Endless Plains and Cow Bells

The Serengeti is a Masai word for endless plains. And Ngorongoro is a Swahili word for the sound a cowbell makes. This is where I was. I'm not sure why Ngronongoro is associated with cowbells, but boy was the Serengeti an endless escape. Picture the Lion King. Its all we could think of. We spent 2 days and 1 night in the Serengeti. It was the most sun I've seen this whole time in Tanzania. Not a cloud in the sky (it is a savanna). The rest of Tanzania hasn't yet managed to escape the rainy-cold season that is supposed to end in May global warming? It was gorgeous flat land covered in long grasses that get trimmed by all the herbivores like gazel, impala, zebra, and buffalo. Occasionally massive boulders would spike the horizon. Being completely puzzled at how they arrived in such random locations we learned they were called copgees (not sure how to spell it) and they were volcanic waste products of the Earth's fault line hiccups. It was stunningly beautiful. about 5 minutes into the park grounds we saw a lioness walking about 4 feet from our car with 7 lion cubs. Talk about the cutest thing you'll ever see. The cubs acted like puppies with paws too big for their bodies, they would flop around behind the lioness and then prance along to keep up with her long strides. She looked over at us occasionally as we crept along side her for 10 minutes but never wavered from her 4 foot distance from us. incredible.

We were completely spoiled for 3 days. Peter-our guide was a cook before he was a safari guide. It was easy to tell, his meals were all catered to Muzungu's so we had amazing meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. However 4 out of the 6 of us ended up paying for it later with stomach problems because we've outgrown our acclimation to Western food. We slept in tents in unprotected campsites. Meaning we set up camp in the middle of the park with no fences to keep any of the animals from us. Our night in the Serengeti was complete with a visit from a scavenging giraffe through our campsite at 2 in the morning.

We spent one day in Ngorongoro. By the way, both of these places as well as Lake Manyara (my first safari a couple of weekends ago) are located either in or near the rift valley where the start of the human race is thought to have began. "Lucy" the oldest human fossils to be collected came from the rift valley. Anyway, Ngorongoro is a crater formed from an implosion of a volcano. All of the animals in the crater are naturally domesticated.. meaning they can't escape so they never leave during migration. There is a "circle of life" total balance between predator and prey in the crater. We literally saw thousands and thousands of wildebeast and buffalo and zebra. We also saw more lions and cubs at the side of the road. Rhinos, servel cats (they look like leopards but aren't) and so much more. There are 55 species of animals that live in the crater. The crater is a lot colder than the Serengeti. You have to stay bundled the whole time. but eventually in the afternoon the sun comes out and you feel a little warmer. The crater is less deserty than the Serengeti. There are lakes and rivers where you can find different animals taking a drink. There are trees and lush areas where you'll find the monkeys. Its marvelous. So we also stayed one night in Ngorongoro but not in the crater, rather around the rim of the crater. As we were setting up camp to have our tents over look the crater, Larance (our safari driver) kind of gave us a look like "you really want to set up your tents at the edge of the camp?". We asked him if it was a bad idea, and he kind of shrugged and said no, but if it were him, he would put the tents in the middle of the other tents. But the sunset was so beautiful and our tents were already half up so we decided to stay on the edge of camp. As dinner began, Peter came out to tell us to come to the kitchen (a fence-enclosed area where food can be kept and not eaten by animals). When we stepped into the kitchen it was hard to pick our jaws up off the floor. An elephant was standing right at the fence, so you could walk up to where it was and feel its breath on you. Its giant tusks were poking through the holes in the fence a little. Since there was a barrier, we could walk straight up to it, touch it for sure, but we didn't because, well you can imagine why not. It was amazing. Its completely different seeing an animal from standing up in a safari car above everything, to seeing such an enormous animal from ground level, straight in front of you! After dinner we had preveously gotten supplies to make s'mores for Peter and Larance so we had a camp fire going and we were all enjoying the treats. I decided to go back to the tent because I was so tired and we were going to get up early for a sunrise game drive, so I causally walked back, but I didn't have contacts in, and my glasses were in the tent, I saw to gray blobs about 10 feet in front of me. I kind of froze in my tracks, having no idea what kind of animal I might be facing more elephants? Buffalo? I quickly jumped into the tent, found my glasses and put them on just in time to see the rest of the herd of zebra surround my tent. Umm where does this happen? I heard munching all around me even though I could only see out the front door. Even though zebra are pretty harmless, I was a little nervous that I was all alone in my tent, away from all the other tents and people. After a little while I saw flashes of light and I knew people were taking pictures. Immediately the zebra scampered away. Then a little while later I heard the voices of the girls coming back to the tent. My tent partner Sally came inside and she was telling me her side of the zebra story. But all the other girls in our group were still by the camp fire far away from us. about 5 minutes after sally and I snuggled in to go to sleep, I heard munching again. Thinking it was another zebra I peeked my head out of the tent, again without my glasses. When I saw a gray blob larger than what a zebra should be, I ducked back in to get my glasses and peek outside again. A giant cape buffalo (the most aggressive animal in the serengeti) about 3 feet from our tent door. When the blood rushed back to my head I decided I could stay where I was with my head outside of the zipper door, and as long as I didn't make sudden movements, it wouldn't see me and I could just watch. There are no words to describe how exhilerated and frightened I was at the same moment. Meanwhile, Sally- deathly afraid of buffalo, was Harry Potter style petrified in her sleeping bag in the corner. She was ready to run out of the tent to where the others were when I warned her that the buffalo had no idea we were in the tent, and he would probably be more likely to attack if she ran out. Aside from when I went cage diving in South Africa with great white sharks swimming all around me, I have never experienced something so dangerous at such a close range. My only regret- theres no way I could have taken a picture of it from outside of my tent, and the pitch blackness wouldn't have allowed me to take a picture without a flash.

All in all, the best trip yet in Tanzania. Worth every penny. When we got back to Arusha Sunday night, Peter wanted to take us all out to dinner to thank us for being such a great group, but we had all already arranged dinner and sleeping at our old homestays. Since my old mama lives so far away from where the rest of the girls lived in Arusha, I just stayed with Tamara's family. Its cool to see how other families exist here. Tamara lived in a mansion, and had what seemed like a million people coming in and out of the house all day. Very different from my home in Arusha with just my mama, sister and house girl.

Today, Tuesday we came back to the hospital. We talked to the head doctor and told him about the shadowing opportunities. Right away he smiled and walked us over to the clinical officer station. I shadowed one doctor and Tamara shadowed a different one. We shadowed for about 2 hours, and then came back to computer train. It is super interesting to see how hospitals run here. I got to assist with stitching up a patient who had a deep laceration on his inner ankle. and when I say assist, I mean I got to cut the thread after the stitch was made. But the doctor was so nice about explaining everything as he went along. I also got to look at the x-rays taken to see if a man had fractured his hip. Obviously HIPPA and patient privacy doesn't really exist here. I got to look on to all the patients health records and drug records. The drug names are mostly the same here, and working in the pharmacy for so long kind of helps me understand whats going on. Most of the cases are malaria, some UTIs, and diabetes. I'm happy though, that I'm getting the opportunity to see daily processes and how patients are handled throughout the hospital.

one interesting thing I still don't quite understand is patients diagnosed as hypertensive still have to come back to the hospital every 2 weeks to get their blood pressure taken. I guess I'm not exactly sure how it goes in the US but I do know, patients don't go back every 2 weeks. It seems like a lot of hassle both for the patient and the doctor to handle so many cases of patients returning just to get their BP checked. Plus, the doctors only write out prescriptions for drugs for 2 weeks in advance. So if the patient didn't come back, they couldn't get their next 2 weeks of medicine. It seems really inefficient and I tried to explain to the doctor that in the US doctors write out hypertension prescriptions for a whole year because its a chronic disease. I don't think he understood what I was getting at. ohh well. Also, when the doctor was suturing up the patient, I couldn't help but cringe the whole time. I don't think a single aseptic technique was being followed. There were "sterile gauze" in a rusty metal box: unwrapped, the sterilizing liquid used to clean the wound was in a big plastic jug that was kept on the dirt floor and had dirt all over it. The scissors I was handed to use for cutting the thread was rusty. The doctor didn't even wash his hands before he put on the gloves to work. And after the procedure he only rinsed his hands with tap water. Its incredible, the things 3rd world hospitals get away with, because there are no other options. I just hope nothing bad happens to me here so I have to be operated on!