Our trip to the Serengeti was incredible. The beauty of the Serengeti was strangely familiar, as much of it was prairie land. Obviously, the zebras and giraffes weren’t part of our summer drives across Iowa, but anyone who has ever driven across Kansas or Nebraska knows that Serengeti, the Maasai word for “endless plain” isn’t too far off. Because of the size of the park it was more difficult to see animals up close than in Ngorongoro Crater, but it seemed more natural and thus more interesting.

We had the opportunity to stay in a tented camp out in the middle of the Serengeti. According to the national park rules, camps like this have to move every three months and ours had just moved two weeks ago, so we couldn’t have breakfast any earlier that 7:30 for fear that the animals would come.

As most of you know, President Bush came to Tanzania last week. It was interesting, because even though I’m in the country I heard most of the news of his trip from friends and family back in the states. He didn’t come to Karatu to see us but his visit did essentially shut down the town of Arusha, two hours away. Ken, another volunteer, was leaving to travel to Zanzibar that day. He had to walk about 2.5 miles with his luggage to get to the Arusha Airport because the one road to the airport was closed. The president did spend a lot of time focused on malaria projects, which is, of course, an important part of our project. I think some people around the office are hoping we can use that picture of him wrapped in the bed net to make a poster.

At work, I’ve been continuing to work on organizing the MAISHA training and I am eagerly awaiting the results of a Secret Shopper Survey we conducted last Saturday. The results of that survey will help us assess if the first Drug Shopkeeper training was successful and give us an idea of what we should focus on for the next round of training.

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.

Ngorongoro Crater

Back to Karatu

After two days of travel, I arrived in Karatu Tuesday evening, and because all of the sleep I got was on planes, I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my life. The next day I took it easy, but did visit my friends in the office. I had almost forgotten how much fun everyone here is while I was gone.
On Thursday, it was back to work, and Friday, Karen, the other volunteer, conducted a planning workshop. It was really great. It can be difficult to track people down to make plans when they are out in the field, so it was wonderful to be able to sit down with everyone and make sure our plans all work together.
After work on Friday, I went out for a jog, and upon returning home my friend Margaret was at my house. She told me there was a man under a tree across the street that was quite sick. He had been throwing up for three days, and had walked from a town that is over six hours away by car without eating or drinking. He had been working in Serengeti, but got sick and was trying to return to his home near Mt. Kilimanjaro. Needless to say he was quite confused.
I made him some oral-rehydration solution. He was able to drink it, but soon vomited again, so we took him to the health center for some additional help. Because his pulse, blood pressure, and temperature were normal they asked him to come back the next day if he was still sick. There were some men in town who tried to help him find some food and a bed. My guess is that he had an electrolyte abnormality, and needed IV fluids, but I did not have access to the necessary lab tests or an IV, so I couldn’t do much more to help. Unfortunately, I don’t know what became of him.
This weekend, Karen, Veronica, and I went for a short hike to the Elephant Caves and a waterfall. We were a little disappointed that we didn’t seen any wild buffalo or elephants because we could tell they were nearby, but next weekend we will be going to Ngorongoro Crater, and the following weekend we will go to Serengeti, and we won’t have any difficulty spotting wildlife there.
MIHV is planning a half-marathon for malaria awareness on April 25. I am excited about this because, initially we had planned to organize a full marathon, which I had no intention of training for. Karatu is about a mile above sea level and the surrounding area is very hilly, not a good place for a first marathon, if I were interested in participating in a marathon in the first place. We changed the plan because many local marathoners are training for a marathon about one month after ours. They were interested in a training race, but running another marathon would have been too much. This works out great for me personally because I think a half marathon is something I can do, so I look forward to participating, even though I probably will be the last one to finish.
This week, a new volunteer, Ken, is arriving. He is a fourth year medical student from Temple University. We are planning to work in the clinics at some of the local health centers and do some community observation regarding water sources, latrine availability, standing water, cooking fires, etc. I will also be putting the finishing touches on our MAISHA training materials, for a training at the beginning of March and working with the District Pharmacist to plan the next round of Drug Shopkeeper trainings.