This Saturday we were invited to go to a local wedding reception, by a local friend who knew the groom. The wedding itself started around 9am, but the reception dinner around food wasn’t served until 10pm, and dancing continued far past when we left. Aside from a few gift giving ceremonies it was very close to a US wedding, and apparently very small at only around 100 people at the reception (more may have been at the service). It was of course all in swahili, but still very interesting to watch.
Tag Archives: Volunteering
Week 5
This week was fairly uneventful, which was actually really nice. The new group is here, and they are generally older (late 20s-71!), though one 19 year old on gap year. They are very serious and everything is a big to-do, not laid back at all. They’re all on safari right now so its only 4 of us at the house, which is actually quite nice. We went for Indian food last night at a restaurant called “el rancho,” which is obviously, not Indian, but the food was really good! Its incredible how cheap things are here. We went for drinks at the Kindoroko hotel, took a taxi to dinner, had dinner, then another taxi to glacier (a bar), and another taxi home, ends up being about $20-25 per person, for the entire night. We’ve made friends with one of the taxi drivers who we’ll call whenever we need rides, we call it our african dial 6, and the most expensive a ride can be is 5000 tsh (or about $4). Today we are supposed to go to a wedding, which is really exciting! One of our friends (local) is going and invited us along.
The First Month
I’ve officially been in Moshi for one month now (two to go)!! I cannot believe how fast time has gone!
Last week we started shadowing a surgeon at the hospital (Dr. Ruga), through his surgical and maternity rounds and consultations. Though less hands on than before it has been very interesting to see how the medical system works up close. For example, many people who come in with fractures are set up in beds with a roap and rocks to hold them in place…interesting. Today we went into surgery, but only for a bit since our time ran out. All I can say is the theater was straight out of a horror movie, windows open to the outside and not sterile at all…they couldn’t find stirrups for the man’s leg so Genny and a nurse had to physically hold his legs back, the smells made us both almost pass out. To put him “under” they just loaded him up with vallium. It was a tough day! Not sure what’s happening the rest of the week, but all day friday is in surgery, so we’ll see how that goes. We can’t understand how not every person there is dying from infection! The burn ward especially.
Week 3…So Far
This week has been quite eventful! After fully recovering on Monday, Tuesday we got to go to the Morgue at work. I wasn’t sure what my reaction would be, but I was fine. Apparently there are two “coolers” for general deaths (disease, old age, and suicide-which is unfortunately high here) and another for police cases, which most are never solved due to lack of organization and a lot of corruption. Later that day we went to KCMC, the private hospital next to the medical school.
Colliding With The Earth 