Lists

Wednesday, 06/25/14, 8:25 p.m.

Tomorrow marks the beginning of the third week of my trip! I can’t believe it has already been that long; time seems to be slipping through my fingers like sand. I’m powering through my work, though, having already caught up to the present with translating clinic visit forms and the child trauma and disability notes from the home visit forms. That’s 584 forms in 4 workdays, but, I mean, who’s counting. (I am.) Since I’ve been so engrossed in Excel lately, and because my last entry was a bit windbaggy (I had to cover a whole week!), I thought I would share some lists today. The items are not ordered in order of importance, because I am from Santa Monica and I was taught that ranking makes people/list items feel bad about themselves and acquire severe self-esteem issues.

THINGS I HAVE LEARNED THUS FAR:

-I understand the layout of the area, both inside and outside of the compound. Finally! On Sunday, I took it upon myself to wander around so that I would not only be able to find useful shops, the good road for running, and the produce market, but also so I could simply find the Saving Brains office by myself on Monday morning. The Ifakara Health Institute shares the compound with SolidarMed, a Swiss organization, the Tanzania Training Center for International Health, which trains local students to become doctors and researchers, and the St. Francis Hospital, which, along with IHI, was started by the Swiss in the 1950s. So basically, the Swiss have the biggest stake here and it was really funny when they lost 2-6 to France last week. I ventured outside the gates, and after a substantial amount of wandering in what I eventually found out was a relatively small area, I finally understood my new neighborhood. And bought veggies and milk in the market, using only Swahili! 

-As far as I know, I am the youngest person doing research here. I’m sure there are students younger than me at TTCIH, and some of the girls who work in the guest house kitchen can’t be a day over 14, but as far as IHI goes I’m about 10 years everybody’s junior. I’ve been the youngest before, like in my volunteer programs in South Africa and Vietnam, but I never really noticed because everyone had relatively little experience in the job and was interested in socializing with each other. Here, people have fancy degrees and lots of work to do. I’m absolutely happy to be helping out as an intern, though, and enjoy the part I play in this study. Luckily for me (and maybe not so much for him), Geofrey is stuck with me all day. And there’s a British woman here who works for a water sanitation company and it’s her birthday this weekend, too, so I’ve been roped into the party as well! 

-Related: I apparently look like I could be a doctor, because I was asked this today by a man who was also walking to IHI. 

-On my third trip to East Africa, I have finally mastered the art of using the choo (local toilet, just a hole in the ground surrounded by a bit of ceramic), without accidentally peeing a little on my feet. Success! I have a Western-style toilet in my apartment, but the one nearest the office is a choo and it's quite the quad workout. Yeah, it actually is, so you can stop laughing now, male readers.

-Sports are fun!! I have officially become an adult, not with a bat mitzvah as I’d always hoped, but by participating in an after-work sports team. Every Wednesday at 5:30, people go to the church community center’s soccer field and play Ultimate Frisbee. Today was my first day and my team won 9-3, and I made the catch that scored for 4 or 5 of those points. If you know me well enough to be reading this right now you are surprised. I just considered it a great excuse to wear a backwards baseball hat, which is a fashion statement of mine that only emerges in the recesses of Africa or the AD, but I am redundant. 

-People in Tanzania really like Celine Dion. Go figure.

-I’m acquiring new Swahili vocabulary, but most are gleaned from the study and are very specific to this topic. Even so, I will now be using mtundu (naughty), degedege (convulsions), and kuzubaa (verb for the “lights are on, but nobody’s home” look) in regular conversation. 

-I can do the Argentine tango! Or, at least, I am in the process of learning it. Lisa, who is from Louisiana and is here because her husband is doing research at IHI, gives two-hour lessons every Sunday evening in her living room. And to think I didn’t realize I’d need my ballroom heels for my trip to rural Tanzania! The group was about half-and-half Western and local researchers, and was just a really fun way to while away some time after sundown, when it’s hard to do much of anything. It made me nostalgic about the ballroom team a little, but I was glad just to be learning and spending time with people outside the office. 

-Efficiency is not a super high priority here, and I’m learning to be patient and easy-going about it. Anyone in Collegium who has seen my rabid eyes on concert day knows this is a big feat. I’d have that Sanders timetable down to the half-minute if I could. Supervisors are suddenly out for two weeks, there’s somehow no tap water in my apartment in the early morning or at night, mothers don’t show up for clinic visits, but it’s okay. The work will get done, and the local staff will wonder why there always seems to be a vein throbbing in the forehead of whomever visits from Harvard.

THINGS I HAVE YET TO LEARN:

-How to use the choo 100% splash-free. Yeah, I totally lied before.

-I really need to make a habit out of using the respectful greeting for elders. If someone is obviously older than you, you must say Shikamoo, which doesn’t have a direct translation but is a sign of humility. The elder responds with Marahaba, which essentially amounts to an acknowledgement of your respect. Then you can launch into how-are-you’s and be on your merry way. I blurt out the informal Mambo! almost all of the time, and while I can get away with it for appearing like an uninformed mzungu, it’s like throwing out a Sup, bruh to your grandmother and that’s not okay. In related news, the kids on the street who aren’t shrieking MZUNGU!!!! at me often use Shikamoo, and that makes me feel like I’ve unlocked some big life achievement. 

-I don’t know which side of the road to run on! That’s right, I have successfully completed two days of waking up to run a few miles at 6:30 a.m. The sky is just starting to lighten, but the sun doesn’t actually rise until I’m out on the road, and it’s glorious. Ifakara is just beginning to wake up, with market stands setting out their wares and children walking or biking to school. (I even caught up with and passed a school bus on the bumpy dirt road yesterday! I sincerely hope there were children inside to witness this fantastic feat of athleticism.) However, I was always taught that while you bike with traffic, you run against it, so that you can see who’s coming. This strategy led to me dodging quite a few confused men on bicycles and pikipikis (motorbikes), although on the other side I did have a minibus or two come up behind me honking. I will figure this out as I do it more (yes, I do know that you drive on the left here, thank you), and hopefully by then the novelty of this crazy white chick exercising will also wear off and people will stop calling after me. I’m going to run so often, I’ll have to use the Swahili hu- tense, which is used to describe actions you perform regularly. Ohhhhhh, snap. Unlike cynical Mombasa, though, it’s all good-natured. I’m not so much a disdainful potential-pocket-to-pick but an organ grinder’s monkey who has been taught a few adorable tricks. Look at her, she actually answered in correct Swahili! And that precious little hat. Give her a coin, or maybe a peanut!

-I really need to bring my FOP headlamp with me to these locations. Didn’t I learn about real, bona fide darkness from Wema, out in rural Kenya? Holding the flashlight in my mouth while I try to do something is a little silly. I found out Ifakara didn’t even start to get electricity until the 1990’s, which, I immediately thought, coincided nicely with the rise of Tamagotchi.

-Why do mosquitos like my ankles so much?? They go for them even with a hefty helping of 30% DEET. There’s, like, not even good blood flow there. Assholes.

And finally...

ANIMALS I HAVE SEEN (yes, of course this is included):

-The animals in Mikumi National Park that I saw on my drive over here, which I realize is a repeat from the last entry, but come on. Giraffes and zebras next to the road.

-This goes back to my time in Dar es Salaam, but the Harvard project there is at Muhimbili University, which is the only real medical school of note in Tanzania. I got to visit one day with Chris to see the study about vitamin D and HIV/AIDS going on now. Outside the labor ward of the teaching hospital, they dump all the placentas which are then eaten by stray cats. I kid you not. They do not bury them or anything, but instead have probably created some sort of mutant breed of what are affectionately known as the Placenta Cats. I’m already considering sending the idea to Stan Lee at Marvel, so back off. 

-There’s a bird here with a very distinctive, rhythmic call that I first heard every morning in Cape Town. Then, they followed me to Wema and to here, too! I’ve never seen one, though, and it’s killing me. CS50 folks: can someone make a Shazam-like app, but for bird calls? Actually, better not, because that’s the only thing I’d have on my phone and I’d start to lose friends.

-I saw a praying mantis eating another praying mantis the other day. Something tells me Daddy didn’t fare so well. Marge, where’s Norm? I thought you were both coming over tonight. And ya got a little antenna in your teeth, still twitchin’.

-On Monday morning when I was taking my bucket shower (chuckling at all the haircut naysayers, because it is excellent for this situation) in the tub, I noticed a pair of eyes peering up at me from my shower drain. Not with a particularly lecherous expression, but just a froggy one. Somehow, there was a frog living in the pipe and he had come up to check me out/survive the flood. We stared each other down for the rest of the shower, with me both hoping he would and would not jump out and be my friend.

-Later that day, a huge spider (as large or larger than my fist--I didn’t want to get closer to check) sat in repose on the wall of my tub. Okay, fine, no showers until you say so.

-Later still, no sign of frog or spider but there was a lizard high up near the ceiling. I’m pretty sure at least one of these last three characters ate the other, if not in some sort of combination. 

-Nature isn’t all red in tooth and nail, though, because baby goats exist. They are so cute. The little bleats and their knobby knees. Please love me, baby goats.

I realize that this didn’t end up being too much shorter, so I think I’d better sign off here. Also, I can’t top baby goats.