Day 8 - I Slept!

                I was delighted to wake up and see that I had actually slept until a reasonable time this morning. It rained most of the night so that probably helped. It isn’t common for them to have rain this time of year but it’s kind of nice since it drowned out the sounds of the dogs. Typically when it rains the clinic has a slow day since people like to stay home so hopefully I’ll get to work with Dr. Bon for a while. I’m finding that a lot what you do during the day depends on what’s working, whether or not you have power, and if you have enough water. People like to say TIT – “This Is Tanzania” when something occurs that completely changes your day’s agenda. There certainly isn’t a rush to get things done most of the time and people move a little slower than I’m used to.

The morning started with a quick breakfast and then I went straight to the clinic to catch Dr. Bon as early as possible. His computer had power today so things were looking up. We searched through the files where he keeps the price lists but the only ones we could find were from 2009. Inflation is pretty rapid here and the prices were definitely outdated. Dr. Bon said that Mariam has the current price list and so I went to go talk with her. Of course she is out of the office today.

I went to town to run some errands with Paula. I remembered to take a book this time and just kind of felt like I wasn’t accomplishing much. After getting back I went with Francis to pick up the med students that were teaching an AIDS class at an orphanage. Neither one of us had been to where we were going before and had to ask directions several times. As we got closer we asked a boy where to go, he told Francis where, and then just got in our car along with two little girls. They rode with us a ways until we dropped them off near home. I can’t believe people do that here!

During an AIDS class, the medical students play a game called “Who has AIDS?” where they split the children up in to two groups. These groups stand shoulder to shoulder and one side has a ball labeled “HIV.” Each team passes the ball behind their backs until an officiator says stop and the other team tries to guess who has the ball. The idea is to teach the kids that you can’t tell from the outside who “has the ball” since HIV carriers don’t look any different.

I’d say it’s time to call it a day.