Tanzania Week 1 - Oh my!

I am totally freaked that I left home more than a week ago, arrived in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania one week ago exactly and this is the first chance I have had a chance to update everyone and my blog. Thanks for your patience or as we say here "asante sana" = thank you very much!

My mind is racing with what to post first as my electricity where I am staying on a little weekend holiday in Zanzibar keeps cutting out whenever the wind blows.

I will start with my trip to Tanzania and post more if the time, my energy and electricity holds.

19 AUG 2010
I stayed up most the night packing and re-packing, trying to get what I had to take with me as light weight and small as possible. So hard to know what to pack with so many unknown variables and not really knowing how my placement will use me. Boy if I could have had a looking glass I would have packed differently! My darling neighbore, Kathy, dropped me off at the SLC airport on her way to work! Thanks so much! And she will more than likely pick me up - thank you for that as well!.

I was so pround of us to get me to airport on time (you know me I tend to cut it close a bit). So I had an hour and half to wait. Hmmpf! So I thought! First there was too much traffic at JFK (my first destination on my journey) for us to allowed to take off (sounded fishy to me). Delayed an hour - not too bad. Well the hour came and went. Then the delay was a maintenance delay - oh-oh! 2 hours later we managed to get loaded on the plane. Thinking great I will still make my flight to Qatar from JFK. Well we sat on the tarmac due to weather! Thunder storms at that. Well needless to say I began to panic. We sat out there for about 40 minutes. Many people had to be rebooked with our other delays so they could make their overseas connections. But my overseas flight was booked separate so they (Delta) had no way to know I was going to be cutting close but not as close as my row mate. She was going to visit her daughter in Italy and had to catch a flight to Rome to catch a connecting flight to where her daughter was at. We made it to NY in time but then JFK made us sit on the tarmac again waiting for a parking spot! I still do not know if she made it because they let the people with immediate connections get off the plane first. She was no where to be seen when I got off the plane so I can only hope she made it. Myself I had to go pick up my checked bags. Haul myself over to terminal 4 from terminal 3 which was surprisingly easier than I remember. Checked into Qatar airlines for my flight to Doha, Qatar.

Now I bet you are wondering why Qatar. Well they had a deal! If I traveled with them and had a flight greater than 8 hrs, they paid for the hotel, meals and transportation for my layover in Doha. Cool! or Poa! as we say here! It was quite a comfortable flight and the flight attendents were excellent. Great food service, comfort service and very clean! Much, much, much better than Saudi Air! After an eleven and half hour flight I was more than ready to get off! The lines through passport and customs were the worst part of the whole trip. The room at the hotel was very basic but clean. I was just grateful for a bed to be horizontal! And a hot shower. Excellent food! No diet Pepsis but I kind of knew that was going to happen. Oh well had to give it up at some point along this trip!

I met a woman named Joyce who lives in Tanzania who was on her way back from visiting her son in the US in Texas. We had a delightful conversation at the hotel, on the way to the airport and on the airplane. She required "extra" help due to some health issues which I was wishing I had done in the first place as I was not feeling too hot myself. Tanzania is 9 hours ahead of us in SLC and I some how had missed my meds. Usually one dose does not affect me too much but with the stress of flying, carrying luggage up and down stairs and just exhausted I was in heart failure in a big way. Short of breath, light headed and generally just pukey. So Joyce said stay with her through the airport at Doha and Dar Es Salaam and she would make sure I got some help. Great lady, I am so grateful for her help and now know what I need to do on my return trip.


A six hour flight to Dar Es Salaam and I made it to Tanzania! Joyce wanted me to meet her daughter outside of the airport which I thought would not be a problem since there was supposed to one more volunteer to arrive after me before CCS would be there to pick us up! Well as I exited customers there was Elias, waiting to pick me up and information that the last volunteer to arrive, Sally would not be coming. Oh so sad. I was hoping to meet Joyce's daughter, go potty, exchange money, have some lunch and meet the volunteers who arrived before me, Michael and Claire. Well, I said a quick good-bye with hopes we could catch up with each other later, got wisked away by Didase and Elias (CCS staff) and this giant Masai who helped with the luiggage. I did get some money exchanged but no potty break, no lunch, no pause just pack up and go! Zoom!

Airport at Dar Es Salaam

The traffic was horrible as foretold! But the 2 hrs to the home base did go by quickly with all of the bumping and jostling along the way - I dozed!

We arrived at home base. Went over a few pieces of paperwork. And then were shown to our rooms at the Annex house across the street. The main house was being prepped for some much needed remodeling and upgrades. The Annex house is very basic, much as I expected. No hot water, no air conditioning, no drinking water but a bed that is all my own including mosquito netting. I was so hungry having missed lunch that I begged for some bread until dinner which was fabulous! Robert and Chiku are fantastic chefs and am so grateful they are on our staff!

Well the electricity has gone out twice while typing this so I better finish up our travel log for now. More later when I have more reliable power!

Countdown!

I had a rough night at work but I feel ready to pack, organize for the start of my journey to Africa. I leave in a mere 24 hrs for the airport on a staged travel to Bagamoyo. I have sewn pockets in all of my skirts so I don't feel so lost in unfamiliar clothing (I know me in a skirt but yes I have to wear them!). I have my picture book to share with fellow volunteers and with the staff at home base and people at my placement. A little cultural exchange.

I have staged my travel into segments so I don't get so tired. I leave from SLC to JFK  in the morning. Then fly on Qatar airlines to Qatar where I will spend the night, eat and rest which is included in my airfare and then finish my trip to Tanzania on Saturday where I will be greeted by CCS in-country staff. There are 4 of us new volunteers arriving and once we are all present will depart for Bagamoyo, approximately 40 miles away. I do the same thing in reverse when coming home.

Oh I don't think I mentioned I received my placement assignment a few days ago after waiting on pins and needles it seemed like forever. I will be working with student nurses and nursing faculty at the Bagamoyo Nursing Training Centre helping with a whole host of activities from teaching English or practicing English with staff as well as students, lecturing on newborn assessment and care, pediatric triage, grant writing and whatever else I know and then need to know. Cross-Cultural Solutions' Three-Part Program Design consists of Volunteer Work, Cultural & Learning Activities, and Free Time.

The Cultural & Learning Activities are quite varied and interesting from Swahili lessons to batiking fabric. I look forward to it all.

Free Time I hope to take a trip to the island of Zanzibar and visit the spice markets and historical slave markets. The historical sites sound as disturbing, moving and thought provoking as visiting a concentration camp from WW II. I would also like to take a short safari but I will have to see how my endurance and money are doing before I decide. And then before you know I will be back in Utah, working like crazy again.

I am so grateful for everyone's support. I hope in some small way this blog is a way for me to share my trip, my experience and benefits from volunteering in Tanzania. Feel free to make comments on my blog. Let me know if there is something you want me to try or look for or tell you about. I would be happy to share in any way I can!

Why Tanzania?

I have wanted to do an international volunteer experience for many years. Kind of ever since I visited my cousin Aimee on her Peace Corp tour in Cameroon. I have too many jobs and too many anchors to join the Peace Corp or anything else with that kind of time commitment. So I started investigating my options. Through my professional organizations, NANN and NAPNAP there are many healthcare providers who do international volunteer work. I found most of the healthcare volunteer organizations not quite as structured or supportive as Cross Cultural Solutions (CCS). CCS mostly targets college aged students who want or need an international volunteer experience to enrich their education in their chosen career field or need college credit or have a need to do something enriching like volunteer!

I have attended a couple info sessions about CCS and found out they actually have quite a broad cross section of age groups who volunteer including whole families. What a great experience for a whole family to share! One of the rising groups of volunteers is the "50+" age group (that would be me).

I had been asked to participate in a medical education mission to Uganda where I was going to teach Neonatal Resuscitation and Pediatric intubation along with being the healthcare provider for the teenagers also volunteering on the trip. But the funding fell through. I had already blocked my calendar and started to budget for the trip so I went back to investigate CCS.

I was concerned about possibly not being able to volunteer in healthcare but I have led such a varied life and am pretty flexible/adaptable that I thought it doesn't matter what I do when I volunteer. I am volunteering for the sake of helping others help themselves, what does it matter what role I am in as long as I can help.

Some of my friends and family are concerned I should focus my volunteer efforts here in the USA, I do. International volunteerism is different and rewarding in a whole different way. I am not only helping another culture, another group of humans improve their lives through their own actions but I reap the benefits as well. Every time I leave the USA, I appreciate our country all the more. I know we have our problems but they do seem so trivial compared to the strife other people, other countries have to endure. I love having flush toilets, hot showers, Tillamook cheddar cheese and Diet Pepsi. It is not until one does without their favorite vices, things, places and comforts that one finally appreciates them. I like the feeling of helping others help themselves and they are grateful about it. I know my part in the volunteer work will be trivial but coalesce with others to have a great impact in the end. How powerful is that!

I leave in a few days. I am nervous, excited and calm all at the same time. Keep me in your thoughts and prayers while on my journey! Thank you everyone for your support and interest.