I'm singing in the rain...

At last the raining season has begun! We joyfully welcome it since it will bring a more favourable weather. It will be nice being able to stay outside more, now when it is no longer incredibly hot during the day! And maybe our soar noses will heal when the air is no longer so dry…

We greeted the rain in a good manner by going out for a walk just before the thunders and showers started. The result was an enjoyable but wet experience, a lot of peculiar glances from the villagers and completely drenched clothes.

In was nice to come inside and put on the fleece jacket! 

A drenched Linnea.

When we came home we warmed up some rose hip soup and ate it together with coconut cream and almond bisques. It tasted like a gourmet chef had made it! Thank you Linnea’s parents who sent the delicacies to us. 

Yummy yummy!

We hereby pronounce you “Lizard Mountain”

Last saturday we went to the Monkey Mountain together with the three medical students from Umeå. Maggan is in Dar es Salaam so we thought that it would be nice to show them some of the surroundings here in Nkinga. In addition, company is always enjoyable!

We have walked to the Monkey Mountain several times since Maggan showed it to us, but we have never seen even a single tiny monkey. However, we have seen loads of lizards… therefore we would now like to rename the Monkey Mountain to the Lizard Mountain! It seems like a more suitable name.

During our promenades we have stumbled across some amazingly fascinating lizards, have a look at these ones:

Why just choose one color when there are so many beautiful?

This lizard is sitting on a Baobab tree.

We are wondering if this might be the female of the same species as the one above.

A dying chameleon that we found on the road.

A close up on the chameleon.

A not so colorful lizard, even though very fascinating!

The totally amazing turquoise lizard. 

 And since we heard that lizards eat insects they have become our best friends. Long live the lizards!

Pigs’ heaven!

So, we had a great day today! It started with a day trip to a small village about an hour from Nkinga. We actually helped with the vaccination of children (oral vaccines, we didn’t dare give any shots) and we got to see more of the surroundings.

But the greatest joy of all – we had bacon for supper! For the first time in 2 months, we had bacon!  

Weighing of children under the tree.

The Sunset with a big S

No further comments are needed. Just enjoy the beautiful view!

Linnea & Maria = The sun dried raisins

Some great milestones of our Tanzanian visit:

• >50 % of 13 weeks! That is how long we have been in Tanzania. There is now less time left until we fly home than what we have spent away from home. 

• +40 degrees celsius! That is how warm it was today! We almost vaporized in the superhot sun... And just a small note: there was not even the slightest breeze today. 

• >1200 side views! That is how many times you guys have visited our blog! We are impressed and very happy for this!

Oh, oinking babes!

Umoja Secondary School

One could almost believe that we have visited a zoo but in fact we have "only" been to Umoja Secondary School. The reason for the confusion is all the animals we saw. The school is famous for its big cultivating areas and all of its pigs, hens and cows. They use them as a source of food but also for their agricultural classes. Umoja Secondary School has a very good reputation and it was recently ranked to be the 63^rd best in the country out of over 3 000. Impressing!

Three cute babes!

Do not take a closer look at this one..

One of Linnea's favorite babes.

The pigs went crazy when we visited them. They oinked as if we were abusing them… of course we did not do that! David who guided us through the school property told us that the pigs thought we would feed them, hence the oinking.

The traditional Tanzanian cow.

The exotic (in their eyes) cows were very similar to Swedish cows.

After visiting the school we stopped along the road to sit under some mango trees to have a “fika”. Maggan's maid had baked some delicious almost donut like pastry, called andazi. She really knows how to cook and bake!

When we came home, the sun was going down and we were ready for a quiet evening but the ones who read the blog on Monday knows that did not happen…

Last but not least, we have to show you these cute signs that were placed every 100-meter around the schools’ property. Remember to never underestimate the importance of knowing how to speak English!

Kitenge kitenge!

In Africa, people dress very nice! Or at least the women do! They wear fabric (called kitenge) of every color and pattern. They mix the fabrics in ways that no one would do in Sweden but it looks amazing!

This is one shop at the market, selling the fabric.

Every piece is 1,5-3 meters long and costs between 5 000 – 10 000 Tanzanian shilling (25 – 50 Swedish crowns), depending on what material it is made of and how it has been processed.

Maria in the middle of the kitenge.

All the vitenge we bought... so far!

This is us in the dresses we have had made from the kitenge we have bought! Many more are to come!

Boot camp a la Nkinga

Tonight was one of our toughest nights so far! Matias, one of the nursing students, pushed us through an incredibly exhausting exercise session. And he promised us to have another one tomorrow! We will  probably sleep like babies tonight... Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bed bugs bite!

May we please introduce you to Nkinga Hospital

Forgive us for the rudeness of not properly presenting you to our surroundings here at Nkinga hospital. We would now like to take you through our current working place: the maternity ward at Nkinga hospital. Lets begin with the entrence, here it is:

This is the first courtyard you arrive to after walking through the entrance to the hospital.

Straight ahead you can see the out patient clinic (OPC), this place is usually crowded during the day. People are sitting here and waiting to be seen by the health personel. Nearly 60 000 people visited the outpatient clinic in 2009. If you go to the right (instead of forward) you will come here:

To the left is the passage to the maternity ward which is where we spend most of our time. The maternity ward was built in 1977, so its not exactly up to date. Here is the entrence to the ward:

Please note the sign hanging from the ceiling.

If we continue a little bit ahead and then to the left we will arrive at the reception desk of the maternity ward. Here it is:

The not so big but usually very busy reception.

Here are some of the health personel of the maternity ward. 

The moment when we took the pictures above the personel were sitting and folding compresses. We guess that you would not have guessed that the compresses were folded by hand, but guess what; that is how it is done here!

If we go outside again we will come to this small yard, to the left are the private rooms for patients with gynecological problems and to the right are the postnatal rooms.

One of the newly delivered women really wanted us to take a photo of her. 

Nkinga hospital is quite old, it was built in 1961. Except for the maternity ward they have three other wards; the medical-, the surgical and the pediatric ward. In addition they have a dental, an eye, an antenatal and an HIV clinic. The hospital has a bed capacity of 150 beds, but it is normally more patients than that! The inpatient services in 2009 amounted to almost 13 000. More than 4 000 patients of these patients were obstetric/gynecological patients. Those are the ones which we focus our project on!

So this is Nkinga hospital. We are glad you met each other, and please feel free to ask any questions! So long...

If only...

...every insect was as beautiful as this grasshopper. Then we would not dislike them... as much as we really do!

A couple of days ago when we were on our way home from the hospital office we ran into the most disgusting beetle ever seen. It was nearly 10 cm long, 3 cm width and 4 cm high. Imagine that one being red with white dots on it! Much more fun and much less frightening!

Muhtasari wa kiswahili (Summary of Swahili)

Time is passing by quickly, and we have already been here a month! Our days are focused at working with the project. Since this is currently not a very time consuming business, we have time to stalk the maternity ward, do yoga and take walks. Needless to say – we have some free time on our hands. And what better way to spend it than with our new Swahili teacher, Astrida! She is a teacher at the nursing school here, but she agreed to take us on and teach us on the side of her real job. She is a very nice person!

Astrida is teaching us at home.

Speaking of nice people, Maggan is one of those! Maggan is a nurse who has worked here at Nkinga on and off for about 30 years. She has helped us a great deal during the week she has been here! 

Last tuesday we went to her place to meet with her friend who is a seamstress. We are going to have some dresses and skirts sewn! Besides her helping out Swedish students and working here, she also is involved in the maintenance and development of the hospital and its surroundings, and she helps the hospital financially a whole lot. 

To help the hospital economy she has a foundation called “Nkingas vänner” (www.nkinga.se). The foundation gathers money through private donations and distributes it to hospital where the need is greatest. Amongst other things the foundation helps people in need of medical care who are unable to pay. The money has also financed the renovation and expansion of the ward for premature babies. The work that is done here really is amazing (more on that coming up)! The foundation accepts donations of all values, so if you find you have too much money on your hands, check out that website!

The most marvelous Maggan.

Mountains without Monkeys

Three days have passed since the weekend ended, still we would very much like to tell you about it since we had a very nice weekend. We woke up incredible early on Saturday morning. The reason for this was that we had decided to visit The Monkey Mountain. Isn’t that a hilarious name? We were to walk the 3 kilometres to the mountain, so we had to wake up really early since we did not want to melt in the sun. Usually it is over 30 degrees during the day so we try to stay inside during the hottest hours. 

Maggan and four newly arrived nursing students from Sweden came with us, or maybe we came with them… Anyway it was very nice with company and we enjoyed the beautiful Tanzanian environment during the walk. 

Someone’s house… 

We met these young boys during the walk. They were carrying wood to build fences.

Who is surprised to hear that this is the Toothbrush bush?

The magnificent and gigantic Baobab tree. 

The gorgeous flowers of the Baobab tree.

Finally there, The Monkey Mountain did not live up to its name; we did not see any monkeys. But we lay down on the cliffs, had a “fika” and enjoyed the tolerably hot morning sun. 

The view from The Monkey Mountain.

We took a walk to the market later in the afternoon to see what it could offer. It was filled with fabrics of various colours and patterns. We bought some fabrics and we have grand plans for them! In addition there were a lot of second hand clothes (maybe from Sweden?) that they sold for practically nothing. 

Around the corner of this market is the food market, which is where the farmers come with their vegetables, fruits and everything else eatable they want to sell. Look at these creepy dried fish:

Hope you guys had a good weekend as well! XoXo