Bon apetit

Food is life! The world would be very sad place without it, not to mention non-existant...

So what do we eat here i Tanzania? The obvious answer might be; whatever our maid Lucy serves us! But what does she serve us? We guess that we do not eat very traditional Tanzanian food. However, the food is great! 

Here are some of the dishes we have been served:

• Tomato soup with pancakes
• Spaghetti bolognese
• Potatoes or rice with meat stew
• Home made pommes frites with roasted chicken
• Spiced rice with cabbage & tomatoes
• Fried potatoes with egg
• Spiced rice with spinach
• Potatoes and union gratin
• Chapati

The flavor of some of the Swedish dishes differ from back home, about two kilos of butter have been used during our three weeks here... Not very good for Linneas measurements and not very good for Marias lactose intolerance. But we really appreciate having Lucy around, helping us exist! :)

Mia mabusu na kumbatia

It's raining frogs...

Yesterday a small frog creeped up from its hiding place when it was raining. During the short shower the frog found the perfect place to sit at; the gutter. Luckily I hade the camera ready so I took this cute photo of it. Isn't it adorable?

Who would have guessed that a frog could live in this extremely dry and hot climate? I wouldn't! 

Once you pop you can't stop!

This monday has been an unusual day and we have some new African experiences:

1. We have spoken Swedish to a physical (!!) person here in Tanzania. Maggan has arrived and we are very glad for that. She invited us over to her house and we had a lovely time!

2. We have seen clouds... halleluja! It was the first day that was not incredibly hot, only 30 degrees in the evening. This might not be so interesting for you, but it is actually the first time since we arrived here in Nkinga! So far...

3. We have observed three deliveries! Seeing small baby heads popping out of women is never boring!

Over and out! :)

The stork has arrived...

PPPPPPP - Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance

Today we went to Nzega by ourselves, without a guide! Last time we went there, one of the hospital chauffeurs drove us and guided us through town. However, after the last visit we felt brave enough to take the bus. After all it is a small town and quite close (just one hour). The best part was that it costed less than a seventh to take the bus than to have a private car with a chauffeur. A big plus!

Our plan was to try to upgrade our internet modem to a fast one (we failed on that one), to buy wine (succeeded!), to buy cookies, chocolate and chips (you never know who might visit) and to buy souvenirs (failed; Nzega is not such a tourist friendly town)...

We failed on 50 % of our goals but we had fun! We tried some new "Tanzanian" specialties; cake and petit choux. But we also tried some real Tanzanian specialties; sesame and syrup balls. They were delicious! 

On the bus.

The not so modern bus. But at least we felt at home - travelling in a Scania bus!

Very colorful buses and Tanzanian women carrying their luggage the traditional way!

This is what the town looked like.

Food market!

More food!

The restaurant where we had lunch.

We had lunch at a very small restaurant, if we where in Sweden it would not have been called a restaurant and the Food and Health Department would certainly not have approved with their facilities. The kitchen is just to the right of Maria in the picture above. Even though the facilities were not the best, the light lunch (chapati and coke) we had was good. It only costed 1000 Tanzanian Shilling which is less than 5 Swedish crowns. Another big plus!

The freak show is on the road!

When we walked home yesterday we were followed by about 15 children. The kids yelled after us: Mzungo (=white people)! Habari (=how are you)?! Give me money!

We were both taken aback, not at all being used to being followed by a herd of kids. We said “kwaheri” (=good bye) when we closed the door in their faces, and they settled down on our porch on the porch furniture talking and playing. When we left the house to take a long walk in “town”, they followed us some more, although they got tired of it rather fast.

Our fan club...?

When walking in the village people look at us. Some stare. A lot of people smile, a lot of people greet us. It is an understatement to say that we do not go unnoticed in this town.

On the walk, two women walked with us and asked us to follow them (they did not speak a word of English, but thanks to the dictionary we finally figured out sort of what they were saying), and we think they took us to meet some of their relatives. It was a different experience. 

All this making us afraid our ego’s will be huge when we come back home! 

Sitting in the little hut with our new random friends.

At the hospital, we also feel a bit strange, although in a different way. Everybody is really welcoming, they’re helpful when they can be. There is a nursing school by the hospital, so they are used to students. But they are not used to students who are trying “to make a study about maternity care”, they are not used to students who are only there to observe. We have tried to explain (time and again), and they usually nod and smile and say that they understand, but then they are surprised when we don’t feel comfortable taking a persons history in Swahili, or when we don’t want to perform an examination we've never done before.

Linnea in front of the hospital entrence.

What is more (and worse), is that they are disappointed in us. They are overworked, they care for more patients then they have room or time for. And we are two medical students, and we aren’t helping them. I can’t say I’m surprised at their disappointment.

Sing hallelujah!

Our grandmothers should be very proud of us – we are going to church every Sunday! (The Sunday mass is about the only entertainment there is in this village of 14,000 inhabitants). The mass is quite different from a Swedish one! The preacher is very passionate in his preaching, the singing is loud, the praying is loud, and members of the audience cry out “hallelujah” when they think someone said something worthy of the word. Also, the church is crowded!

This is the road leading from the hospital to the church. Our house is just e few hundred metres behind the church.

The church entrence.

Our first fight

...was against this disgusting creature. Using insect spray and a flapper we finally won. Thanks to Linnea's courage and heroic achievement the spider is now flat as the pancakes we ate to dinner! Let us hope that we won't meet any of his or her fellows ever again.

The width of the spider was at least 6 cm.

Same same but different

Five days have pasted since we arrived at the small village Nkinga, this is where we will stay  until the end of November. It seems like quite a long time right now but the time will probably fly by... 

To come here we took the bus from Arusha, it took 11 hours. The bus was crowded, it was very warm (over 30 degrees) but it could have been worse... For example, we did not receive much african massage since the roads were fairly good.

Everything in Nkinga is quite different from Sweden. It is a small town with about 14 000 inhabitants, there are no supermarkets and our shower has only one stream. We have our own house and a maid, the avocados are huge and the personnel at the hospital has been very nice to us. They are very keen on giving us a good stay.

Here are some photos from our house which is close to the hospital:

Our small house.

Our bedroom with the mosquito nets.

Standing in the living room in our working clothes.

The tanzanians are relaxed, very relaxed one might say since it took more than one hour just to buy a SIM-card for the mobile broadband. When we where waiting, a guy gave us some comforting words; "You will get used to it.."

As soon as we leave our small house we are watched and glared at, it is an understatement to say that we stick out from the rest of the population in this small town. Children are calling "mzungo" after us, it means white person... And yes we are white and we will probably still be white when we are coming back to Sweden. There is really no time for sunbathing, we are at the different wards during the day and when we come home, we either work with the project or try to get into contact with you guys!

Hakuna Matata

Finally! We have Internet!

It feels good to be connected to the rest of the world. It is a bit slow but it works and that is the only thing that matters right now. We just have to learn to be patient and adapt to the tanzanian saying "Hakuna matata"...

African Massage

Four days on the new continent have passed. Three of these days have been spent on a safari. We’ve been to Tarangire, Ngorongoro and Lake Manyara. The three nationalparks are quite different from each other; Tarangire was the first one we visited. The drive there introduced us to the phenomenon of “African massage”, which is what you get when you drive on a road full of holes or bumps or when you’re driving on something that’s a bit short of being a road. 

The Tarangire Nationalpark was full of animals and life! Probably this wasn’t because this park has more animals than the other ones, rather the animals crowded up by the one river flowing through the park. Here are some pictures from the Tarangire park.

 A green oasis in the otherwise dry climate.

 Marabou storks, wild beests, zebras and giraffs flocked around the river!

 Same feathers flock together?

The Ngorongoro Crater was very flat, with mountains surrounding the entire crater. In there, we saw black rhinos, elephants, lions, wild beest, hyenas, zebras etc. Truly amazing!

  Water buffalo!

  Herds with hundreds of wild beests!

 The elephants were magnificent!

A lion family taking a siesta.

Some hippos relaxing in the water.

The last day of the safari was spent at Lake Manyara. Amongst others, the notorious tsetse fly lives there. Luckily though nobody got bit. Besides the 20 or so giraffes, 40 elephants, gazells, dik-diks, bushbuck and mangooses we saw, it was quite astounding being in the jungle climate. 

It really is amazing seeing these exotic animals walking around the parks, mostly they look relaxed and content! Although some showed us some attitude, like the guy on the picture below!

Africa! Here we come!

Count Down; 9h 20min

Tanzania is getting closer... We are packing our stuff back into our bags and leaving Istanbul behind. Ready to take on new adventures!