The rest of my week at placement was really interesting. Everyday there is something different that goes on after the English classes. Thursday I went with Amani (one of the local volunteers who actually co-founded Jipe Moyo) to do home visits to the sick members. We started by visiting Jumani, a 38 year old man with HIV and neuro-syphilis, which has totally deteriorated his motor skills. As a result, he has been bedridden and unable to work since 2007. He lives with his grandmother in a small one room house. There is a past volunteer who is sponsoring Jumani and is paying for his medication and his physiotherapy, so when we visit we ask him if his meds are working, how he's doing, etc. Our next stop was to visit a seven year old boy with HIV. Both his parents died from AIDS and he lives with his grandmother and two sisters. When we arrived we were told by his distraught grandma that he had become very sick and his uncle had come to see him and when he saw how bad the conditions were where he was living, his uncle took him to Doma (the capital). The problem is that the uncle believes in witch doctors and so it's unclear as to what will happen to the boy. The grandma is getting a lot of trouble from other members of the community because they are judging her for letting him go. She says that they never helped her when he was sick and there was nothing else she could do. A very very sad story.
Last night we went out to Glacier, a local bar. It's totally open and outside and they have a live band playing a mix of Tanzanian music, Bob Marley and then casually they threw in some Enrique Iglesias... Afterward the DJ spins some more main stream American hits and everyone starts dancing. Another cool aspect to the bar is they have two big projector screens that play national geographic planet earth type movies with subtitles that are hilariously translated. Next time I'll write some down and post them.
This morning we traveled to a local village along the mountainside and saw lots of coffee plants and just sort of walked around taking in the very picturesque scenery. On the way back we were walking and I slipped on the gravel and cut my knee. It bled a lot but was mostly a surface wound, not a big deal right? Nope here it was. Our guides felt soo badly that I'd hurt myself and insisted that I go to the "pharmacy" to get it looked at, even though I had band aids. After much hesitation on my part I was escorted to the shop. Every person along the way stopped me saying pole sana (very sorry) with such sincerity that one would think I was having my leg amputated not just in need of a band aid. The woman at the shop gets out a bottle of antiseptic (I think rubbing alcohol judging on how much it stung) and iodine (also sting-y). So she poured some antiseptic into a bucket and used a cotton swab to clean me up. Then she poured the left over alcohol BACK INTO THE BOTTLE. Yeah.. just freaked out a little when that happened and then she put some iodine on, this was a fresh bottle thank goodness, slapped a cotton swab on and sent me on my way. That was my first, and hopefully last, encounter with the Tanzania medical system.
Tonight we watched the Lion King, great movie, and guess where it is supposed to take place...Tanzania! So we all sang along to the songs actually knowing what some of the phrases meant and picking out places we recognized. Apparently in the Serengeti, where I'll be going for safari to see the migration of the wildebeests, there is a rock exactly like pride rock. Pretty cool eh? Tomorrow we're off to the hot springs, really looking forward to it and then maybe after I'll do some laundry... in a bucket... should be interesting. After everything is washed and hung to dry it all has to be ironed, like literally everything, underwear and socks included. They tell us it's because of bugs, although we think they just want us to look presentable haha!
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