We've now spent 4 days at the hospital in Muheza. Muheza is a small townish place which has nothing particularly of interest but has a certain charm of its own if you look closely enough. The streets are dusty (red!) and there are stalls all along the roads (and a market) which all sell pretty much the same things (seems a bit stupid to me but hey...). Walking past the butchers means that I am not going to eat any meat whilst in Muheza...vegetarianism it is... but the ribcages of animals hanging in the heat with flies all around didn't really tempt me. We've adopted a diet of tomatoes, onions, peppers, carrots, potatoes, eggs, bread, rice, bananas and oranges in various combinations because that is about all you can buy. Well you can get other stuff but we don't really know what to do with it!
Our hostel is ok...its pretty basic but we have electricity and a fan in our room. When we arrived we didn't have running water because it had broken but they eventually fixed it yesterday so now we don't have to walk to the next door building to get buckets of water (it seems further than it sounds) which is luxury and we can have showers again (even if they are cold and you have to dodge mosquitoes flying all around you!). There are 4 other students here with us at the moment, all a year ahead of us...they all seem really nice too :)
We've spent 3 days on the paediatric ward which was good because there was a nice Dr and sweet kids and also a lot more ability to do tests like blood glucose and blood gases because they are doing a study into malaria medications. In the rest of the hospital its pretty much impossible to get any tests which makes everything a lot more taxing, combined with the lack of certain medications which we would take for granted in England. We had a guy that came in the DKA and wasn't given his insulin by the nursing staff one day...and the next day was given too much and went into a hypoglycaemic coma. When we got to him he must have been like that for a couple of hours and no one seemed bothered or had done blood glucose (mostly because they don't have a machine on the ward... ) so we stole one from paeds. I think it was probably too late though.
Today Amanda and I went on 3 palliative care home visits which were really interesting because we got to drive up dirt tracks into the remote villages and see what life was like. Mud huts and animals running all over the place... but everyone is really friendly and welcoming.
The little kids don't really know what to make of us...and constantly stare and laugh when we smile or wave at them but they are friendly even if they point and call us mzungos.
This weekend we are going to try and go to the beach...hoorah!
Salx
Our hostel is ok...its pretty basic but we have electricity and a fan in our room. When we arrived we didn't have running water because it had broken but they eventually fixed it yesterday so now we don't have to walk to the next door building to get buckets of water (it seems further than it sounds) which is luxury and we can have showers again (even if they are cold and you have to dodge mosquitoes flying all around you!). There are 4 other students here with us at the moment, all a year ahead of us...they all seem really nice too :)
We've spent 3 days on the paediatric ward which was good because there was a nice Dr and sweet kids and also a lot more ability to do tests like blood glucose and blood gases because they are doing a study into malaria medications. In the rest of the hospital its pretty much impossible to get any tests which makes everything a lot more taxing, combined with the lack of certain medications which we would take for granted in England. We had a guy that came in the DKA and wasn't given his insulin by the nursing staff one day...and the next day was given too much and went into a hypoglycaemic coma. When we got to him he must have been like that for a couple of hours and no one seemed bothered or had done blood glucose (mostly because they don't have a machine on the ward... ) so we stole one from paeds. I think it was probably too late though.
Today Amanda and I went on 3 palliative care home visits which were really interesting because we got to drive up dirt tracks into the remote villages and see what life was like. Mud huts and animals running all over the place... but everyone is really friendly and welcoming.
The little kids don't really know what to make of us...and constantly stare and laugh when we smile or wave at them but they are friendly even if they point and call us mzungos.
This weekend we are going to try and go to the beach...hoorah!
Salx
4 comments:
We're back from the highest canal in England with both the highest lock and the deepest lock in England. Lovely sunny weather, saw several wild mink and the meat was amazing (One pub meal was half a shoulder of lamb each!) Natives were friendly and relatively easy to communicate with.
For the ignorant like us, what is DKA?
Perhaps you shouldn't have turned down that book on Tanzanian cookery I offered you when you were packing! Good luck with finding something green to eat.
love mum and dad
This all sounds similar to Dar 25 years ago! The water in the taps was all brown when we first arrived, and was always intermittant, as was the electricity supply. Do you have to do all your own cooking? If you can find okra, they are nice - I would recommend frying rather than boiling them or you get glue! As for meat we used to just buy beef fillet (no bones involved), fish and occasionally chicken. If you buy the big green bananas (plantains) you can use them as vegetables, either in stews or fried.
How far is it to the beach?
we are just back from a week of complete luxury on our cruise around the Agean sea!!Dar sound great, do they still have the market stalls selling flip flops made out of car tyres? and people selling little piles of fruit.
Diabetic ketoacidosis
Yes to the cooking for ourselves and to the people selling piles of fruit!
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