Days 5-6: Work and Mwatex

The Nyakato Clinic where I am working is located on a plot of land bordering a textile factory called MWATEX. No scrubbers to clean the smoke and the chimney is fairly low, given the density of the smoke and the amount of crap the chimney pukes up every day.

Here's a taste. This is a view from the clinic. Where sick people are breathing.... And yes, lots of respiratory illness cases at the clinic. Just a random correlation, I guess!View from the worksite at the Patricia Ward (under construction), on a different day. As the ward is being painted inside you can literally see the soot settle on the first coat of paint.
The funny thing is they sell the fabric mostly in India, so local ideas to boycott the textile factory have pretty much died out.

Working out at the Bungalow

WOD:
x10
1 min burpees
1 min squats
1 min jumping jacks

[+100 V ups ]

My luxury gym facilities. My overjoyed face.

I better make it up Kilimanjaro dammmmmit!

Day 4 - Mon 5/17

Worked in clinic all day, at the registration/ records/ billing office. My project is to review/ re-alphabetize the files in a-z order. The system is kind of multifaceted. Removing duplicates and making sure med histories are complete and easy to find. More than 20,000 records at the clinic and it's only been open since 2006! Many new walk-in patients daily...

Lots of upset kids, but clinic does dental extractions and circumcisions so I hardly blame them. Finished up around 4, only done w/ about 25% of the files, but covered in dust and bug poo from the file cabinet.

After work, went to the local tailor in the village. It's about a 15min walk. Tailor shop is next door to fabric shop. Each is basically a room. I now have a very accurate mental image of what a sweat shop is. :D There was mucho sweat, literally and figuratively, in those shops. Anyway, I got a large swath of fabric and ordered a dress. Total cost for everything - $7.

Here is a picture of Y and me with the tailor shop staff. They are fantastic and super friendly. If you are in Nyakato, you MUST go spend your shillings there. :)

Day 3 - Sun the 16

First real weekend day. Jet lag made me get up way early so I did some chores. Chores are therapeutic (Frank stop reading now lest you get any ideas) around here. Loads of laundry, sweeping and taking out the trash - 3 cans: one of burnables (paper etc) to the burn pit, one of plastic/metal to the bury pit, and one of perishables (i.e. food) to the compost pile. National brand (Kilimanjaro) beer and plastic water bottles (Dasani) are kept for return to manuf. for a refund.

Was peeling potatoes in the kitchen and saw a family of mongooses sniffing around front yard. There are snakes around here they eat and also bugs, obviously.

L, Y, and M, other volunteers, arrived from safari today. They were thrilled with the trip.

Just before bed, finished my first book started here: "Adventures of the Hunt Sisters" or something. It's okay but has this quote that I can't get out of my head: "...hope is neither false nor true but a kind of happiness in itself, a fuel that carries us towards our dreams."

Day 2 - Saturday - Worked at Clinic

Got a tour of the clinic on Sat (busy) and worked the day in registration, filing patient records. There are 3 different filing systems and over 20,000 records. Looks like patients have the option of keeping their original record with them or leaving it at the clinic. Interesting, from the perspective of privacy...

Chief complaints seem to be malaria and typhoid, with lots of suspected malaria. some reluctance to get HIV tests, but without outreach to encourage and de-stigmatize it, I'm not entirely surprised. I WAS surprised to learn that condom use is believe (locally) to do very little for preventing HIV transmission and MORE surprised to learn that this is true, because someone came up with the bright idea of reusing the condoms instead of buying them time and time again. Tell me again about why the free market is better than subsidized access to certain health care needs?? ;) Clinic does (and plans to do more) outreach and education to local students, although resources are scarce. Clinic also does dental extractions.

Overall - very very busy, but patients are tremendously patient. Service appears affordable but not free. Groups of children come in from nearby schools and orphanages. Info about the clinic was originally advertised in town (Mwanza) but now mainly spread by word of mouth by distributing flyers to women at the local markets (seems more effective).

More later...

Day 1: Working on the Patricia Ward

I spent Friday painting a suite in the new Patricia Ward for clinic patients. Right now the clinic is outpatient only, trying hard to expand (nearest hospital is at 120%-140% capacity).

I had neither ventilation nor a mask, so please excuse my paint-huffed crazyface. The electrician who took my picture was laughing. But I learned words from the other workers - nusu is half (i.e. I need another half a bucket of paint, yo) and nzuri is good (i.e. good job finishing the painting without passing out).

P.S.: Note how much the gloves have helped ensure I don't get any paint on myself. Yes, that white splotch in my hair is paint, shuddup.

Fire Ants for Breakfast

This is near the end of the rainy season in Tanzania. The day I arrived saw some rain. The ants don't like the rain because it floods their little ant caves and their little ant babies get the sniffles. Or something. So they "migrate" something around 10 feet to a lightly higher elevation (i.e. out of the mud puddle). Of course, the 10 feet they choose are exactly across the path from my bungalow to Paula's house, i.e. my breakfast trail. Uuugghh...

Did I mention fire ants can eat your freakin' leg off? So yeah, I BROAD JUMPED my butt over those guys. I must have set some kind of record for "jumping over fire ants en route to breakfast." Tough day. (Second pic is zoomed in. They way bigger than regular ants!)