Today was our first day at the Machame (ma-cha-me) Hospital. We woke up at 5am to the sound of roosters crowing. This did not help our jet lag.
After a lovely breakfast at the house, we set out to start our day by finding and killing those roosters. As we were walking to the hospital, the sight of Mt Kilimanjaro was in view off in the distance as we could hear the gospel choir singing in the chapel... incredible!
Every day starts with chapel. Just as I expected from an African style service, everyone was singing a cappella, harmonised hymns. It was inspiration and so far a highlight of the trip! The entire service was in Swahili, so we had no idea what was being said. This was until the priest said the word "Australians"... So we were made to introduce ourselves to the hospital staff. We said our introductions in Swahili, and although everyone laughed at us, we received this ritual clapping blessing to welcome us....I'm assuming this is a good thing for defiling their language. But seriously it scared the crap out of me.
We're picking up heaps of Swahili, which is good. The Swedish nurses have taught us a few things, but it is going to be tricky getting our tongues around such a foreign thing.
One difference we have noticed since being here is that everyone is so friendly compared to Australia. Everyone greets us in Swahili, saying 'jambo' (hello) or 'habari' (how are you?) as we walk through the corridors. I guess we fooled them with such perfect Swahili introductions (which we asked a local nurse to write for us).
As for the medical side of our placement, we are currently studying at a large hospital in Northern Tanzania which has associated medical and nursing schools. This morning we had the privilege of watching a local Tanzanian medical student give a presentation on congestive cardiac failure. It took forever.
Then we had an hour off to chill out at our new house before starting our first ever ward round in Africa. I was not sure what I was expecting, but I was hoping it would be completely different to the 'shifting dullness' of an Australian ward round. I guess not. It's nice to see that some things are universal! We did the rounds with about 15 local students, who were asked heaps of questions, but they decided to let us off the hook.
I guess another similarity is the types of patients we saw today. We spend the day in the obstetric wards, mostly women with PROM, PPH and obstructed labour. We did see malaria in pregnancy and I would assume some of these woman would have HIV.
So the standard of hygiene is shocking. If my car were a room in the hospital, it would be the cleanest room. The floors are wet and dirty, the ceiling, if not caving in, would leak a green liquid. No one washes their hands, there is no aquium or hand basins in any room, and gloves are as rare as the tanzanites (the rock, not the people... they are everywhere). Also there is no oxygen by the bed and nothing to monitor saturations. Basically the infection control staff at the RAH would die if they stepped into this place.
After a $1 lunch at the hospital cafeteria, we caught the $1 local bus (dalla-dalla) for he hour-long journey to Moshi. It was a normal minibus that could only properly fit 10 people, but these guys cram almost 30 people on. Just when you thought they couldn't fit anyone else, they would find room for them hanging off the side or back or sitting on the window.
After finally getting to Moshi, we set out to email our parents. Both Internet cafes had no internet connection. So we eventually asked the tourist information guy to use his computer, who still charged us 50 cents for 30 mins. What a rip-off.
There are a lot of tourists in Moshi, and so there are also lots of people to heckle us trying to either sell cheap safaris, or visit their art gallery opening. Although Michael was keen to check out this local Tanzanian's art work, we had to decline his offer as we're not in the mood to be raped today. Although it would be the closest I've come to a date in a while. We eventually found an ATM the tourist info guy didn't know about, and got out of that god-forsaken hell hole!
Although reading back on this it does sound negative...we actually had an amazing day, stuffed with fun-filled memories.
Asante,
Justin
Things that went wrong: Day 2 edition
- We were late on our first day!
- Internet broken in Machame.
- Internet broken in most of Moshi's Internet cafés.
- Tourist information guy who couldn't speak English, had no idea where anything in Moshi was, had no maps or brochures and was spending his time browsing dating websites.
- ATM that didn't accept our card - standing in Moshi with no money!
- Guy who caught dalla-dalla carrying machete sword.
- Random security guard in Moshi carrying a shotgun.
- Burnt hands on green 'cold' tap, while the red 'hot' tap was freezing.
- Justin has discovered several holes in his mosquito net.
Justin's welcome speech:
Jambo - habari za asubuhi. Jino langu ni Justin. Nina miaka ishirinina mbili. Ni mwanafunzi daktari mwaka wa sita. Nimetoka Australia. Hipo hapa kwa wiki tatu. Asanteni sana.
(Hello and good morning! My name is Justin. I am 22 years old. I am a sixth year medical student from Australia. I am here for three weeks. Thank you all very much.)
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