This last week was my last one at GSC. It hasn't really sunk in yet that I am moving out of my house here this weekend.
Nothing particularly exciting happened at the hospital this week. On Tuesday I managed to help a couple of people check their email ;-) and after work went to visit Patrick at his house in Sekei. Patrick is the head tech in the laboratory at St. Elizabeth's and is very friendly and talkative. Genevra and I took the dalla dalla with him to his apartment around 4pm, the end of his work day. I had been to his apartment once before but Genevra never had, so this was a new experience for her.
Patrick lives alone (he is 29, so this isn't particularly abnormal) in a two room apartment. He shares a toilet and a shower with those who live in the 4 other two room apartments that lie adjacent to his. Despite being small and cramped, it is a rather nice place and sits in the back of Sekei, a nice-ish area of Arusha with a bunch of bars and a young(er) family community and lots and lots of people. Sekei is really green and filled with banana and mango trees, a nice treat for the people that live there.
We had sodas with Patrick and talked to him about Kung Fu (which he is really into, he takes lessons and wants to become an instructor) and watched Westlife music videos with him ( a British boy pop band from the early nineties with which he is obsessed). I had brought two bottles of maple syrup with me from America and had given one to my family already. I didn't know who to give the second bottle to and Patrick as been a good friend at the hospital, so I gave him my second bottle. He enjoyed it and loved to get something else "mzungo." Patrick really really wants to marry a mzungo girl and move to some western country. Genevra and I both made it clear that we were off limits from the beginning, but he decided that we if weren't going to marry him we should help find him a white girl to marry. About a third of our conversations are about how he should go about doing this (he has a sister who is married to a Swedish man and lives in Sweden – he loves talking about her and wants to marry someone and have the same lifestyle that she does). G and I are never quite sure how serious he is about this, sometimes he makes fun of himself for this and sometimes he is very serious about finding a white wife.
We left Patrick's sometime after 6, maybe 6:30ish. I took the dalla dalla home with Genevra to Usa River. Usa is a really nice area about a half hour past the limits of Arusha. It's a long dalla dalla ride for Genevra to work every day, but she doesn't seem to mind. The family she is living with is much younger than my family, about mid thirties – a couple with a young daughter (about 8 years old?). Genevra and Poppy live with the same host family, sharing a large bedroom with their own bathroom. The baba, Joshua, is a professor English literature at Arusha University and the mama, Beatrice, sells stationary and papers to companies around Arusha, as well as performing secretarial duties for them (typing, letter writing, etc.). Someone who can speak English well and can use a computer (type, use the internet, whatever) is a hot commodity in Arusha. Beatrice and Joshua lived in England for 7 years while Joshua was going to University. This was readily apparent as soon as I walked into their house. I felt like I wasn't in Tanzania anymore.
First of all their house is quite large, if I had walked into it in America, I would think it was a fairly normal sized house (on the small side for normal though). Then they have photographs and pictures hanging on the walls. They had a bowl of fruit sitting in the middle of their dining room table, a gas stove, two fridges, two flat screen televisions (one in their bedroom) and three indoor bathrooms (all with showers and toilets- although the toilets don't flush and the shower only has cold water). I was amazed at walking into their house. It's weird to see western amenities amongst so much poverty. From what I have seen, many families with two people working make somewhere between $1500 to $3000 a year (if they live in Arusha) and there are still plenty of families that survive on much less. It's quite luxurious and expensive (by Tanzanian standards) to live like Genevra and Poppy's host family does.
For dinner we had potatoes and beans and chopped chunks of beef ( fairly normal Tanzanian foods to eat) but we also had salad!! (unheard of) and broccoli (my host family had never even seen it before when I cooked it for them)! After dinner we watched a Julia Roberts film on their dvd player. It was like spending a night in America.
The next morning Poppy had to work, but Genevra and I went to the UN to watch the ICTR (International Criminal Tribunal for crimes committed in Rwanda). I had been before, but wanted to go again before I left. We watched the court speak to two witnesses, a hutu colonel and a hutu lieutenant about the murder of 60 women and children. The colonel had moved away to Holland with his family shortly after the genocide was over and the court was trying to get him to admit to forging government documents in order to get his family permission to move there and to apply for Dutch citizenship. It was interesting to watch and on our way out, the guard at the door handed us documents explaining the background of the people currently on trial, which was very cool.
Thursday was pretty insignificant, normal work day. Friday was my last day of working. I didn't teach anyone, just did some stuff for the laboratory, followed the doctor on rounds, went on a chai break with Patrick and Genevra, and helped deliver medicines. At the end of the day I walked around and took pictures of the hospital and of everyone I have worked with for the past six weeks. At 4pm, I headed to the new GSC office to have my "exit interview" with Jenaya.
I am now officially done with my purpose for being in Tanzania. It seems really weird. I have begun to pack my suitcase and will leave it at the GSC office for the next two weeks while I am in Zanzibar. I will say good bye to my host family Sunday night and am leaving on the bus for Dar es Salaam at 6:30 Monday morning with Genevra and Poppy. We will spend one day in Dar, then take the ferry to Zanzibar. I will not be posting again until after I return on the 19th of May.
Kwaheri!!!
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