Sunday 20 November 2011

How Josh fell in a drain whilst reading a Star Wars colouring book

We had a good flight over, once the boys had got over the disappointment of not having working TV consoles - which was a bit of a bummer considering we had sold the 8 hour flight to them on this basis.  Luckily we found 2 that did work which happened to be situated next to a poor unsuspecting lovely Dutch nurse on her way out to work in Momabasa who surprisingly moved within an hour and a half of fairly constant zac and josh questions!  Somehow she managed to convince a lovely bloke to swap with her, obviously not mentioning the children, who was highly good natured and explained X-men 4 and then put up with Josh kicking him a lot overnight!  In the morning or rather after about 2 hrs sleep we got chatting and it turned out he is a rally driver and driving one of the support vehicles for the mad classic car race round Kenya and Tanzania.  We are hoping to bump into them again round Kilimanjaro..

Moshi is leafy and feels very safe and we were picked up late from the airport by Dr Andrew in his 4WD straight from the Regional Dermatology Training Centre.  We persuaded him to take us shopping in Moshi as arriving with 2 hungry boys to an empty house was not my idea of fun.  So we went haggling in the market and bought bags of papaya, mangoes, pineapple, cucumber, peppers, mountains of tomatoes and garlic and all fresh and local and not flown across the world in a Tesco plane!  Aaron was in 7th heaven once we found him the Union Coffee shop which serves amazing coffee as Tanzania is a world renown coffee plantation.

Our house B22 has seen better days but is fine once we put a red plastic bucket under the leaking sink u bend.  It has loads of space and a fabulous garden with papaya and banana trees.  There was minimal kitchen utensils as i had been led to believe - 4 plates, 4 glasses, 4 cups, 2 pans and some cutlery and that was it!  Nothing for the boys to eat cereal from so Aaron went on a market trip with Rebecca who lives next door and who arrived immediately to tell us she was our house mama and would look after us (after negotiating a fee of course).  She is lovely and we have been communicating of a fashion via the Lonely Planet Swahili phrasebook and made her laugh by saying the mosquito net was takataka (rubbish) as we tried to pin it up with string and nails.

The boys school is across the road and we took them there on Friday.  It is great - leafy and open with cool vernadas and bright fun classrooms.  There is a fabulous outdoor pool and a coffee shop for Aaron - oh dear there goes our safari money!  They start school tomorrow at 7.30am which will be a shock to the system but as it gets dark at 6.30pm we will all be going to bed a bit earlier.  I start work at 8am and went into the Regional Dermatology Training Centre on Friday morning to get my bearings and to do a clinic.  The building is magnificent -built only 15 years ago and very well equipt with numerous outpatient rooms and 2 excellent theatres.  There is a pharmacy and all the ointments are prepared in a buliding in the garden.  The patients are seen by 4th year medical students and then the Dermatology residents with the volunteer Dermatology doctors going inbetween rooms doing the teaching.  I am discovering there is a certain way of doing things and need more time to work out how I will best fit in and hopefully make a difference.   I was worried that I would find the Dermatology difficult as my Tropical dermatology and HIV knowledge is neglible but i was pleased to find that as Claire and Richard said most is general dermatology often in extreme due to the very high prevalence of HIV infection.  Fortunately anti-retrovirals are free but patients often present very late with low CD4 counts and hence have awful disease which is impossible to adequately treat until the HIV is better controlled.

and on that happy note and so to bed as a busy day for all tomorrow.  I will try and post some pictures soon so you can see where we are living.

Love to all

3 comments:

  1. just realised i didn't mention josh falling in a drain at all. Well you will have to wait for the next post....

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  2. Can't wait to hear about first days at school, work... Do ask Josh for his side of the drain story too... You can't always trust mum's version of events.

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  3. AHT
    I have it on good authority that Josh thinks he was pushed, even though absolutely no-one was near him at the time. We have asked for the video ref to review it but in the meantime the FA are suggesting a fine and a mummy suspension for lack of due care and attention.

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