The week in Review...

Here are a few tidbits about my week that didn't make it up in the previous posts.

On Tuesday, one of my fellow volunteers Lindsay had a pain in her stomach. She went into the hospital to get it checked out, they tested her for malaria and when she tested negative, sent her home. On Wednesday her pain was even worse and so she went back to the hospital (hospital is a relative term). They gave her a x-ray and told her that she had a burst ovarian cyst. After being admitted to the hospital, another doctor came in to give her a second opinion. This time they diagnosed her with appendicitis and told her she had about an hour until it would burst. Usually, CCS would have evacuated her to Germany to do any sort of medical procedure but because of the time crunch, they had to operate immediately. After a discussion with the surgeons and her parents, they decided to go ahead with it in Moshi. She is doing okay and got to come home after three nights in the hospital. The staff was absolutely extraordinary through the whole thing. Moses, the head guy, was on the phone with her parents, the insurance companies, and the hospital all day and Mama Grace, the head Mama, spent four days at Lindsay's side, leaving her family and her job here to keep Lindsay company and to be her advocate in a hospital with one English speaking doctor. We all rotated to keep her company in the hospital as well. Everyone was impressed with both the way that the staff handled it and Lindsay says that she was never really scared about the care given to her at the hospital, given the limited resources. Get well soon Lindsay!

On Wednesday we went on a hike up at the foot hills of Kiliminjaro. It was really beautiful. We stopped at the Chagga museum, a museum about the local tribe around here. We saw a hut that was like the ones they used to live in. They slept with the cows in the hut because they were afraid of the Masai raiding their camps. They planted pineapple trees around the huts so that snakes and other intruders could not make it past the pineapple leaves which are covered in barbs. We saw so many people with bananas. The women are incredible, carrying 100 bananas on their head without any sort of stress. We also stopped at a cave where we got to go in. The cave was used by the Chagga to hide from the Masai and they even would take their cattle down there as well. The waterfall was beautiful, but quite a hike up and down the ridge. It felt great to be swimming in cold water.

Last night a group of us went for Indian food and although it took us about 2 hours to get our food, it was freaking fantastic. I am getting along really well with the volunteers. It is great to meet so many different people from so many different places that are bonded by interest and circumstance. It was a great week!