It's rainy season

  Which essentially means, its been raining all the time.  Every night, sometimes during the day, but mostly in the mornings and evenings. It gives me little inclination to want to walk to work in the morning - I don't want to get wet and I don't own an umbrella (I keep thinking I should buy one, somehow it just never happens).

Last week I went on safari to Lake Manyara National Park with Brendan and his family. They went to Ngorongoro Crater as well to which I had already gone, so I met them in MtoWaMbu on their third day. I took the bus there.

What an experience. This was my first time traveling a long(ish) way on Tanzanian bus, it was crazy. The bus stand has about forty or fifty buses parked in random locations in an open area in the middle of the city. Men stand outside of the buses yelling the location that their bus is going to go to. So as I walked around trying to find the correct bus I had people screaming at me from every direction: "Moshi! Moshi! Are you going to Moshi? Mbaya! Mbaya! Dar! Want to go to Dar?" It was so hectic. I finally found two buses that were going my direction. The two bus people then started arguing over which bus I should go on- they each wanted me to go on their bus. I picked the man who was yelling more quietly and went and sat down. People piled on after me until not only every seat was full but every bit of standing room was taken as well. A man shoved his way through  and collected bus fare from everyone (it depended on how far you were staying on for how much you paid- I was getting off before the end of the route so I only had to pay 3500 Tsh (approx. $2).
I had purposefully picked a window seat so that I wouldn't get as squished by everyone. Turns out this is not always the ideal place to sit.

The windows were huge and really low so that the bottom of the window frame was only about an inch higher than my lap. They were hard to close (which, granted, it would be way to hot if you shut them) and people were thrusting things through the windows trying to sell them to the people on the bus (particularly me, since I was the only white person to be seen).  Most of the things they were trying to sell were something along the lines of what you would expect:  biscuits (aka cookies), juice, bottles of water, maandazi (cardamom donuts which are really good), and fermented rice pastries- really not so good. But then they were selling things like dish towels, huge loaves of milk bread, and cooking oil.  I couldn't get them to leave me alone for the whole 45 min the bus sat waiting to fill up with people (there is no set time the bus leaves- the driver leaves whenever he thinks he's made enough money and squashed enough people onto his bus- so if you want to take a bus somewhere just show up at any random time and hop on to any bus where you can find space).

The bus ride itself was fine- close to three hours. Behind me were a bunch of Maasai men with some children, their spears, and some boxes. They kept jamming their feet into my seat back and I'm pretty sure they have never bathed in their whole lives, but really, in terms of how awful the ride could have been,  it was wonderful. The scenery was beautiful - I love looking at the Rift Valley mountains. As we drove into MtoWaMbu it felt like home, after Arusha, it's probably the place I have been to the most ( and know the best). I stayed at the guest house where we have stayed many times before and hung out with John for a bit (a secondary school student I know there who we met way back in January). The next morning I met Brendan and his family and off we went to the park.

Lake Manyara was nice- very jungle-esque. Definitely the most lush of the places I have gone on safari to. There was the usual assortment of animals: elephants, zebras, baboons, wildebeasts, giraffes, impalas. They also had tons of blue monkeys and velvet monkeys. We looked really hard to spot a leopard or a tree lion (which manyara is known for) but alas none were to be found.

Lake Manyara is an alkaline lake, so there were flamingos standing in it - it's so strange to look out at the lake and just see hundreds of pink things standing all over it (like most other alkaline lakes its super shallow).

There are pictures of the safari up on Picasa.

As for work- I have recently added something new and exciting to my daily activities! I am now helping out in a local mission run hospital- St. Elizabeth's. Theoretically I'm there to help teach the staff how to start using computers and to put things like patient records onto computers, teach them how to type, and how to use a telemedicine program so they can have access to more information to help them treat patients.

However, in my one week of experience so far, this will probably not work out as planned. My supervisor there is super spacey and every single day last week abandoned me (perhaps forgot about me or maybe he just didn't care) in an empty room with some computers. I did manage to still teach one nurse how to put patient information onto the computer and I started teaching a technician how to type. But since I still don't know how to use the telemedicine program myself and since Sunday (my supervisor- this is a super popular name here- I don't get it) hasn't really shown me what computer I should be teaching people on- thats basically the most I was able to do.

So what I did instead was shadow doctors on their rounds, help out in the laboratory, get prescriptions for patients from the pharmacy, and hang out with the hospital staff. This is really cool and I really enjoy doing it. I think the doctors like the company- they asked me to help them with things all the time. I learned how to put in a catheter (kind of gross) and how to draw blood. Plus I know what typhoid and malaria look like under microscopes and I'm learning how to treat them.

So at least I'm gaining something from this and helping out people at the hospital, even if I'm not quite following my job description. Next week I'm going to try to convince Sunday that I actually need some guidance before he lets me loose ;-)

The reason I'm doing this right now is because we can't really teach people too much during rainy season. Many people work on their shambas (farms) during rainy season and need to take advantage of every daylight hour- this means they do not want to come and sit in a class and learn about HIV. Also this week and next week, many schools aren't in session due to easter, good friday, easter monday, and some muslim holiday next wednesday - so this is what I'm doing instead.

I'm considering going on safari to the Serengeti next week. It's going to involve taking a few days off from work and (of course) some money. But I'm thinking I might do it (because seriously- when will I ever get a chance to go to the serengeti again?). I'll keep you updated ;-)