30 May, 2011--First day at the Hospital :)

Went to Arusha town yesterday.  Rode a dallah-dallah to get there, which was sooo different and exciting at the same time. It is basically a large van that get's packed with people to get from one place to another.  They make stops like buses do and people cram as close as they can get to each other to make room for another body.  A van that could comfortably fit 11-12 people in it usually always has no less than 15 and up to around 22 people + a driver and door man who whistles to get the attention of potential riders and communicates with the driver by hand taps on the side of the van.  The town itself was NOT what I was expecting...once again.  It's a lot smaller than I had thought, not as built up as I had envisioned, basically like a small village but magnified and with more people and a TON of street sellers.  So many people on the street selling really cheap looking stuff that was probably imported here just so some Tanzanians can make some money: clothes, locks, movies, computer stuff, childrens toys, a lot of shoes, handbags, etc.

Had my money converted into Tanzanian shillings (Tsh)  $1=1500Tsh   £1=2500Tsh

 First day at the hospital today, 8am to 1pm.  Got the dallah-dallah this morning from Usa Market to Tengeru District Hospital, getting off at Tengeru market for a whole 300Tsh.  The hospital is then just a 5 min or less walk from the market.  It's an outside hospital, with it's wards all buildings detached on either the right or left hand side of one street.  It's rather dirty, simple equipment, not meant for difficult cases (which have to be sent to a hospital in Arusha or to Nairobi depending on how severe).  I spent most of my time today in minor theatre where minor wounds, broken bones, circumcisions, evacuations, etc are cared for.

One of the first cases today was a guy who had broke his wrist 6wks ago and was coming to get his cast removed and the x-ray showed that it look exactly the same as it did when he first came in after breaking it 6wks before!  It showed that either 1: the cast wasn't on tight enough or 2: that the man just didn't get enough calcium in his diet (most probable in this case).  I was pretty surprised by this, seeing absolutely no improvement in bone growth after a month and a half, just goes to show you how important those minerals really are in your diet...The waiting room was packed today, and they can sit for hours! I will never complain about our waiting room time again, because these guys make our waits seem like seconds.
Went to the maternity ward after minor because I was getting tired of seeing casts taken off and/or put on and wanted to see what else I could observe.  That's one of the great things about this hospital, is that you can move around whenever and wherever you'd like to get the most of your time :)  So I went to the maternity ward and took blood pressure of the expectant mothers to chart on their papers.  I think tomorrow I'm going to see if there are any surgeries on in the morning seeing as they only do surgery on Tuesday and Thursdays unless there is an emergency or C-section.

Had my first "shower" today...I didn't really use the shower itself because it has about 2% water pressure and it is only cold water.  I was told that bucket showers are the way to go! I wish I had a picture but it's a bucket in the bathroom that I half fill with cold water and then boil the kettle to add to the bucket to make the water warm and then I use a small beach bucket for pouring over myself.  Wasn't too bad really! hehe  kind of enjoyed it.  

Can't wait to see what I get to do tomorrow!