Fought our guard with his masai weapons: for fun :) He should us how the masai use the rungu and staff. He was fast!! The rungu is a small wooden club. The masai throw it to test their strength and defense if they need to bonk someone on the head. We threw it as high as we could. It was interesting until I threw it over the fence and yelled "FORE!!!". Whoops, it wasn't going to hit anyone but automatically yelling fore to people that don't golf wasn't going to solve the problem. Its not like its legal to bonk someone on the head with a wooden club and explain that because you yelled fore, there is no problem. :/
Cooked indian lentils for the neighbors though. Great time. I talked quite abit with them about the ongoing systems here since they are all quite new.
Went to work today and yesterday, nothing very exciting at this point. Its been fairly straight forward.
The rains came last night and it rained hard all night for the first time. There was fog out because of the hot land and cool rain...very beautiful. Mount Meru was shining later in the afternoon too!
(view from Arusha)This afternoon Jose Debes (Argentinean MD who is at the U of M working), Dave & Julianna (married Kiwi med students), Eric and I went to the UN Rwanda War Crimes Tribunal. We watched as a protected witness, who sat behind a curtain, testified. We watched as three UN judges heard arguments and cross examination of the witness about discussions on truck loads of people disappearing as well as other people from the surrounding villages. The process of trial was a novelty and to hear about how people were "removed from camp" was surreal.
*Sidenote - on this trip I've been to the two cities that hold internation war crime trials (The Hague and Arusha). I didn't go into The Hague proceeding but I still count it as a win.
So afterwords we discusses the trials as we grabbed some pizza from the nearby Masai Cafe and called it a day. We walked home from there. (2 miles)
So another interesting side note about the rains. They bring in bugs! We left the porch light on and our door which has a little clearance under it collected all the wings of these flying termites who shed their wings. When we brought tea out to our night guard, about 30-50 of the buggers got in and went everywhere!! I stepped on quite a few. But then our house lizards went crazy! They started running everywhere eating them. Eric and I watched marveling how these small lizards were eating 3, 4, 5 at a time. But in the morning by the door i swept the wings into a pile....
Yes that is my foot. I don't have small feet as my family has reminded me over and over and so you can see it a massive pile of wings.
hey!..bry too bad your not in north dakota, we could put you to work skiing across all the flooding :)
Too soon??
So today was fun as we got the normal harassment by people thinking we were tourists. One guy especially walked purposefully in front of me and started saying all these weird things to me. I gave him a stern look as he wouldn't let me pass and soon the local people around me started yelling at him. It was a weird moment. I was close to moving him forcefully as he was getting very close to being on top of me. But I cut right quickly and made it by. But I think he was a bit unstable due probably to cerebral complications from HIV. Its actually quite common to see because the guy was about 25 years and you could tell he wasn't functional on a mental level. Its hard to explain but its called AIDS demetia complex which is a side effect of advanced HIV-1infection. Young guy, emaciated with hollowed eyes. I see it quite a bit. I don't know it for sure of course but I'm about >75% sure. He could just be crazy but HIV's prevelance in some villages around Arusha is estimated to be 80%. Its an epidemic. So it goes...
So the visiting MD's here are struggling with over diagnosis of malaria and unnecessary treatment. Its very common and Eric is collecting data to check for the effectiveness of blood smears. Right now the standard procedure is to give Alu or Quinine to malarial suspect patients which pretty much is everyone with lungs ;)All is pretty quiet here for the most part. We have a four day weekend coming up for easter and so we'll lay low for a few days. Eric and I were invited by the hospice leader Mama Makule to her house on Monday afternoon for food. Sounds good to me! Our kiwi friends are going to Nairobi. We initially thought about catching the bus up there but I have stuff to do here so probably not! I'd like to just drink coffee, kick my feet up and watch the rains. Its quite peaceful to do so especially at night.
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