Halloween

Not much to say about the past week... went to a Halloween party Saturday night and had a really great time. Met lots of new people. And now I'm back to trying desperately to find something to do at work and not get too frustrated with how things are going. My energy and motivation are definitely suffering a little in this work environment. This weekend I plan to finally get out of town for a bit so hopefully next week there will be more stories to share and photos to post.

There was a lovely full moon this weekend so I spent some time playing around with my camera and got a few good shots. Haven't had a chance to do any editing yet so these are just straight from the camera.

Order of the Day

a typical weekday...

6:30am Wake up to the sound of the auto-mechanic outside my window. Sometimes he starts at 6. Nothing like the sound of engines to start the day. Sometimes I am able to fall asleep again after a little while (with the help of my ear plugs)

8am Wake up for real. Have some tea and bread and some kind of fruit or veggie. Take my anti-malaria pill, multi-vitamin and Omega-3 supplement. Fill up my water bottle for the day.

8:45 Marika and I head to the University. Usually we leave late but this is when we should leave. We catch a tsh (20 cents).

9am Start work. and by start work, I mean turn on the computer and sit down at my desk. Mostly work is checking my email and messing around online (as I'm doing right now, for example). Occasionally I have reports to write and submit to the CIH in Toronto. Last week I wrote a funding proposal and this week we met with the funder and found out they won't fund us until they've restructured the funding system. (Apparently in the past funding for the Universities has gone through the Ministry of Health - because TACAIDS is a government agency - and the Ministry of Health has done something with the money that didn't include actually giving it to the University so now they want to restructure the system to ensure we actually get the money... which is good... but it's going to take time so for now = no money). I have also been meeting with representatives from various student groups to try to set up some kind of coordination of their activities. Some good ideas came out of those meetings and I hope to keep busy by pursuing some of them, like a Secondary School Outreach program. I also have to write articles for our program's publication.

12:45pm Lunch. Staff at the health clinic gets free lunch (I'm guessing it's because there isn't enough staff to cover breaks and since they bring food down for the patients anyway). Someone from the cafeteria brings down a few dishes of something and we get to eat it. I'm not technically staff here but my supervisor is and he doesn't eat here so I get his portion. Lunch time varies slightly and it's important to get there before things run out so there is a bit of a push/shove process. I can usually smell the food from my office when it arrives. Lunch consists of rice and either roasted 1/4 chicken or beef in a red sauce and sometimes some beans or cooked banana or veggies (the same kind every time). So, not a whole lot of variety but it's free and it's here. There are many different places to eat on campus... most serve the same food and are packed with students or faculty around lunch time. I tend to eat in my office and sometime go for a walk around outside for a bit.

5pm Quitting time. By five it's usually cool enough to walk home without working up too much of a sweat. Takes around 20-25 minutes. After work, I will usually go home and change. This is also when I'm most likely to shower because I'm hot and don't mind the cold water so much. Sometimes I will go to the grocery store to pick up a few things.

6pm I usually have an hour or two before Marika comes home. I spend that time reading or watching CNN (which I get at home). Sometimes I do some Sudoku puzzles.

7:30/8pm Dinner time. Marika and I usually have dinner together. Sometimes we cook at home. If we go out, we usually go to Euro - a restaurant around the corner from us. Meals are much the same as what I described for lunch although they also have a really good beef stew. They also have burgers and samosas on the menu but I have yet to try them. Other options include a few places for chipsi and mishkaki (fries and beef skewers). Before going out I change into longer clothing and apply ample mosquito repellent.... I swear those things hunt me down.

9pm After dinner Marika and I often sit around talking. Often Emmanuel will stop by for a while to visit and teach us some new kiswahili words (and test us on the old ones). Sometimes I watch a movie on my laptop.

10 - 12 Depending how tired I am, I'll read for a while and go to bed. But first I wash my feet, re-apply mosquito spray and re-adjust mosquito net. I also often spend a little time killing any mosquitoes I can find. It makes for a more fulfilling day, I think.


And there you have it, a day in the life of Nicole. Next time we examine... the weekend!

Finally... some photos

Sorry for the terrible layout but this takes forever so I just threw them on there... I'll keep working on a better alternative.

K, I'll get a better photo when I can but in meanwhile: MONKEYS!!!

On campus (left)

Pretty Beach :

Marika, Emmanuel and I at the pretty beach:

My house

Cute kids:

My street at night

Apartment building in the City Centre

Dalla Dalla Station at Mwenge (nearest station to my house)

Dinner. no, not really... it's dinner for the dogs.

AIDS

So... I thought I'd spend my monday morning posting about what it is I'm actually doing here. I don't have a whole lot to do so I still spend a good part of my day messing around on the internet BUT I am definitely starting to get into things and it's interesting though I have serious doubts that I will have any impact whatsoever... and this is predictable but still disappointing.

Saturday night I was out having dinner with Marika and we were approached by a guy who decided to sit with us (this happens A LOT). We start talking and it turns out that he is starting now as a HIV Peer Educator... a program included in the funding proposal I have just written. So we start chatting about the program and (keep in mind he's clearly had a few drinks) our new friend starts talking about AIDS.

He starts talking about how everyone learns about using condoms but what does that even accomplish when they sit out in 30 degree temperatures all the time. In his opinion they must be completely ineffective. He's also convinced that in developed countries we don't use condoms.

We also spoke about HIV testing. I know that getting people to get tested is hard but he was quite convincing about his anti-testing views. He said that if he finds out he has HIV, he knows he will die of AIDS and what's the point of spending money on post-secondary school. Also, he said families abandon those who are infected so that you are forced to work and take care of yourself. And if you don't have sufficient access to nutritious foods then the treatment isn't going to be very effective anyway. So, he has not been tested and does not plan to be tested.

Keeping in mind that this young man has been selected as a peer educator (granted he hasn't gone through his training yet), I am feeling discouraged about the effectiveness of these programs.

Aside from writing funding proposals, I am also meeting with student groups to try and coordinate world AIDS day events. The people I have spoken with are very enthusiastic about putting together something different this year and would like to focus on more positive messages about AIDS. Of course, I have no funding for anything so I am hoping that the groups are able to find funding and are willing to use some of it towards a collective element (I want to put together a program listing all the different events to distribute to the students.)

Also working on coordinating an event to promote HIV testing (there will be mobile testing units set up) but it's supposed to be happening in a couple of weeks and the budget was submitted so late and hasn't been approved yet.

anyway, that is what I have been and will be doing.

pictures to come. soon. I promise. tonight...unless the power goes off again.

Monkeys, Religion. and other musings

You may recall in an earlier blog I mentioned seeing monkeys. Well, it was the first day I had arrived and I was brought into the office for a little while. I was pretty tired and just wanted to sleep. When we left the clinic, I was surprised to see a group of monkeys hanging out near the clinic. I recall pointing them out to my supervisor and he told me that they are often around the campus. If I hadn't had that brief conversation I would probably have assumed that the whole thing never happened because in two weeks of work, I had not seen another monkey. Until yesterday. I was leaving work and looked back and there was a group of cute monkeys nibbling at the banana peels left over from lunch. And I didn't have my camera :( So now I will start bringing my camera with me so that someday I will catch the monkeys and be able to post photos. That is assuming I can ever manage to upload photos. This evening I will try the internet cafe.

Religion is an interesting topic here. Everyone is religious, the only question is "Christian or Mulsim"? A tough question to answer for me as, first, I'm Jewish, and second, I'm not religious. So if I respond with "I'm Jewish", so far, I either get told about how I'm of the chosen people or I get asked quite random questions about Judaism. Once I was asked to teach someone how Jews pray. When I said I didn't pray they called me a liar. seriously. After several challenging conversations about being Jewish, I decided once to try to say that I'm not religious. They kinda just stared blankly at me. So finally I just said I'm Jewish and that seemed less confusing but they still looked at me like they thought I was lying. Everyone I've spoken to also seems to think that being Jewish and Israeli are interchangable.

Working in a health clinic is rather distracting. There are constantly sick people sounds... like vomiting, crying, occasionally screaming. and the place smells like disinfectant a lot of the time. We are supposed to be moving to our own office in the next few weeks. Should be a nice change except that I will be sharing a large office with my supervisor... I'll have to make sure I set up my desk so the monitor is facing away from him or no more random internet use.

I've been a little sick that last couple of days. Just a bad cold but it kept me up all night sniffling so I was pretty tired. Finally got a good night sleep tonight so am feeling much better. Usually I get woken up at 6:30 by the neighbor who seems to be an automechanic/fridge refurbishre and who likes to work with power tools between 6:30 and 7:30 in the morning.

Work has really been picking up this week so I've been quite busy with, hopefully, useful stuff. Will write more about what I'm doing next time.

Again: haven't been able to upload photos but I'm working on it.

quick mouse update

Turns out we didn't have mice afterall. We had a rat. A big rat. An ugly rat. Thankfully, we also apparently have an expert rat catcher and he happened to see our rat while cleaning the kitchen and was able to catch the rat and kill the rat in a rather unpleasant and violent way. I arrived home and was proudly shown our dead rat.

yuck.

Having problems uploading photos but I promise they will come as soon as possible.

Weekend on the Beach

I can't believe it but it's already been a month since I left Vancouver and two weeks since I arrived in Dar. Time is swishing by and I have yet to do anything productive.
I finally got out of the office long enough to enjoy the city a little. Saturday I got a tour of the neighborhood from a friend who lives/works where I live (there are a few flats that are rented out and then the main house where he lives with the owner). He took us through the smaller routes around the area and then to a nice quiet beach that's a little out of the way and so not so busy. Marika and I weren't expecting to be out so long and so didn't think of sunscreen. oops. But we weren't fully sunburnt... yet.
Sunday we went out to Bongoyo Island which has a really lovely beach and was not very busy. It was quite expensive to get out there and then we had to pay a park entry fee but it was a nice day at the end of which I must admit I have received my first ever sunburn. Just a little patch on one shoulder. I put on sunscreen and was in partial shade most of the time but the malaria meds make you sensitive to the sun so I guess it was enough. But it is nice to have a tan at last! I did take photos over the weekend and hopefully this evening I will get to the internet cafe to upload them.
I neglected to comment on food in my last post... Though the food is usually pretty good, there is very very little variety. A standard meal is rice or ugali with meat of some kind (always prepared the same way as far as I can tell). Often there is a little bit of veggies with it, sometimes some beans or cooked banana. Sometimes there is Pilau or Biryani which is basically the same thing but with flavored rice. The other option is chipsi and mishkaki (french fries and beef on a skewer)which can be excellent but sometimes the beef is very over-cooked from sitting on a grill until purchased. Fortunately, almost any type of food can be purchased so cooking at home adds a little variety to my meals. And there are lots of cheap, fresh fruits and veggies to buy so I'm trying to inject some health into my diet that way.

Thanks everyone who has made comments... it's nice to hear your thoughts (though maybe not the one about the mice... which, by the way, seem to be doing very well)

First Impressions

I get asked a lot by both locals and friends/family at home: "How do you find Tanzania?"

So, here's how I find Tanzania so far...

Dark. I'm finding it hard to get used to the daylight hours here. Because we are equatorial (only 6 degrees south) and have no daylight savings time, it is daylight here from approx. 6am to 6pm all year round (with maybe an extra half hour of dawn/dusk on either end). Seeing as there are no streetlights (not in the areas I've been to so far) and no city lights reflecting of cloud cover or any of that, it's really quite dark by 6:30. And for me that means my body starts to think it's late and by 10 it's hard to convince my body to stay awake. Also, with getting home from work around 5:30, this doesn't leave much daytime to wander around and I'm not yet so comfortable walking around alone after dark so for that I wait for my roommate.

Dusty. Though the main roads are paved here the shoulder of the road is dirt and there is also a lot of road construction (I'm assured that no progress has been made since my predecessor arrived a year ago) so there is a lot of dust being blown into the air by cars. It really hurts my eyes sometimes. And at night, when it's dark, the headlights stream through the dust and you can only see dust and silhouettes of people walking on the side of the road. It's really neat looking and I'm hoping to take a photo but obviously it's hard to get a good picture when it's dark and the light is moving.

Despite a few rainy days last week, the weather here has been good. The high has been just under 30 degrees but there is often a nice breeze and sometimes some clouds so it feels much cooler. So far it hasn't been too humid either. However, everyone keeps telling me that we are entering the rainy season so it is supposed to get hotter and more humid. Interestingly, the descriptions people give me of the expected weather over the next few months is quite different from the climate charts I've seen so I'll have to wait and see.

Other than that, I'm finding that, not surprisingly, a lot of people like to talk to Mzungu (means European but is used for all white people, possibly all foreigners) so you get a lot of people saying hi (mostly in Swahili) all the time. The children are cute because it seems to take them a while to get up the nerves to say hi so often I'll hear them yell "Hello!" several moments after I've walked by. The constant barrage of greetings is quite tiring as there are numerous greetings in Swahili and there is a correct response to each (you can't just say hi back) so it takes me a few moments before I can respond.

In other news, just when the battle against the household bugs seemed to be progressing (we've cleaned and sprayed and everything that needs to be sealed in a container is sealed reducing the bug population to a very acceptable level), it turns out we have a mouse. possibly mice. And our new housemate got into the cupboard last night and gnawed holes into various food packages. Thankfully the fruit and veggies are all kept in the fridge now and we were able to salvage the rice as it had only a very small hole in the bag.

Settling in

So I have had a few days to get settled in now and mostly things have been going very smoothly except for a few hiccups with my visa and my bank card. For some reason the Tanzania High Commission in Canada issued me a six month tourist visa (I did indicate I was on a volunteer internship) but here they won't accept that for some reason. So, they've allowed me into the country for two months by which time I need to apply for a resident permit. Which is all fine and good if it weren't for the ridiculous amount of money I paid for that damn visa. The High Commission will be receiving an email but I don't imagine it will accomplish much. The bank card situation is too frustrating to get into. Let's just leave it at the damn thing doesn't work.

Anyway, my home is quite comfortable and well located. I have a great (but slightly overpriced) grocery store, several atms, a movie theatre and excellent internet cafe within a five minute walk and it's only a 20 minute walk (or 5 minute bus) to work. There are currently two of us living in a four bedroom house with a lovely dining room, sitting room, kitchen and a private bathroom for every room. We have thoroughly cleaned the kitchen and have started to do some cooking there. Blackouts are quite frequent but we don't really need electricity so much anyway. I am working very hard on the swahili and have managed to learn basic greetings and numbers so far. Everyone seems very eager to teach me and I feel completely useless without it so I hope to become mildly conversant fairly quickly.

The first few days of work went by okay. My supervisor was invited at the last minute to a conference in Liberia so much of his time went to making arrangements and then he will be gone all of this week. It took me until now to adjust to the time difference too so I wasn't much use. I am focusing now and making arrangements for a big event to happen sometime in the next few weeks in which students and faculty at the university will be invited to a day with some speakers and entertainment and where HIV testing sites will be set up. I have serious questions about the possibility of success for this event but it's hard to know without knowing the community and what will motivate them to come out to a weekend event. Friday I was asked to sit down with a couple of members of the student government to figure out a budget for the event. Like I have any idea what tent rentals cost here!!!

Will take some photos today and post them next time I'm online... internet connection at the internet cafe is much better than at work so I'll have to do it here.

Arrival

I'm using my supervisor's computer at the moment as mine is "being fixed" so this will be a very brief post. Arrived safely in Dar yesterday morning having regained my sense of adventure after a brief lapse while trying to sleep in London between flights. So far, I have been well taken care of. Musiba, my supervisor, met me at the airport and got me all settled in at my house. I have a room in a house shared with three others. Things have been going very smoothly except for a few moments of panic when I woke up from my nap in the middle of a blackout (it was already dark outside and no one was home) and had to use the light from my wrist watch to find my cell phone and the light from my cell phone to find my still-packed flashlight. Fortunately the lights came on within about 30 minutes. So far I have come across various lizards, a frog, a spider, a goat, a chicken, monkeys (just hanging out on campus) and, most annoying so far, two loud and mean looking dogs and many very tiny ant like bugs found everywhere but also, particularly notable, in my bed. the loud dogs live very close to my window. the little bugs don't seem to bite and I've now set up my treated mosquito net (because I've seen some of those too) and that should help with these little bugs too hopefully. Will write more once I have some time to myself on a computer. The internet connection here is slow but not too terrible so updating shouldn't be an issue (photos my be another matter however).

This is the lovely room I enjoyed at Heathrow's Novotel between flights. It was very nice BUT they were doing some renovations in the hallway so it wasn't easy to get much sleep :(