Since I last wrote, the volunteer population in the Minnesota office has doubled. Ken, a fourth year medical student from Temple, and Katherine, a soon to be first year medical student, have arrived. Our trip to Serengeti was postponed until next weekend, so we’ve been keeping busy in other ways. I’ve been working on getting a couple research projects started regarding maternal alcohol and water quality, and I’ve been preparing for MAISHA training and a survey for drug shopkeepers that will help me design the next curriculum for shopkeepers who have already had one round of training.

Our trip to Ngorongoro was incredible. I was able to see lions and rhinos, which I hadn’t seen in my travels yet. In fact, the lions came as close as 10 feet from our vehicle. There were also a lot of baby zebra, lions, warthogs, and even baby rhino around. It was hard to shake the song “Circle of Life” out of my head.

The drama troupe that performs at the monthly market day had to conclude their performance early due to rain so the new volunteers missed it. Ken and Karen will leave before the next market day so we went to a local hotel where they perform on Saturday night. They performed a traditional dance from Zanzibar, Southern Tanzania, and did some acrobatics as well. At one point during the act one of the performers bends himself in various directions to fit through a narrow metal cylinder. I think it was pretty stressful for Katherine, who was quite concerned that he would get stuck.

Sunday morning two of the Peace Corps volunteers in the area came over for brunch. Veronica, the Maternal-Newborn Care assistant manager, is staying with us right now because her house isn’t quite ready yet. The chapati she makes is very crepe-like, so needless to say brunch was quite fancy and delicious.

I also found out this weekend that my mother, my sister, and my uncle will be coming to visit me in Tanzania in mid-March, so I’m quite excited about that.

This coming week, we’ll be conducting a secret shopper survey in the drug shops, heading to Rhotia, a nearby village, to do some clinical work and community observation, and President Bush is coming to Tanzania, so we are hoping he will visit us in Karatu on the way to the Crater.