The adventure continues here in my little slice of the middle of nowhere. Last week the safari ended well with Iringa like I said in my last post becoming my new obsession due to all of the white people and the availability of things like milkshakes and lattes. We spent one night in Mbeya at a new hotel that for 40,000 Shillings a night (roughly 25 dollars ) we got a massive room with two couches and two massive African chairs a full size fridge and freezer and a connecting room with a king size bed and most importantly a TV that had American channels. I got to watch Teen Mom and Ellen as well as CNN, my roommate didn’t much care about that but I was once again in heaven. it’s the small things in life right?
Coming back from the safari and all the luxuries we had for the week was a little rough, and to make it worse this week at school all of the student teachers had left so now there are only 5 teachers for the close to 400 students . This week also happens to be form 4 testing, which is the two week long process where the form 4 take subject tests to determine if they can continue on to further education. I thought testing in America was intense little did I know. When I showed up to school Monday morning I was greeted by two army men in full fatigues with their semi automatic weapons loaded and hanging on their arms. They never leave the school or the tests for the next two weeks. They sleep in our headmasters office to make sure no one tries to “sabotage” the tests as my headmaster said. Needles to say everyone has been really busy this week and I have been left alone in the staff room all day with just my new rifiki the skeleton to keep me company.
Now to where the adventure starts yet again. When we were coming back from our safari I decided to stay with two of the other volunteers in Isongole, while my roommate went home. When I got home Sunday she was in BAADDD shape. Monday morning they took her down to our hospital in Isoko where she proceeded to know more than some of the doctors and was advising the doctors on what kind of tests she needed. Eventually they told her she had Dysentery (you might be wondering who actually gets Dysentery anymore, apparently our small piece of “paradise” is a breeding ground for the amebas, I have decided that my occasional intake of alcohol kills all the amebas…at least I hope) They gave her some medicine and we thought that would be the end of that. Little did we know how much worse it could get. Yesterday I was at school reading and trying tog et a tan because Wednesdays are pointless and I only teach for 40 minutes in the afternoon, when she called saying she needed me to come home because she was feeling really bad. I rushed home and when I saw her she looked like a hot mess, and we made the decision that we needed to go to Mbeya the “big city” to a real hospital to get checked out. Being in Africa and in our remote place getting anywhere was bound to be difficult. I called our boss in Dar, Ashley and had her work her connection while we tried to make something happen on our end. This all started at 9 A.M btw. Finally at 11:30 Ashley called to say that a car had left a village an hour and a half away and would be there as fast as they could. In the meantime our headmaster had come over and provided me with his version of why she was sick and what we should do. He informed me that she had gotten Dystenary from the change in climate he was sure of it and that when one of us is sick it is as though he is sick…he is a very philosophical man let me tell yah. He then informed us that we needed to go to the hospital in Isoko to wait for the ride, much against our protests.
When we got to the hospital in Isoko after waiting 45 minutes for a car to come up the mountain, they proceeded to tell Gretchen that (this is slightly vulgar but they said this in all seriousness keep it in mind) that her diarrhea was her body crying, just from another end. I could not contain myself at this comment and had to excuse myself.. Also I forgot to mention there is a white German doctor who is currently working at the hospital. Before you get the wrong picture in your mind like I did, let me tell you he is an old creepy dude who kind of reminds me of that creepy uncle in movies. I was hoping for the young cute doctors without boarders type, but of course this is what I get. Anyway he also comes in to check on her and proceeds to tell us his life story and about the “predicament” he is in with his 30 year old African lover that he cant take back to Germany because the people there just wouldn’t understand. The entire time he is telling me this I am confused as to what it has to do with anything, but that has become a typical thought. Finally after 4 hours of being held hostage at this hospital while the doctor was writing a letter to the doctors at the hospital in Mbeya we are allowed to leave. It is now 4 and we are off to Mbeya in the sweet African style ambulance (a land cruiser with a bull horn siren on top and a flashing red light, which we got to ride with on the entire time) Little did we know that we had some stops to make on the way to Mbeya.
One stop left us talking to the district education officer, a LARGE woman who we met the first day we came down here, who we also thought hated us, after yesterday I will never think that again. One of the first things she said to me was Sara (she thinks its my name, I don’t correct her because I am semi scared of her because of her size) you have very nice legs. It was a creepy comment yes, but hey it was a compliment none the less. During this time she is trying to force feed my roommate uji, which is a porridge like liquid. The education officer then gets even creepier by sitting and staring at me and repeatedly telling me that I am beautiful and being at Kafule has made me even more beautiful and she wished she could have a picture of me to keep. At that I was sufficiently creeped out and ready to get away from her. At this point it is 6:30 and we were still not at the hospital and my poor roommate was not doing so well. After this stop we picked up 10 people who got to cram in the back of the ambulance with me and we were off for the final leg of the trip to the hospital. Finally at 10 pm we arrived at the legit hospital outside of Mbeya city. We were told that she would be staying in a VIP room and had no idea what that meant. When we walked in we found out, this room is massive, pretty much the size of our house. I even got my own bed and didn’t have to sleep on a couch or chair like I was picturing. All of it only costs 30,000 shillings a day. Speaking of costs there was a chart in one of the doctors rooms that we talked to and at this hospital you can get a tooth pulled for three dollars, have a minor surgery for ten dollars and get an amputation for 25 dollars. Would I ever have any of those things done here…absolutely not but it was funny to see the prices for these things. So we are still sitting ehre waiting to find out the results of all of her tests. This morning we have been greeted by so many people who want to know how Gretchen is doing. It is nice to know that everyone is so concerned and making sure we are well taken care of, that’s one thing you have to love about the Tanzanian people. That’s all for now who knows how long we will be here, but so far I cant complain. We have electricity, running water and I have an extremely comfortable bed. I hope that i enver have a real emergency here in Tanzania because I for sure would not be able to make it
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