Swahili & Pizza

Most of our days are now filled with Swahili training. It is a supremely logical language but it has not been easy to learn. Age may be taking its toll on me. We are both in the slow learner classes! 

We are focusing on medical Swahili as these pictures demonstrate. They wre drawn by one of the OBs from last year!

Pulmonologist = Daktari wa mapafu 

Last night a large group of us got four taxis and headed off for pizza and beer at a local restaurant. It has the distinction of also having a miniature golf course, movie screen and playground on its premises. 

Avoid the rough here!

Lots of families here - a pretty clever idea!

Entrance to the restaurant

Pointer to the men's room

We enjoyed both the beer and the pizza. It was a nice break from the relentless memorization of Swahili training!

Dodoma - we see some of rural Tanzania

We set out for Dodoma by big bus on Saturday morning. It was a trip of some 8-10 hours. The bus was huge, air conditioned and comfortable. The road was two lanes and left a fair amount to be desired. The traffic was thick getting out of Dar.

Bill & Laurel leaving Dar.

The road goes straight to the west and finally reached the mountainous region  around Dodoma. We stopped for lunch at Ricky's Cafe in Morogoro and were not disappointed. The food was quite good as was the ice cream, a rare treat. Along the way we saw many new sights. I have posted several photos and limited commentary to give an overview. Sorry about the dirty glass by my seat!

Lots of 125cc motorbikes everywhere!

Roadside market stalls at villages

More village buildings, typical of rural construction.

Saturday street scene in a small town

Roadside nursery - food crops and ornamentals are both offered.

More nursery plants are grown in bags.

Produce stands by the road.

All petroleum is imported in refined form via ship and distributed by these ubiquitous petrol tankers. This was a weigh station on the national highway we travelled.

More rural houses made of bricks dried in the sun.

Mountains approaching

Closer

Approaching Morogoro

Gas station - looks familiar

Bus station in Morogoro - typical of regional towns that are distribution points for smaller surrounding towns.

Laurel by the window

Savannah country after leaving the mountains. The terrain is becoming drier.

Typical Baobab tree, some of the largest trees in the world in terms of girth. They store their water in their trunks leading to the weird shape - short & rotund with scant branches and leaves. For Game of Thrones fans these seem to be the model for the sacred tree at Winterfell. The joke is that God got angry with the Baobab tree at creation so he planted it upside down!

Our new digs in Dodoma for the next two weeks.

Our meeting room for classes

Inner gardens at the hotel

The grounds at our hotel. The place is modest but at least we have hot water finally. We were pleased!!!

More language instruction to follow for the next two weeks... our Swahili is coming along slowly.

Tanzania! Week 2 - graduation and more orientation

Washington has an impressive concentration of medical expertise related to the developing world. We were fortunate to hear a number of lectures from experts at State, the military, GW and Harvard about all the tropical diseases that we will both see and have an opportunity to experience first hand if we are not careful. Tanzania has many areas where malaria is hyperendemic so it received a great deal of attention. We also learned about the causes of death among Peace Corps. It was a sobering topic. DEET and mosquito nets are our new friends.

Last Wednesday our cohort of roughly 45 volunteers had a brief graduation ceremony at Peace Corps headquarters and then split up for travel to Tanzania, Malawi and Uganda. Laurel missed most of these proceedings as she had already gone to Nairobi for a week long MSF psychiatric course that was held in the outskirts of the city at a lodge adjacent to a national park. Bill left DC Wednesday evening by bus for JFK in NYC. The flights to Tanzania the next day started with a 15 hour leg from NYC to Johanesburg, South Africa followed by 3 hour jump on to Dar-es-Salaam. We met up in Dar on Saturday where we are are housed at a Catholic retreat center along with our other Tanzania bound GHSP colleagues, selected PC staff and a small number of language teachers for a non-stop series of orientation meetings.

The retreat center where we are staying.

The grounds are lovely. Flowers and Sisters abound.

Our minibus used for travel around Dar

Our room complete with a mosquito net and cold shower.

It is difficult to describe the relentlessness of the Peace Corps orientation process. It is all-encompassing and leaves little room for ad lib adventures or deviation from the script. This makes about two weeks straight of essentially fixed schedules. We are both feeling the rub of a bit we cannot spit out but understand the need to drink all that is offered. The disparate group that is our cohort of 18 volunteers and assorted spouses has slowly but surely begun to gel. 

Highlights of our week included mastering the all important greetings that grease the wheels of all Tanzanian social interactions. These run something like "Hello respected elder one. How are you this morning?" "How did you sleep?" "How is your family?" "How is your work, house, spouse, dog ....?" All  necessitate the same reply " Fine, and you?" So not much is learned in these exchanges other than neither of us are masters of Swahili after 5 days! Tanzania is an unfailingly polite society that is actually refreshingly friendly and open. We have been treated well by those we have encountered to date but are still in a Peace Corps bubble.

Dar high-rises

 Modern apt building

Dar traffic jam

We have both found many of our preconceived notions of the big african city of Dar-es-Salaam to be erroneous. Despite its poverty this is an orderly society with rules, niceties and obvious pride. The streets are quite clean and not terribly crowded as we have experienced previously in developing world capitals such as Dakka and Addis Abba. Traffic laws are respected and car horns are seldom heard despite significant delays during peak traffic times. 

Downtown Dar - lots of commerce here!

Yes, it is a bit hot during the middle of the day but not oppressively so during this winter season. Come summer we will be glad of the air conditioning we are anticipating in our apartment. 

Dhows sailing along the coast seen from Barack Obama Drive

We have been to the Peace Corps offices and gotten our bank accounts, medical exams and IDs etc. It is in a nice part of town and used to be close to the site of the US Embassy here that was bombed in 1998 along with our embassy in Nairobi.  That marked the start of the US's war with Osama Bin Laden and his followers. East Africa was the second front after Beirut. It was sobering to be reminded of the history that anchors us to a place that is a mosaic of cultures and conflicts. We are Americans and are here to represent the US to Tanzania. It came home to us in a very real way this week.

ID cards

Guard post at PC compound

We went to Muhimbili University and the Muhimbili National Hospital today for a group tour. It was much nicer than we had expected although quite sparse by US standards. We were introduced and shown around with great fanfare. Clearly there are expectations of us in our new roles that will require significant effort if we are to meet them. The pride of the Tanganian medical staff was apparent. We came away feeling encouraged and enthused. It was also nice to finally see our future apartment building and neighborhood even if it was only from the window of our minibus as we passed. It will be another two weeks before we are free and clear of orientation and settled in our own digs. 

Psych Hospital at Muhimbili

Methadone Clinic

One of three main hospital wards at Muhimbili National Hospital

In a few more days we will leave here and travel as a group to Dodoma, the capital that is about 8 hours away by bus. There we will have an additional 2 weeks of language and cross-cultural training. Before we leave we will meet with the US ambassador and be formally sworn in to the Peace Corps.

Laurel outside a clinic at MNH

Peace Corps Orientation in DC - Week One

We were not really sure who we were going to be working for this year given the unique "public-private partnership" involved in GHSP. The confusion has dissipated after a week of training at the Peace Corps office in downtown DC. We are Peace Corps Response volunteers. It has been a long week sitting for 8-10 hour sessions with presentations, group exercises and small group discussions etc.

 Ennui

 Jim from GW - a fabulous teacher.

 Henry on the right is our Tanzanian coordinator and will take care of us.

 More group exercises - this was "draw pictures of your fears and aspirations".

No shortage of material for discussion here!

There is a tremendous amount of information to absorb both about our looming jobs, teaching methods, the Peace Corps itself, medicine in Africa in general and conditions in our respective countries.

The slide above has the school calendars for 15 plus locales where our cohort of 38 volunteers will be deployed (10 in Uganda, 13 in Malawi and 15 in Tanzania). The group is predominantly in their 20's although there is a strong contingent of middle aged folks close to our age.

Our cohort

Despite some false starts this week it is clear the Peace Corps does have a system and a wealth of experience. We are optimistic this will all work.

The Boston staff of Seed Global Health from Mass General Hospital has been present for much of the week augmented by leaders from George Washington University which is across the street from our hotel. We go to the GW medical school Sim Lab Monday to practice some rusty skills and to develop some new ones (bedside ultrasound).

About 5 of the volunteers from this past year are here and have provided incredibly useful insights and answers to a myriad of questions much to their credit and our relief.

Today we took a nice early morning walk on the Mall which is quite close.

 Laurel on the Mall

Check out the plane at the upper right of the building. 

 Reflecting Pool and Lincoln Memorial

 WWII Memorial

With a full kitchen in our room and Whole Foods and Trader Joe's around the corner we have been well fed and watered. We are staying right on Washington Circle so last minute shopping has been easy although we are topped out on our weight allowances already.

Laurel heads out tomorrow for a MSF Mental Health training course in Nairobi. She will meet us with the Tanzania group once we get to Dar late next week. We have a week's training there then two additional weeks in Dodoma, the capital, before actually going to our assignments. The focus for the next week is tropical medicine. Once we are in country it is all about local language (Swahili) and Tanzanian culture.