We have not yet been here a week and already it feels like we are settling into a rhythm. First impressions reminiscent for me of India: overwhelming cacophony of noise, smells and visuals….In a few short days I already feel a bit desensitized to what is so new and amazingly different. I am amazed as how quickly we adapt.The long journey from London went well without significant problems. The boys were wonderful enjoying the freebies of Air Emirates and the swing of travel. We arrived in Dar immediately smothered by the hot hot air , all bags safely with us and eventually met by Juma the taxi driver (amazingly, via our UK contact to Muheza, Dr. Karilyn, we were able to text Juma from Hereford UK and set up a pick-up in Dar/ hotel and bus tickets for the next morning to Muheza !)Five hour bus ride on “Scandanavia” lines, the ‘better’ bus company, without ANY shocks, unbelievable (SCARY) speeds, but free bottled water, biscuits and juice included in the price. Met by Dr. Sally and immediately we are indebted to this lovely family from the UK who have been here 6 years already and planning for 4 more. Sally is a ob/gyn and Ben doing malarial and pediatric fever illness research. Their 3 boys Zach/Max/Piran (8/4/4 mos) blended with ours in that amazing way that kids instantly do and introduced us to some of the local kids who hang with the Wazungas (white people). They fed us lunch and supper, and walked us around Muheza which is a few crazed streets of tiny shops selling their narrow range of stuff, fantastic open and covered market and mosques alive with Ramadan (Moslem festival we have stepped into the middle of this month of Sept). A far cry from the Lonely Planet guide’s description of Muheza as a ‘scrappy cross roads town’ that could easily be left off the travel itinerary. On the contrary, feels like a perfect size for this Canadian family, and full of unique Tanzanian life for us to explore and find our way.Our house is great, shared with Dutch MD researcher Ilse and we quickly unpack stuff and watch the kids stake out their domains. She has stocked some food so really there isn’t even a scary low of “what will we eat and where do we get it ??” The house known as Hillview, is spacious and obviously built by Wazungas (complete with sit toilet, water filter and shower which wouldn’t be the norm here) and we feel lucky and comfortable. The house comes with ‘house girl’ Juliette who makes us wonderful soup and bread for lunch, washes the clothes and dishes and cleans. Imagine! She is lovely and welcoming and will teach us a lot of Swahili.
The next day Sally and Ben bundled us off to Tanga (larger town down the road) where provisions like cheese and yogurt and safe meat and a bigger market are to be found. We stock up and then spend a lazy afternoon at the Yacht Club (sounds posher than it is) for our first swim in the Indian Ocean. Warm salty water…what a concept.We are greeted in Muheza by a couple of brief power outages which we learn are frequent but usually short events. Uncharacteristically, there is a major outage of a greater magnitude that begins shortly after we arrive involving the hospital, in particular the lab and the hospital based internet which we learn will be our lifeline to the outside world. So for the first few days here access is not easy and we eventually find an internet café on the other side of town with very slow access to get off a few brief hellos to announce that we have landed safely.The power issue is big for Ben and his years of research samples, tiny vials of blood and serum that need to be stored at minus 70 and there are a couple of frantic days as Ben tries to find temporary freezer homes for them. Ultimately, they are shipped off down the road to a different part of Tanzania to another research site.The week settles into the daily jobs of buying a bit of food, figuring out what to make for supper (yes the question follows us across the world), walks, explorations, and gentle introductions to the hospital. We feel very welcomed by all. “Karibu” or Welcome in a million variations. We attend morning rounds (overwhelming reports of deaths in the night, new admissions and unintelligible monotone summaries of critically ill patients). We try to get our ears into English as a second language with Swahili as the first, let alone the Swahili. Sally tours me through the wards which are ‘Nightingale’ style open wards, male or female with 30 beds closely lined up beds with each holding at least one patient if not 2 or 3. No curtains. One or maybe 2 nurses. Although I know it is exactly what I expected and knew to be the reality, it is still hard to absorb.
The Muhueza Hospice is quite separate (called the “Diana Centre” as the monies for its development have predominately come from the Diana foundation) and that is where we will be based. We are learning about the necessary shift of focus of the palliative care team in the last short years (2-3) who now provide ARVs (anti-retroviral treatment) for the HIV patients, rather than simply supporting them as they faced certain death. The two services (active HIV care and palliative care) will separate in the timeframe we are here and that transition will certainly shape our experience. The layers of politics, both Tanzanian and Wazunga will take some time to understand. We will go gently and learn more than we give for quite some time.The boys have already made friends, partly via Zach and Max, but also via the now daily late afternoon game of soccer that has started. Amb and the boys wandered over to a dirt soccer field (generous description) with a ball and were quite instantly surrounded by 10- 15 boys. A couple of kids, they discovered go to the same school our boys will attend, and so there will be familiar faces. Their English is marginal, but better than our Swahili (!) and enough to make a good connection.We all plan and prepare for school next week. Turns out the school they are to attend is about a 45 minute walk out of town, so we decide to buy bikes to make the daily journey more realistic. A couple of days ago we walked up there and despite our best intentions found ourselves walking in the peak of the African sun without enough water (3 bottles was no where near what we needed). We collapsed for the rest of the day and drank drank drank. The boys seem fine with it all, and find humour in the seriously ugly green gingham shirts and green shorted uniforms, rather than despair.We are so proud of how they are doing with all of this. We can see already that they will speak Swahili much better than we will by the end. Muheza is certainly a setting where they will play with and attend school with Tanzanian kids, and that affirms for us our decision to come here, despite the currently indecipherable complexities of the work situation.
Have bought coffee beans in the market and roasted them myself for the morning brew! Ambrose says it is not up to Café Fantastico: I am awaiting the frother when Sally and Rose arrive next week and then we will have lattes.
Saturday, September 27, 2008
Our first week
We have not yet been here a week and already it feels like we are settling into a rhythm. First impressions reminiscent for me of India: overwhelming cacophony of noise, smells and visuals….In a few short days I already feel a bit desensitized to what is so new and amazingly different. I am amazed as how quickly we adapt.The long journey from London went well without significant problems. The boys were wonderful enjoying the freebies of Air Emirates and the swing of travel. We arrived in Dar immediately smothered by the hot hot air , all bags safely with us and eventually met by Juma the taxi driver (amazingly, via our UK contact to Muheza, Dr. Karilyn, we were able to text Juma from Hereford UK and set up a pick-up in Dar/ hotel and bus tickets for the next morning to Muheza !)Five hour bus ride on “Scandanavia” lines, the ‘better’ bus company, without ANY shocks, unbelievable (SCARY) speeds, but free bottled water, biscuits and juice included in the price. Met by Dr. Sally and immediately we are indebted to this lovely family from the UK who have been here 6 years already and planning for 4 more. Sally is a ob/gyn and Ben doing malarial and pediatric fever illness research. Their 3 boys Zach/Max/Piran (8/4/4 mos) blended with ours in that amazing way that kids instantly do and introduced us to some of the local kids who hang with the Wazungas (white people). They fed us lunch and supper, and walked us around Muheza which is a few crazed streets of tiny shops selling their narrow range of stuff, fantastic open and covered market and mosques alive with Ramadan (Moslem festival we have stepped into the middle of this month of Sept). A far cry from the Lonely Planet guide’s description of Muheza as a ‘scrappy cross roads town’ that could easily be left off the travel itinerary. On the contrary, feels like a perfect size for this Canadian family, and full of unique Tanzanian life for us to explore and find our way.Our house is great, shared with Dutch MD researcher Ilse and we quickly unpack stuff and watch the kids stake out their domains. She has stocked some food so really there isn’t even a scary low of “what will we eat and where do we get it ??” The house known as Hillview, is spacious and obviously built by Wazungas (complete with sit toilet, water filter and shower which wouldn’t be the norm here) and we feel lucky and comfortable. The house comes with ‘house girl’ Juliette who makes us wonderful soup and bread for lunch, washes the clothes and dishes and cleans. Imagine! She is lovely and welcoming and will teach us a lot of Swahili.
The next day Sally and Ben bundled us off to Tanga (larger town down the road) where provisions like cheese and yogurt and safe meat and a bigger market are to be found. We stock up and then spend a lazy afternoon at the Yacht Club (sounds posher than it is) for our first swim in the Indian Ocean. Warm salty water…what a concept.We are greeted in Muheza by a couple of brief power outages which we learn are frequent but usually short events. Uncharacteristically, there is a major outage of a greater magnitude that begins shortly after we arrive involving the hospital, in particular the lab and the hospital based internet which we learn will be our lifeline to the outside world. So for the first few days here access is not easy and we eventually find an internet café on the other side of town with very slow access to get off a few brief hellos to announce that we have landed safely.The power issue is big for Ben and his years of research samples, tiny vials of blood and serum that need to be stored at minus 70 and there are a couple of frantic days as Ben tries to find temporary freezer homes for them. Ultimately, they are shipped off down the road to a different part of Tanzania to another research site.The week settles into the daily jobs of buying a bit of food, figuring out what to make for supper (yes the question follows us across the world), walks, explorations, and gentle introductions to the hospital. We feel very welcomed by all. “Karibu” or Welcome in a million variations. We attend morning rounds (overwhelming reports of deaths in the night, new admissions and unintelligible monotone summaries of critically ill patients). We try to get our ears into English as a second language with Swahili as the first, let alone the Swahili. Sally tours me through the wards which are ‘Nightingale’ style open wards, male or female with 30 beds closely lined up beds with each holding at least one patient if not 2 or 3. No curtains. One or maybe 2 nurses. Although I know it is exactly what I expected and knew to be the reality, it is still hard to absorb.
The Muhueza Hospice is quite separate (called the “Diana Centre” as the monies for its development have predominately come from the Diana foundation) and that is where we will be based. We are learning about the necessary shift of focus of the palliative care team in the last short years (2-3) who now provide ARVs (anti-retroviral treatment) for the HIV patients, rather than simply supporting them as they faced certain death. The two services (active HIV care and palliative care) will separate in the timeframe we are here and that transition will certainly shape our experience. The layers of politics, both Tanzanian and Wazunga will take some time to understand. We will go gently and learn more than we give for quite some time.The boys have already made friends, partly via Zach and Max, but also via the now daily late afternoon game of soccer that has started. Amb and the boys wandered over to a dirt soccer field (generous description) with a ball and were quite instantly surrounded by 10- 15 boys. A couple of kids, they discovered go to the same school our boys will attend, and so there will be familiar faces. Their English is marginal, but better than our Swahili (!) and enough to make a good connection.We all plan and prepare for school next week. Turns out the school they are to attend is about a 45 minute walk out of town, so we decide to buy bikes to make the daily journey more realistic. A couple of days ago we walked up there and despite our best intentions found ourselves walking in the peak of the African sun without enough water (3 bottles was no where near what we needed). We collapsed for the rest of the day and drank drank drank. The boys seem fine with it all, and find humour in the seriously ugly green gingham shirts and green shorted uniforms, rather than despair.We are so proud of how they are doing with all of this. We can see already that they will speak Swahili much better than we will by the end. Muheza is certainly a setting where they will play with and attend school with Tanzanian kids, and that affirms for us our decision to come here, despite the currently indecipherable complexities of the work situation.
Have bought coffee beans in the market and roasted them myself for the morning brew! Ambrose says it is not up to Café Fantastico: I am awaiting the frother when Sally and Rose arrive next week and then we will have lattes.
The next day Sally and Ben bundled us off to Tanga (larger town down the road) where provisions like cheese and yogurt and safe meat and a bigger market are to be found. We stock up and then spend a lazy afternoon at the Yacht Club (sounds posher than it is) for our first swim in the Indian Ocean. Warm salty water…what a concept.We are greeted in Muheza by a couple of brief power outages which we learn are frequent but usually short events. Uncharacteristically, there is a major outage of a greater magnitude that begins shortly after we arrive involving the hospital, in particular the lab and the hospital based internet which we learn will be our lifeline to the outside world. So for the first few days here access is not easy and we eventually find an internet café on the other side of town with very slow access to get off a few brief hellos to announce that we have landed safely.The power issue is big for Ben and his years of research samples, tiny vials of blood and serum that need to be stored at minus 70 and there are a couple of frantic days as Ben tries to find temporary freezer homes for them. Ultimately, they are shipped off down the road to a different part of Tanzania to another research site.The week settles into the daily jobs of buying a bit of food, figuring out what to make for supper (yes the question follows us across the world), walks, explorations, and gentle introductions to the hospital. We feel very welcomed by all. “Karibu” or Welcome in a million variations. We attend morning rounds (overwhelming reports of deaths in the night, new admissions and unintelligible monotone summaries of critically ill patients). We try to get our ears into English as a second language with Swahili as the first, let alone the Swahili. Sally tours me through the wards which are ‘Nightingale’ style open wards, male or female with 30 beds closely lined up beds with each holding at least one patient if not 2 or 3. No curtains. One or maybe 2 nurses. Although I know it is exactly what I expected and knew to be the reality, it is still hard to absorb.
The Muhueza Hospice is quite separate (called the “Diana Centre” as the monies for its development have predominately come from the Diana foundation) and that is where we will be based. We are learning about the necessary shift of focus of the palliative care team in the last short years (2-3) who now provide ARVs (anti-retroviral treatment) for the HIV patients, rather than simply supporting them as they faced certain death. The two services (active HIV care and palliative care) will separate in the timeframe we are here and that transition will certainly shape our experience. The layers of politics, both Tanzanian and Wazunga will take some time to understand. We will go gently and learn more than we give for quite some time.The boys have already made friends, partly via Zach and Max, but also via the now daily late afternoon game of soccer that has started. Amb and the boys wandered over to a dirt soccer field (generous description) with a ball and were quite instantly surrounded by 10- 15 boys. A couple of kids, they discovered go to the same school our boys will attend, and so there will be familiar faces. Their English is marginal, but better than our Swahili (!) and enough to make a good connection.We all plan and prepare for school next week. Turns out the school they are to attend is about a 45 minute walk out of town, so we decide to buy bikes to make the daily journey more realistic. A couple of days ago we walked up there and despite our best intentions found ourselves walking in the peak of the African sun without enough water (3 bottles was no where near what we needed). We collapsed for the rest of the day and drank drank drank. The boys seem fine with it all, and find humour in the seriously ugly green gingham shirts and green shorted uniforms, rather than despair.We are so proud of how they are doing with all of this. We can see already that they will speak Swahili much better than we will by the end. Muheza is certainly a setting where they will play with and attend school with Tanzanian kids, and that affirms for us our decision to come here, despite the currently indecipherable complexities of the work situation.
Have bought coffee beans in the market and roasted them myself for the morning brew! Ambrose says it is not up to Café Fantastico: I am awaiting the frother when Sally and Rose arrive next week and then we will have lattes.
Monday, September 15, 2008
London-Dubai-Dar Es Salaam-Muheza
We have made it this far
1) Emirates Airline is "SWEET" ( Griffin's description)
tasty food
free Economist ( after i bought one for 4 pounds in heathrow)
2) good entertainment options
3) free shaving kit for DAD
all official hoops ( immigration and customs ) jumped
no lost luggage
our driver friend Juma showed up a bit late which increased our sweating
hotels meals and buses all on time
All eyes very wide open as we have walked through Muheza and Tanga
even got a swim yesterday at the Tanga Yacht Club ( more la dee da than it sounds but pleasant just the same)
We have bought and figured out how to use cell phones and now looking into bikes for the boys to ride to achool.
school and work wont start for us officially for another week
great to have stopped moving and lugging
1) Emirates Airline is "SWEET" ( Griffin's description)
tasty food
free Economist ( after i bought one for 4 pounds in heathrow)
2) good entertainment options
3) free shaving kit for DAD
all official hoops ( immigration and customs ) jumped
no lost luggage
our driver friend Juma showed up a bit late which increased our sweating
hotels meals and buses all on time
All eyes very wide open as we have walked through Muheza and Tanga
even got a swim yesterday at the Tanga Yacht Club ( more la dee da than it sounds but pleasant just the same)
We have bought and figured out how to use cell phones and now looking into bikes for the boys to ride to achool.
school and work wont start for us officially for another week
great to have stopped moving and lugging
Thursday, September 11, 2008
No picture
Heathrow Airport
4 HOURS before our flight
Our time in UK has been a great transition
Good pints
good visits
wet weather
A slew of driving stories
Griff and I watched England 4-Croatia 1 last night -hatrick for Walcott
Travelling throgh heathrow gives you a small sense of the size of the world
Metting Karilyn and Richard in Bodenham gave us a great fell for some of the challenges ahead.
She has been very excited and optimistic about our time in Muheza
Wonderful to see \Kate and Tim ( and their Angus too)
So now off to Tanzania
We will post when it becomes possible
Heathrow Airport
4 HOURS before our flight
Our time in UK has been a great transition
Good pints
good visits
wet weather
A slew of driving stories
Griff and I watched England 4-Croatia 1 last night -hatrick for Walcott
Travelling throgh heathrow gives you a small sense of the size of the world
Metting Karilyn and Richard in Bodenham gave us a great fell for some of the challenges ahead.
She has been very excited and optimistic about our time in Muheza
Wonderful to see \Kate and Tim ( and their Angus too)
So now off to Tanzania
We will post when it becomes possible
Sunday, September 7, 2008
Wales and Simon's Birthday
The last posting of the day.
Today is Simon's 10th birthday ( double digits!!)
Clearly memorable because he is celebrating it in Wales.
For Simon, who is feeling better ( persisitent nausea seemingly the effect of mefloquine), the highlight ( obviously besides the gifts secreted from victoria) was a short horseback ride and well wishes from friends and family by phone and skype.
Griffin with First Cousin Once Removed Tilly.
A 16th century renovated farm house,fog covered, rain soaked hills.gaggles of sheep.
Leah struggled with her family's famous lemon sponge pie baked in an AGA with avariety of unique ingredients.
Today is Simon's 10th birthday ( double digits!!)
Clearly memorable because he is celebrating it in Wales.
For Simon, who is feeling better ( persisitent nausea seemingly the effect of mefloquine), the highlight ( obviously besides the gifts secreted from victoria) was a short horseback ride and well wishes from friends and family by phone and skype.
Griffin with First Cousin Once Removed Tilly.
A 16th century renovated farm house,fog covered, rain soaked hills.gaggles of sheep.
Leah struggled with her family's famous lemon sponge pie baked in an AGA with avariety of unique ingredients.
Our days with Patrick
After a day wandering around Cambridge- a highlight being Leah's haircut done in the central market area by a inexperienced but pleasant hairdresser.
After a pleasant dinner and pint at the Cambridge Blue Pub (recommended in the real ale guide)
After a surprise visit to our friends Kate and Tim (No ,the bike have not arrived yet, but Graham is still working on it)
and
After a windy, rainy, horrific (for some) drive from Cambridge to Loughbrough we had the honor to attend Patrick Baud's first ever presentation @ the Anarchist Study's Network Confrence at Loughbrough University.
Surounded by Marxists, Leninists, (probable the occatassional Trotskiite) and Anarchists, Patrick did a admirable job in presenting his theisis and responding to questions.
We said our goodbyes leaving Patrick to make more contacts and enjoy the debate at the confrence and we headed off on a epic journey to Wales.(More details to follow in next posting)
Patrick was a wonderfulconpanion in the first leg of our adventure and we wish him luck in his first year at UofT.
After a pleasant dinner and pint at the Cambridge Blue Pub (recommended in the real ale guide)
After a surprise visit to our friends Kate and Tim (No ,the bike have not arrived yet, but Graham is still working on it)
and
After a windy, rainy, horrific (for some) drive from Cambridge to Loughbrough we had the honor to attend Patrick Baud's first ever presentation @ the Anarchist Study's Network Confrence at Loughbrough University.
Surounded by Marxists, Leninists, (probable the occatassional Trotskiite) and Anarchists, Patrick did a admirable job in presenting his theisis and responding to questions.
We said our goodbyes leaving Patrick to make more contacts and enjoy the debate at the confrence and we headed off on a epic journey to Wales.(More details to follow in next posting)
Patrick was a wonderfulconpanion in the first leg of our adventure and we wish him luck in his first year at UofT.
Goodbye
As can be seen we made it to the airport.Some of the afore mentioned friends (assistants) came to the airport to make sure we actually got off and weren't going to be a bother anymore.The big adversity at this stage was the weight limit on our luggage.
Packing for a trip of this length, with 3 legs (Tanzania, Turkey, Cycling in Eastern Europe) had significant packing challenges.
The greatest weight factor was books. Reading will be a new found luxury after the last 6 months and even though we will not be doing a large formal home schooling program (This next bit is a secret to the boys), there will be some academic expectation and Leah had done a significant amount of research (with Eva's assistance) and there was significant weight attributable to educational supplies. Toiletries, firstaid suppiles, medical needs, some light camping gear, palliative care teaching supplies, soccerballs ( yes yes we deinflated them) and a little bit of clothing added up to over 200 pounds of stuff.
In contrast to many of Ambrose's departures we gave ourselves loads of time so the reshuffle and repack was not under any time stress.
The flights were uneventful with a highlight being our Calgary-London leg being undersubscribed and there was extra seats to stretch out on so we all got a few hours before landing.
From touchdown to arriving at King's Cross train station was only 2.5 hours including immigration, non-customs, left luggage, changing money and a 23 stop tube ride. Heavy schlepping (sp) but otherwise easy and Patrick met us as planned.
The flights were uneventful with a highlight being our Calgary-London leg being undersubscribed and there was extra seats to stretch out on so we all got a few hours before landing.
From touchdown to arriving at King's Cross train station was only 2.5 hours including immigration, non-customs, left luggage, changing money and a 23 stop tube ride. Heavy schlepping (sp) but otherwise easy and Patrick met us as planned.
With Thanks
Before i begin ( although this has actually ben added after this page was initially posted) we need to let you know that the title of our blog is a puzzle of words and languages pertinent to our travels which describe our adventure concisely. Please e-mail your answers to us and we will post the winner and the winning solution when it arrives . good luckPlease note our flickr link for add pictures that you dont see on our blogs is http://www.flickr.com/photos/tanzania08/
So we are off (i will try and use spellcheck) goodbyes occurred for days and weeks.
The above picture was treats and goodbyes from Saanich ( i am even using CAPITALS) Peninsula Hospital. Thanks to Maureen for organizing, Dawn for finding budget allocation for the treats (did she know about this?) and everyone who attended, signed the card or sent regrets.
We had a similar party at Sally and Rose's with friends the week before (Sally and Deb organized) with pot luck deliciousness.
One commonality of both was really quite unforeseen by either Leah or I and that was the generosity of everyone in making donations for us to distribute as we see fit (as we discover) in Tanzania. This generosity extended to patients and friends through our practices too.
You will have to take our word for it that we would not have made it to the next picture without the help of many, many friends and family. Hyper cleaning (deep cleaning) was much more time consuming than we could have anticipated. Those of you who know us well might nod knowingly at the thought of this process chez nous but you will have to understand that we also took this opportunity to clean, discard and organize to a greater extent than we initially envisioned. Others helped us by lending us vehicles, taking care of our children, IM/IT
support, meals....
Graham and Griffin prepared the FedEx vouchers for transport of the bicycles to Cambridge in Graham's name (employee discount !) which needed to happen also in that crazed timeframe of the countdown to departure. Yes, yes we know we owe you big Graham !!
Sadly our departure is also greatly affected by the sad news of a bicycle accident involving the son of our dear friends Susan and Phillip, and we are thinking of them constantly as they sit by David in an Oslo ICU.
So to all and everyone thanks for your help, your best wishes , your emotional support and your generosity.
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