  It is really amazing, just starting to feel like we really belong.  Did lots of fun things over the weekend.  Went to the beach and played in the tide pools looking for crabs , jelly fish  and shells.  The tide just goes out forever.  For about a dollar, we can get some towels and hang out pool side at one of the hotels here.  That has been fun, even had a "Killy" or two.  Monday market is the place to be every monday when everyone with something to sell shows up.

We went to visit a traditional healer yesterday.  He really had some interesting bottles to show.   One of them had a resemblance  to a lava lamp.  He had two different potions he uses for palpitations,  one looked like orange jello, not quite set and the other was a powder that you rub on your chest and that makes them go away.  He was non committal on the roots that he used to make them.  He will travel for about 2 months a year to collect all his ingredients.  He also showed us some of the items he uses to do exorcisms, some of which have been passed down from his grandfather.  There really seems to be a nice blend of traditional and modern medicine, both having a deep respect for each other and making efforts to work together. 

This afternoon I will be going with another nurse here to tour the Bagamoyo Hospital.  I am sure this will be very interesting.  The hospital here I believe is one of the most modern in the country.  They are the main hospital in a world wide study on malaria and offer the most progressive treatment and a very reasonable cost.  We continue to be diligent with our medications from home, and really hope we don't need to find out first hand.  The mosquitos that carry malaria are only active at night so we are especially careful then. One of the doctors involved in this research came to home base to talk about common illnesses here.  One of the schools CCS send volunteer teachers to has gotten typhoid from their well.  We are instructed never to eat or drink anything at our placements.




Yesterday, we were invited to the home of a woman who knows on of the volunteers here.  Jennifer (the volunteer) has been here 9 weeks.  This woman Rosemary, does catering around town and we went to her home and helped her cook a dinner she was catering and then we ate it as well.  The Tanzanian people are so kind warm and welcoming you just can't imagine.  I have some great pictures to share, but the internet here is really slow and it took 20 minutes and 3,000 shillings ($2.00) to upload a single short video.  Promise to get pictures on as soon as we get back to our own computers.