Okay- our day today. We were going to visit an organization, Upendo Daima, and we went out far to where we thought the organization was located because we saw the sign for it a few days ago. We finally get to the project site and it is way back on a dirt road that we had been walking on for about twenty minutes. When we got there, we called the lady and told her we had arrived. Turns out, we had a misunderstanding and she didn’t know she was meeting us at that particular site so she was in their OFFICE in town. She was not a happy camper because she claimed she told us we were meeting in town. So we tell her, okay we will come to you in town. By this point, we were a bit frustrated because the communication was really bad and we trekked all the way out there just to go back to town. We start walking back, in the middle of nowhere, and are far from the main road to town. We see two guys who drive past us on motorcycles and they stop and ask us where we are going. We tell them we are going to town and they told us to hop on. SO, in our frenzy, I hopped on one motorcycle and Nathan hopped on the other motorcycle. We didn’t know exactly where we were going but we assumed we were heading in the right direction. I was wearing a long skirt so technically, I was supposed to side-saddle the motorcycle but was too scared to sit like that and sat on it like no ‘lady’ is supposed to do and held on for dear life. Nathan and I kept looking at each other and laughing because it was such a funny situation and he knew you (mom) were going to kill him!!! So we reach the tarmac, and they keep driving us! Here we are, picking up speed as the road improves and wondering what the hell we are still doing on the bike. Passing the Dala Dalas was an experience considering we were close enough to high-five the driver. Then we get to the busy road that leads to town and we finally parted ways. As I was getting off the bike I accidentally touched the exhaust pipe with my leg. When I took a look at the burn, it ended up being pretty bad but I was too excited about my first ever motorcycle ride to be in that much pain. But yes, now in addition to all of my other ailments, I have a “minor” second degree burn on my calf. Guess I have been branded, in a sense, by the Tanzanian motorcycle experience. Nathan is serving as my doctor and is making sure it doesn’t get infected! …He seems to be a little squeamish, but I figure he needs the practice! But needless to say… the ride was worth the pain as Nathan and I were laughing the whole time, looking over our shoulder to make sure the other one was still in fact in one piece.
Then, we met with the lady in town. Uneventful.
After, we took a short-cut, recommended by the nun we just met with, that took us through a landfill and a cemetery to the region’s biggest hospital. Nathan and I decided we wanted to get a tour of the hospital after hearing stories about it. Our friend Judith, who has been working at Bugando Hospital for the past year, offered to give us the tour of the ominous building perched on a hill that seems to serve as a warning to stay healthy. Our tour ended at the psych ward which is situated in the basement of the hospital next to the morgue. Though the mural on the steel door leading into the ward illustrates butterflies and rainbows, the scene behind paints a much different picture. Reminiscent of a dungeon with faint elevator music playing in the background, the window-less ward has access to natural light via two verandas surrounded by 12 foot cement walls.
Then, we went home.
After, we ended up going to a clinic at 6 PM because I found them online (International Health Partners) and when we called the director based in Tanzania, she said, “come on over, someone just went into gynecological surgery so we’re going to be here for a while.” Not knowing whether we were going to work on the database or birth a child, we hopped on the first taxi to the clinic. Instead of birthing a child, we ended up having a meeting with the most energetic old lady we had ever met. Not able to take notes because we needed two hands to eat her home-baked cookies, we ended our day drained of energy but full of adventure.
By the way, in case any of you are still reading this, we are visiting our 28th organization tomorrow and hope to visit 40 by the end of the trip. Our goal was originally to visit between 20 and 25 organizations but that was assuming we would relax a bit more!
