Pumoja Bab!

Well, we made it to the highest point in Africa, all three of us!

Last Sunday we started our climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro, and I'll say it, we had no idea what we were getting into! We new that it was going to be physically challenging, so we'd been running in Kowak, but other than that, we were clueless. So it was a bit of a surprise (and a relief-we thought we would carry our own bags!) that when we met with our guide the day before we left, we found out that we had a team of 10 people to take us up the mountain. There were 2 guides and 8 porters to carry all of our food, bags, tents and general supplies! We thought we were being spoiled, but soon found out that how everyone goes up the mountain!

While we weren't sure what to expect, we had no idea how crowded the trail was going to be. Each day, about 150 people start their climb up Kili on the route we took. On average, most groups have about 3 porters per person to assist with the climb, so if you do the math, that's

A LOT of people hiking on a pretty small path- the majority of them being Tanzanian porters walking much faster than us! Now just a word about these porters, because what they did was pretty amazing. They each carry up to about 50lbs of supplies, and it's not in fancy trekking bags. They would combine all the supplies into a large plastic bag and carried them on their shoulders or heads! It was so impressive how fast they walked, managing such heavy loads. It was pretty interesting to see the different things they carried- everything from tents, tables and chairs, to fresh fruits and veggies, to 3 dozen eggs (I mean, who would even think to bring eggs on a week long hike?!?!)

Our trail took us up and back down the mountain over 6 days. The first 4 days we hiked about 5-8 hours a day, through gorgeous scenery- each day different as we ascended. It was mostly uphill, and /*on a whole it was tiring but not too difficult. The only downside was starting the first night, we got quite a bit of rain, aka every night and most morning we started walking in the rain! We definitely looked pretty stylish as we climbed in our ponchos! We had fun though, especially talking with all the various groups climbing.

Last Thursday was our summit day, and it was definitely the hardest. We started from base camp (4800m) in the dark at around 1am. Luckily, it was the first night it didn't rain and we had great weather for the whole day. It was a steep walk, pretty much straight up the mountain with a little zig-zagging, through the snow. We have never walked so slowly in our lives and still felt so tired! The altitude definitely was the biggest challenge, making it harder to breath. But we made it (it only took us 9 hrs to go up 1000m!), and we got to enjoy our first beautiful sunrise on the way. The views on top were stunning- bright blue skies against glaciers and snow! After taking a few pictures, we turned around and walked right back down to base camp. It was almost as hard as walking up- trying not to slip! After resting at base camp for about an hour, we finished off the day by descending to a lower camp site. It was our longest day, walking about 16hrs, but it was definitely the most rewarding!

It was great to get off the mountain and back to our hotel. We were all ready to take long, hot showers and actually sit on a toilet seat rather than use a squatter!

Kili here we come!!!

Just a quick update on where we are now!

We left Kowak on Wednesday afternoon and headed to outside the Western Serengeti gate, where we spent the night. Thursday we woke up, and after a yummy breakfast, met up with our driver and headed into the Serengeti. It was fun because this time we were in a Landrover with a roof that popped up, so you could stand on the seats and look out the roof while we were driving! Just like last time, we saw tons of animals- lots of zebras, giraffes, tons of elephants and wildebeests, and this time a bunch of lions! Wednesday night we camped in the park, then on Thursday continued to head East to a neighboring park called the Ngorongoro Crater. It's a smaller park, but has a spectacular backdrop (the walls of the crater) and lots more animals to see! We even got to see a few rhinos!

Today we drove to Arusha, one of the bigger cities in Tanzania, and the start point for our trek up Mt. Kilimanjaro. We leave tomorrow at 8am, drive for 2 hours to the base of the mountain, then start hiking (I think our first day as an easy 5 hr hike...at least that's what our guide said!). We got to meet with our guide today, he seems pretty chill and has climbed to the summit over 100 times, so we're pretty happy! We also have about 8 porters coming along with us to carry our bags and cook and set up the tents and basically do all the hard stuff but walk! Should be pretty easy! We're all pretty excited. Say an extra prayer for us on Thursday, that's when we should reach the summit, then head back down. We'll let you guys know how we did on Friday when we get back down!

So Long, Farewell!

It's official- 3:00pm, February 9th, 2011. It's kindof unbelievable, but we're 3 days away from our departure date from Kowak! 4 months have absolutely flown by, and it's almost time to end one adventure and start another (1 month of backpacking round Africa)! From start to finish, it's been great, we've learned a lot and have had a blast.

The last 2 weeks have been a whirlwind. We had a great visit in Nairobi, enjoyed the hot water, internet and good food (maybe the 3 things we are missing most!). Back in Kowak, it has mostly been business as usual while trying to fit in a few last-minute African adventures, we thought we'd share some of the highlights. Friday night we had 6 kids sleep over at our house. It was a blast- movie, popcorn (thanks Charlie!), pillow fight- the works! I guess you could say the only downside was that one kid wet the bed, and there was quite a bit of pee on our bathroom floor the next morning (I guess these kids aren't to using a sit down toilet!). Today, we went to church at the neighboring village, then went back to one of the hospital guard's house to eat lunch with his family. It was great to see a home outside of the hospital, the food was delicious, and we were even able to have a decent conversation in Swahili! What else, there was a ride in the back of a cement truck to check the PO Box (still getting packages, Thank you!), discovered a "movie theater" in Kowak, attempted to wash and style black people hair (Fran- you'd have been proud!) and just generally hung out and worked!

As we said, we have 3 more days left, and I know they're gonna go quickly! Tomorrow we are going to make our last trip to Musoma to meet some of the other Indian sisters working in Tanzania, and hopefully download the Superbowl so we can watch it on our computer Monday night (father is a HUGE Packers fan, so we're pretty excited!). We're also trying to fit in last minute laundry, which isn't so last minute because you have to leave enough time for it to air dry and who knows when it's gonna rain! We've started packing and compiling our "leave in Africa" pile. We're looking forward to giving away all the things we can't take with us!

Though we'll be sad to leave Kowak, we're all really excited about our trip to come. We start with another safari through the Serengeti on our way to Arusha, the city from which we'll start our week-long climb up Mt. Kilimanjaro. Other highlights include Zanzibar (we'll be ready to relax on a beach after all the walking!), Capetown, Lesotho, Victoria Falls and a mystery destination. We were originally going to go to Cairo but have decided not to go because they are trying to have a revolution or something- so rude! We'll try to keep you updated along the way with pictures and funny stories!

Beat the Mom, Save the Baby!

I think that one of my favorite parts about working at Kowak Hospital is that we've been able to "help" deliver a few babies. While adjusting to nursing in rural Africa took some time, we've definitely reached that point where for most crazy instances, we can just shrug our shoulders, say "Oh well!" and get on with whatever we are doing. I use "most" because whenever we think we've seen it all, something crazier walks through the door (for example, a thumb so infected the bone was sticking out and the tip had almost fallen off!), but that's the fun part of nursing. I'd say the one exception to that might be delivering babies. Each time has been an adventure...and it's just a little different than in the States! We'd thought it'd be fun to share some of our experiences ;-)

Unlike the States, it is mostly nurse midwives who deliver the babies, the doctor will only come near the delivery room if there is a life-threatening problem, and then the mother is usually transferred to another hospital. I wish we could fully set the scene of the delivery room. There are 2 delivery beds (so if 2 moms come in at once, they have their babies together!), which are covered with a big plastic tarp that is "washed" and reused for each birth...yea. The equipment is pretty old, worn out and quasi-sterile, and our emergency supplies consist of a suction bulb for the babies. And while we've found the whole situation a little shocking in comparison to the States, I just want to say that we've only had successful deliveries since we've been here.

An important piece of equipment to help deliver the baby here is The Kanga. I guess most women realize this, because they normally come with a bunch of them. They're used for almost anything, from wiping up from poop and amniotic fluid (no disposable Chucks or hospital towels here!) to swaddling the new born baby after delivery. One time, I guess the mom hadn't brought enough kangas with her, because we had to donate the one we were wearing at the time to help clean the mom (good thing we were wearing legging underneath!). And we thought they were just good for tying babies to your back!

I think one of the craziest parts is their attitudes towards the deliveries. The moms get no pain medicine (maybe a Tylenol afterwards), and are expected to deliver without really yelling or complaining at all. I was recently helping out with one delivery, and the mom was screaming and squirming during the contractions. The nurse and the hospital cleaning lady (still not sure why she was even there helping out) were slapping the mom and shouting, "Shut your mouth" while trying make her lay still and physically keep her mouth shut! I just stood there, with wide eyes, hoping that the baby didn't come out while they were otherwise distracted! After the delivery, we were joking about how the mom had yelled, the nurse promptly declared, "Beat the mom, save the baby!" Not a strategy I would have previously endorsed, but it seems to work pretty well here!

We could keep going with more stories, but the blog would get pretty long! So a couple last highlights/crazy aspects include: making the mistake of standing at the end of the bed when the mom's water breaks, forcing the mom to get up and walk to her bed right after delivering, holding the babies upside-down by their feet to make them cry, helping tie the umbilical clamp (apiece of gauze) and cutting the cord or hearing the nurse yell at the moms for pooping too much. And of course, getting to hold all the newborn babies!

Long Time no Internet!

Well, it's been awhile, but we have internet again! I think it was January 1st that our internet ran out, and after having a few problems renewing it, we finally were successful in sorting it out! Part of the reason it took so long is that the only way we could get it fixed was by going into Musoma, which is about an hour away and there aren't trips going there everyday...I guess it's all part of the fun of living in a village in Africa!

Here's a quick update on some things we've been doing in these past couple weeks. Let's see, it's mostly been business as usual, working in the hospital, playing with the kids that still come and knock on our door religously and running in the evenings. Last week we did take a day off to climb Mt. Rorya, which is a hill/mountain near Kowak, and supposedly the highest point in the region that we live. It's been on our To Do list for awhile, so we were pretty excited. The majority of the hike was actually walking to the base of the hill, which was mostly on dirt roads. While that part wasn't very strenuous, it was fun to look at all the different huts and homes along the way. As we expected, a random Tanzanian guy joined our walk and kindof acted as our guide, helping us find the right path up the hill. The actual climb up was pretty steep, we walked on a quazi road they had built to get supplies up the hill to build cell phone towers. Let's just say they are not big fans of switch backs, the road was really steap, the whole time I was in disbelief that a truck could actually drive up it! On top, our guide helped us break into the cell phone tower (he actually seemed to be friends with the two 15 yr old boys guarding the tower with a machete and club) and we climbed up to the top. Even though it was cloudy out, we had a great view of the area and were even able to see Lake Victoria. We hung out up there for a little, sharing granola bars and gum with our new friends, enjoying the view! Overall, it was about a 6 hour hike...great training for Kili!!

Thursday we head up to Nairobi for a week. When we first got to Africa, we started our trip by taking a short course on African culture. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of next week we're participating in a follow-up course on ours in Kowak. While we're looking forward to the class, we're really excited for some of the amenities that Nairobi offers- fairly reliable hot water, internet and washing machines!! That may be what we're most excited about, while we've improved in the area of hand washing, I question whether or not our clothes are really getting clean...

That's Life!

(Written 1/12/11)

I know our blog posts have been a little less frequent lately. It's not because crazy/funny/different things aren't happening, I think it's just that we're getting a little more used to life in Africa, so that events that would have intitally boggled our minds take place, we just kindof shrug our shoulders at them, and say, "that's life!" Here's a list of things we've just gotten used too living in the middle of nowhere in Africa!

-Losing power 3-4 days a week
-Being approached by a complete stranger and asked to buy a duck or pig
-That cloudy weather means a not so hot day, but cold showers because our water is solar heated
-People just walking around with huge machetes
-Having to wait for a herd of cows to cross the road, then realizing that is a 10 year old boy who's in charge of them
-Trying to take evening vital signs before all the patients get in their bug nets, it makes it so much easier!
-Having a patient ask you to buy their phone minutes so that they can pay their hospital bill (which is $17 for 3 days)
-Seeing the crazy sized things they strap onto the back of their bicycles, including carrying a second, full-sized bicycle
-Having everyone know exactly where you are all the time, the nice part is that when we're looking for one of us, you can ask anyone where the white girls are, and they always know which direction they went
-Going to bed at 8:30pm because the power's out and there's nothing else to do
-Being told your "looking fat today" multiple times, and just smiling and shaking your head because you know they mean it as a compliment
-Finding rocks in our food, they blend in so well with the rice and beans...who doesn't want the extras minerals!
-People putting eggs, soda, chickens and pigs in the collection at church on sunday
-People cleaning their ears out with car keys...Per Fr. Jim, Toyota keys are the best!
-The village's "Drinking Water" is rain water that is collected off the roof into a huge tank
-Being told multiple times "Sorry about your rash" or to get medicated cream for the spots on our arms (a.k.a freckles!)
-Making sure that the door to our house is always locked, not to protect us from robbers, but to give us a break from the kids every once and a while
-Having 3 options for things to do in the evenings- read, play cards or sleep
-Having patients puke, and then rather than helping them clean it up, handing a the family a bucket and kanga and let them take care of it
-Trying to translate conversations off of the 1 out of every 8 words we understood in Swahili
-Recognizing people by their clothes rather than their faces because they don't change them that often!

Day Trip to Kenya

(Written 1/6/11)

It's kindof hard to believe, but we are past the half way mark of our trip, and only have one more week in our third rotation at the hospital (each rotation is one month). While we were kindof planning on staying an extra month (aka 4 months total) the whole time, we made it official this week by taking a day trip to Kenya (which is just so crazy to say) in order to renew our visas. The Kenyan border is about 1.5 hrs from Kowak, so Fr. Jim drove us up. We weren't really sure how to go about it, if we actually had to leave Tanzania or if what we were doing was legal or not. We'd heard stories about having to bribe the gaurds in order to extend your stay- we didn't know what to expect. So on arrival at the gate, we decided to go for the straight forward approach and tell the Tanzanian customs workers what we were trying to do. They had no problems with us renewing our visas, but said that we did have to leave the country in order to do it, so we filled out the forms to cross the border, then walked to Kenya!

When we got to Kenya (about 15 seconds later), we went into their customs office, and decided to go with the same straight forward approach, as it had worked so well the first time. The customs workers we're really nice. We ended up being able to renew our Kenyan visas at the same time, which is great becasue we will be going to Kenya two more times before we leave. After filling out our arrival forms and completing our visa paperwork, we promptly handed the worker our exit form, telling him thanks you, now we're ready to go back to Tanzania (it had been about 15mins)! He looked a little confused, laughed a little and then said, "Oh, you're not supposed to do that, it's a capitol offense!" Oops, and we thought it was so obvious what we were doing! So we just smiled, acted confused (which we kindof were) and said, "pretend you never saw us!" then quickly left to go shopping in Kenya for a bit! We walked around and bought some rain boots for one of the guards for the church. The best part was we met a group of Americans who were traveling around the world volunteering in different countries, and had just arrived in Africa. They saw Steph's Ohio State shirt and threw out an "OH-IO," and crazily enough, 2 of them were from Northern VA (one had unfortunately gone to VTech)!!! After a little, we returned to the office. Good thing they liked us, because they went ahead and stamped our forms so that we were able to leave the counry with no problems! Back in TZ, we got our visas without any difficulty, so now we are legal in both countries 'til the end of our trip. While we're glad it all worked out so easily, we are a little sad we didn't have to bribe anyone...not that we'd have any idea how to go about it!

The wheels on the bus go round and round

On our trip to Mwanza, we traveled for the first time by public transportation! It was quite an experience (it was almost the highlight of the trip!), so I thought it deserved it's own blog post. We got a ride to the bus station in Musoma, and as soon as we were dropped off, we were surrounded by drivers trying to get us to take their bus... we're still not completely sure how they new we were tourists! Any who, we were lucky enough to get on a bus that left about 5 minutes after we boarded. It was like a Greyhound bus, and while there wasn't any air conditioning, we were able to open the windows- on a whole pretty comfortable. While we were boarding, we saw someone put 2 chickens under the bus in the baggage area, no cages or anything. Then, at our first stop, a lady boarded the bus just carrying a chicken, and sat with it on her lap, luckily it was well behaved, we didn't hear it cluck once! The way down took us about 3 hrs, and the only real bummer was when it started to rain and the roof leaked all over Stephanie! The other interesting aspect was about 2 hrs in, a preacher got on the microphone and spoke for about 20mins, not that we could really understand because it was in Swahili. Definitely something you wouldn't see in America!

One of the funniest parts about riding on these bigger buses, is that when they stop at a city or pull into a bus station (aka a big dirt parking lot with little stores), the bus is immediately surrounded by vendors. They come running (and I mean literally running) up to the bus, holding a plate of vegetables, bunches of bananas or other fresh food, trying to get you to buy them. Other vendors would carry cardboard boxes stuffed with different kinds of cookies and drinks. Rather than getting out to buy a snack, they come right to you, quite good service actually! At the bigger bus stops, you'd get a little more variety, vendors selling all sorts of things- watches, socks, hats were just a few of the things we saw. The other funny part was that rather than yelling like American street vendors, they would come up to your window and hiss to get your attention, which worked really well and probably saved them from losing their voices! Needless to say, we had fun bartering with them and bought some great snacks along the way!

We also got to experience the smaller buses or "Dala Dalas" that are used for more local transport. They look like a more compact version of a 15 passenger van. You just flag them down on the side of the road like you would a taxi in America. If they are going in your direction and have room, they'll stop and pick you up. Each time one stopped to pick us up, the door opened and I thought, "Shoot, no room," only to be told to get in! While there are only about 12 seats, most of the time there where 15 passengers. It seemed that every time I thought the van was full, they'd stop and pick some one up! We quickly learned that it's OK to climb over random people and Tanzanians have a very small personal bubble! I'll say it, Dala Dalas are not the most comfortable mode of transport, but they're cheap and fun adventure to ride in!

The trip back we a little longer, somehow we managed to get on a slower bus that made A LOT of stops. The bus was packed, with people even standing in the aisle. The bus was pretty weighed down, so much so that we weren't sure we were going to make it up a few of the hills! Rather than getting picked up at the bus stop, we took a Dala Dala closer to Kowak, and were picked up where the dirt road to Kowak meets the tarmac. Overall, the trip back took us about 6 hours (just under 4hr on the way down!). Mwanza is about 180 miles away, so if our math is correct, we averaged about 30mi/hr on the way home...kindof crazy!

Happy New Year!

Wow, it's 2011! Hope everyone had fun celebrating New Year's Eve. As we kindof expected, New Year's was pretty quiet in Kowak! We rang in the new year playing cards...pretty exciting! A few seconds after midnight, some of the neighborhood kids came to our window (they must have heard us cheering), asking to hang out. So we busted out all the pots and pans we could find, and marched around for about 10 minutes banging our pots and shouting, "Happy Happy New Year!" I'm sure the neighbors and the patients in the hospital loved it, though none of them came out to join the parade. The kids had fun though!

What else, this past week was exciting because we took a last minute trip to Mwanza,the 2nd biggest city in TZ. Wednesday morning at breakfast, Fr. Jim announced that a car was going into Musoma (the bigger city near us). We decided that we'd hitch a ride, but instead of going to Musoma, we caught the bus to Mwanza. The city is set on the coast of Lake Victoria. We spent most of the time just walking around, comparing Kowak to life in a bigger city. While the city wasn't completely paved, there were definitely better roads a quite a few multiple storied buildings, neither of which we've seen a lot of since we left the States!

Shopping in the city was still quite an experience. Unlike America where we have big stores that sell everything, they have little "Dukas" that sell a pretty specific selection of items. For example, one will sell all sorts of toiletries, one processed food items, one will just have material or just books ect... Most of the dukas are about 6ft x 6ft and crammed floor to ceiling with the items. Another options for buying was from one of the many vendors who laid a tarp out on the side walk and placed their items out for sale. Many of them were selling clothes or shoes. Most of the items were used, you'd see the vendor sitting there polishing and repairing the shoes before he sold them. Walking by the tarps was a little like thrifting, the selection looked like mostly items Americans had bagged and donated! We also walked through Mwanza's market, which was pretty neat. It was just tons of stands selling almost anything, from hardware supplies to fresh fruits and veggies to chickens! There was even a station that killed the chickens by snapping their necks boiling them, then plucked the feathers for you and chopped up the meat...quite interesting to watch!

We spent the night at a small hotel (it was actually a bunch of small bungalows) a little outside of the town on Lake Victoria. We had a nice relaxing evening, went to bed early, then woke up in time to see the sunrise over the lake. It was a great break from Kowak and the hospital, and so nice to be by the water for a bit. The other highlight was indulging in some "American" food (or something close to it!) We ate pizza, wings, french fries, ice cream, cheesy bread and drank some beer and wine! It was was fun to switch things up from rice and meat. Overall, it was definitely a successful trip!