The Wild Blue Yonder

Hello again. This week and a half has been a time of new discoveries.  We went to the largest mall/shopping center in Dar Es Salam to stock up on some supplies that may or may not be readily available once we reach our communities.  For example, good shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste etc.  Speaking of which, I was happy to discover HERBAL toothpaste.  Why, with chamomile, sage, myrrh, and eucalyptus it seemed like such a good and healthy idea.  Or so I thought.

Herbal Colgate...just like brushing your teeth with VICKS VAPORUB.  

A very clever use of the toilet seats!

We can be clever, too.  Our homemade medicine cabinet.

We spent some time at the Peace Corps Headquarters in Dar Es Salam where we had more language training and learned even more about the country, culture and safety protocols.

Love these African trees at the Peace Corps headquarters in Dar.

Tanzania Shillings are the currency here. We still can't organize the exchange rate in our heads, but this helped a lot. 

So, technically, $600 makes me a millionaire in Tanzania.

It is even harder to determine the time.  The sun rises at around 06:00 every morning (asubuhi) and sets between 6 & 7 in the evening (jioni/ usiku) so there are 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of night every day.  Tanzanians tell time based on this so 7 am is HOUR ONE ASUBUHI and 8 am is HOUR TWO ASUBUHI.  Using this same method.  9 pm is HOUR THREE JIONI/USIKU and 10 am is HOUR FOUR JIONI/USIKU.  Jioni is supposed to be late afternoon or early evening and Usiku is supposed to be night time, but there seems to be no agreed upon time that differentiates the two.  So we remain confused. 

Does anybody really know what time it is?

One of our very good and patient Kiswahili teachers, Loyce.

"Hey, What do you do?"

We visited a couple of the sites that some of the providers will be going to and it was humbling, to say the least.  Here are only a couple of the notable things we saw.

The OR clothing after being hand washed and hung to dry. 

Childbirth is sometimes not a happy experience because of the high infant mortality rate. 

 We finally finished with our two weeks of orientation and language/culture training.  We have both gained about 10 pounds each due to the fact that they fed us 5 times a day.  Breakfast 07:00, Chai 10:00, Lunch 12:00, Soda break 15:00, and Dinner 19:00.  Each meal had no less than 3 carbs to choose from..rice, plantain, chapati bread, more rice, bananas, cassava, some more rice, various deep fried bread options and then there was rice.  Today we are finally headed to our new home via car, bus, plane, and ferry.  Will write more once we're settled in.