Kuwa na Krismasi njema (Merry Christmas)

Happy Holidays to everyone! We’ve had a pretty flat out week with all the Christmas celebrations and partying we’ve been up to. We kicked off the working week with a half day at the hospital, now you might be thinking that’s typical, skiving off work, but it was the boss of the hospital, Doctor Sister Lyimo or Sister Doctor Lyimo that took us to her village in Keruwa. The trip in the hospital jeep took about 30 minutes just to get to the part of the main road, where it turns to dirt track. Once on the dirt track, it didn’t really matter where you were seated in the car when we started, as we just bounced about, landing and bouncing up again, most of the trip we were airborne. Sister Lyimo’s house was at the top of a huge hill completely surrounded by banana and coffee trees, so much serenity.

Sister Lyimo looking magestic

As we arrived we realized that there was a huge setup there with about a hundred people outside under a tarp, all yarning and carrying on. We were brought into the house with all the sisters, now you might be thinking, how boring, but these sisters could party. They were all on the lash, which was a local beer made from banana and millet. It looked like a chocolate smoothie, which I was hoping it was, but tasted like banana mash mixed with ham juice; Juliet couldn’t get enough of the stuff. The sisters were inside because they didn’t want the community to see them wasted. Lunch was served around 3 and I was starving. As I usually do I piled as much food onto my plate as possible, and just to top it off I added a traditional dish that was a stew with green bananas and meat, and poured the sauce over everything. Grace (the hospital administrator) was behind me in the line and asked me if I liked that dish, I said yea, love it, ignorantly, she said “oh, they make sauce with intestines”; game over, I realized my entire plate now smelt like a barn. The rest of the meal was a salvage mission.

The party animals

On the local lash

Sister Machuwa, this sister is so much fun.

After the meal, the nuns had to retire to a room to sober up and sleep, so Grace, Juliet and I hit the scene outside. I’ve felt like a celebrity loads of times, but this really took the cake. There were hands flying left, right, and centre at me to shake; Juliet was a big hit too, it pains me to say probably bigger than me, she even had a fan club that just stared at her. One guy who had very few teeth sat himself down next to her and just yarned constantly at her in a mixture of bad English and Swahili. We realized pretty quickly that everyone was wasted and had been drinking since the early morning; so I jumped on board, warms beers and church wine all round. As it started to get dark Juliet started to worry that we might never leave, especially when some African club bangers came on, and I had to get up to dance. Just as I was starting to kill it on the D-floor the power went off, and Juliet took the very smart opportunity to ask to leave before our drivers hit the piss.

Juliet and one of her fan club

Grace & I (caught her in an rare non smiling pose)

Juliet's biggest fan, this handshake lasted about 10 minutes

On the D-floor readying to fist pump

Christmas Eve was very slow at the hospital, natural births were still evading us; there were even twins born the night before which we missed. The wards were basically empty, and there were no scheduled surgeries so we headed home. Eric who is a Canadian living in Moshi, was at our place when we got there, and Eva had set up all the decorations and a Christmas tree, and he was cooking dinner for us. It was a stinking hot day, so we listened to carols and drank beer in the sun all afternoon.

Juliet, Deo, and Voice

Christmas Day we organized to go to church with Deo; he dropped off a goat to the house which he had called Nick after me. He told us on the way to church that he was a Pentecost which for all you heathens, is the branch of the church that does the yelling, speaking in tongues, and divine healing among other things. It was an experience in so many ways, if for nothing else but to see the things people wore to church. Families wear matching gears and all the woman dress like Disney princesses and have unbelievable braids in their hair. The pastor almost deafened me with his yelling as I was right by a speaker, and I could hear Deo laughing at me, because I just clapped when everyone else clapped because I didn’t understand a word, and yelled “Amen” and “Hallelujah” at the wrong times. There wasn’t much speaking in tongues or divine healing being done because of the Christmas period, but Deo said it makes most Sunday mornings rather entertaining.

Me looking "like my mum dressed me" for Church according to Juliet
Fi would know better, i dressed myself

When we got back from Church, Nick (the goat) was in pieces, literal pieces. Joseph our Swahili teacher was a butcher in his youth so he’d slaughtered the goat for Christmas dinner. The goat was prepared in the traditional Chagga way, which meant the heart and all its organs were place in the intestine with a whole lot of spices, and the testicles in the sack were filled with a whole lot of spices too, and thrown into a pot to boil. Only the men are allowed to eat the testicles though, so Juliet missed out, lucky me! The rest of the goat was thrown on the barbeque, and you dipped it into a dipping sauce of lime, tomato, red onion, and chili peppers. The only tolerable bit of the goat to eat was the testicles, just joking, they were foul, it was the leg or ribs dipped in that sauce. The goat was only the entrée, the girls had been cooking up a storm inside and at about 4pm we ate like kings. I had to go for a walk after dinner I had eaten so much, Deo and Juliet were in the same boat so we walked down to Msamaria orphanage. We had a whole lot of balloons, bouncy balls and party stuff that my Aunty Glen had donated to hand out. The kids and Mama Msamaria were down in the dumps when we got there, we found out that the orphanage had been robbed the night before on Christmas Eve. Someone had broken in and stolen 150 chickens which is how the orphanage makes money to buy food for the kids. The presents did cheer them up though, and we played a bit of football too.

Joseph; the butcher and Swahili teacher

The Chagga haggis

Obligatory Christmas food pic

Christmas Dinner from left Eric, Voice, Deo, Juliet, and Eva

Augustino & I playing with the balloons at the Orphanage

Boxing day we had been invited to Grace’s house to have another big eating day. Our Australian and Swedish friends Emma and Julia joined us and we headed to Graces. We watched some absolute classics; but it was an emotional rollercoaster of an afternoon. We watched Titanic, Ghost, and then Original Sin. I’d said I liked Serengeti Beer to Grace and she had stocked her fridge, so she kept bringing them out, so I was cut early into Titanic; why didn’t Jack get on the door with Rose? Why did Patrick Swayze have to die in Ghost and in real life? Why am I watching Original Sin with a very religious Christian woman and her young son? Juliet and I had our latest night out, and were home around 11pm, bender!

Grace's helper, Emily, Juliet, Julia and Grace at Grace's Boxing Day feed

Next week is our last week in the hospital, it has gone so fast. We will probably spend it camped out for the most part in the labour ward maybe even sleeping there, in our eternal search for a natural birth. I don’t really know why I want to see it; I’m worried I might be screaming more than the mother, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. Our plan for the next few weeks is completely up in the air after the hospital, we are currently planning, watch this space!

It's been hot in Moshi, so this one is for the ladies. No pool, so i've had to make do.

Happy Holidays everyone and I hope everyone has a safe and fun/loose New Year.

Love Nick + Juliet

Blood, guts and our first week in the hospital

Our first week at the hospital as expected was pretty life changing. Juliet is a fourth year medical student so is right at home there; however being a biomedical engineer puts me in a kind of limbo. Nobody understands what I do; I don’t even really know what I do so they just said to follow Juliet around. Deo dropped us at St Josephs Hospital in Soweto for our first day in the hospital which felt a bit like our first day of school. He showed us where to catch the “dolla dollas” (minivan equivalent of a bus) and we needed to catch one into town, then walk for five minutes to find another “dolla dolla” to drop us in Soweto. We were introduced to the hospital administrator Grace who has an amazing ability to never not be smiling; sometimes I even try to catch her off guard by sneaking passed her office but still, those pearly whites are showing.

Mount Kilimanjaro, Africa's highest mountain taunts me every morning on our way to work

The early morning commute to the hospital; that's Juliet's face between the bums

Dr Maji Maji aka Dr Water Water (She got a nickname because she drinks so much water)

Our typical morning this week has involved doing general ward rounds with Dr Dawson, who is a pretty soft spoken suave dude as well as being the hospital skux; the nurses love him. During the ward rounds he quizzes us on different disorders, not being a medical student I try and let Juliet answer the questions but sometimes he singles me out and I have to bumble my way through my answer. I now get Juliet to brief me on the disorder while he has his back turned and just regurgitate it on queue. The afternoons at the hospital have chopped and changed, we’ve progressed from watching minor surgery to major surgery over the week. We started with the removal of a fatty deposit and a circumcision in minor theatre then we watched a hysterectomy, and a caesarian section in major theatre. The power often goes out during surgery; one of the German surgical assists who is also volunteering said that when that happens he has to hold his iPhone torch up so the doctors can see what they’re doing.

Surgery selfy - no scrubs

Juliet & I have been trying to see a natural birth since we’ve been here, there are a couple of nurses from Australia & Sweden that are working in the ward and they told us they’ve witnessed them daily. However they seem to be completely eluding us. I’ve seem more naked black ladies than I’ve have had hot dinners but no natural births. One morning there was a lady whom we were sure was going to be our big break, but when we consulted the doctor he told us she was way off. There was another expectant mother in the room, and she just got up and left too. Juliet and I were sitting outside of the labour ward feeling defeated, when we heard a baby crying, and when we went into the room, there was a fresh one all wrapped up. No one was in the room, he (or she) was just chilling there, “and here’s one we prepared earlier” was running through my head. I tried to work my usual magic on the little kid, but because it was so fresh none of my crowd pleasers were working; it even yawned a couple of times, tough crowd.

Emily, Me, Juliet and Johanna in the Labour ward

The tough crowd

On Saturday to escape the heat we decided to head to the pools; the Honeybadger Hotel pool to be exact. Deo and Voice were keen to come as well so we went as a family. It was great to finally be able to regulate our own body temperature. Deo can’t swim, so he would hug the side of the pool, he also wasn’t too keen for me to teach him how to swim, and wasn’t too receptive to me pulling him off the side of the pool. There was a little local kid that had all the latest swimming gear playing in the pool, including a life jacket and waterguns; we found out through Deo that he was actually an orphan who had been adopted by a “muzungu” woman from the UK (which according to Steven is so 2007). A waterfight broke out as expected and in my haste to win, smashed the orphan boy’s water gun into pieces. The mum saw and completely flipped out at me in front of everyone at the pool, I offered to pay for it, and she said she didn’t know how much it cost, it was a real drama. I probably stayed in the pool an extra hour longer than I wanted to because I didn’t want to deal with it. Eventually I got out and she produced a receipt that confirmed it was 7100 shillings, I went into my bag and got a 10000 shilling note and gave it to her. I thought she might have produced some change but after hanging round a little too long she shot me an evil glare so I decided it wasn’t worth it.

Deo doing an underwater selfy

Deo sticking to the shallow end (that woman is in the pool in the background)

As we’ve been quite light on the pictures this week I’m going to go into the food a bit. What we’ve noticed from our experiences here is that the diet consists of mainly carbohydrates, which hasn’t been great for my no-carb diet. A typical meal has either rice or ugali (like a doughy cake made from maize flour) and beans, kuku (chicken), or nyama (meat usually beef). They also have chipsi (fried chips) and chipsi mayai (kind of like a Spanish omelette). Two times we’ve been to big celebratory events they have had the same menu, so that consisted mostly of the following:

• Pilau
• Plain rice
• Beef curry (very Indian except for the beef part)
• Beef & banana curry (they use green bananas and boil them until they are soft then mix with the curry and beef)
• Fried cabbage
• Barbequed meat
• Fruit (watermelon)

As far as drinking goes, there are four main local beers which are Safari, Serengeti, Tusker and Kilimanjaro. They have basically every type of alcohol but there is also a local spirit called Konyagi that is bottled here; it tastes like a combination of Gin & Vodka and is ruthless. When you drink Konyagi, you never sit the bottle up on the table, it always lies down; the thinking behind this is that the little Konyagi man on the bottle is cheering that he beat you if you sit it up. I bought a bottle at a bar, and mixed it for one drink, and Juliet had a sip of it and we both were ruthlessly hungover from it in the morning.

This stuff is toxic

Ugali

Juliet giving a demonstration of how to eat Ugali and nyama (meat) with your hands

Also, if you have been wondering if Tinder is big in Tanzania, wonder no more..... it's not. But there is the odd hun that pops up, I'm pretty sure she's left swiped me though.

Christmas week is going to be pretty flat out for us, the invites have already started pouring in from people wanting us to go to villages, house parties and festivals. But no doubt we’ll take heaps of photos.

Back to school and our Kenyan getaway

Our first week as locals, and we are really starting to blend in. This week was Tanzanian culture and Kiswahili learning, which Juliet and I were not overly excited about but we have been pleasantly surprised. However, we thought by now we both would be fluent in Swahili and really making our mark in Tanzania. In reality our Swahili is limited to greetings (that we have down pat), and long premeditated sentences that haven’t been translated well, which we struggle to understand the replies to (but we are getting better). During our daily Swahili class I noticed that the teacher Joseph got distracted by Juliet’s “necklace” and my hairy chest in a singlet, so I decided to have a cleavage comp over the week with her; I thought I won but Juliet says it was a draw.

Blending in with my high fashion outfit on washing day in Moshi

We have been getting amongst our “hood” as much as we can; Eva came with us on a walk around the immediate neighborhood to show us around and for us to ask her any questions. At the Olde Moshi Secondary  School there were a whole lot of little inedible fruits on the ground, which turned into an all out war as the girls didn’t realize what an incredible marksman I am. We even have a “local” now, it’s called C’africa, and it is one street over, but because we go to bed around 7:30 and it opens at 7 we haven’t actually spent that much time there.

Olde Moshi Secondary School classroom - 70+ pupils per class

About to unleash a hail of little berries on the girls

We have been spending a bit of time with at the orphanage when we can, and when we got there on Wednesday a jeep from the International School in Moshi was there to take the kids swimming. Mama Msamaria asked us if we were keen to come, but I was already in the jeep with the kids beeping. The International School was pretty flash, and the kids directed us to the pool. As we were getting ready to get in, it started torrentially raining, and all the kids lost interest. So for the next hour we had to sit in a classroom and draw until the jeep picked us up again.

Swim time at the International School

The kids just bloody love me aye

Me just ruining a perfectly good photo

Then the rains came down

Juliet broing down with the kids

On the Friday we decided we’d make a slice because we wanted to do something nice for Eva & Maggie and introduce them to something not Tanzanian. We googled a couple of no-bake recipes, and found one that looked like it could be done with available ingredients. When we went to the market though, we couldn’t find anything that resembled condensed milk or golden syrup, so we bought milk and honey. The recipe went as follows:

• §  1 x 500ml packet of milk (less two coffees worth)
• §  1 x packet of chocolate biscuits
• §  1 x half eaten pack of stale family biscuits
• §  1 generous + one not so generous spoonful of honey
• §  1 shake of sugar
• §  Enough peanut butter to turn normal milk into the texture of condensed milk
• §  2 very late forgotten spoonfuls of margarine (because that’s what Eva said was butter)
• §  1 generous dollop of icing sugar
• §  As much water to balance the mixture being too dry

The recipe off the internet went out the window and it was a shambles; I think we did irreparable damage to the kitchen, especially trying to turn milk into condensed milk over the stove. But there was an end product, and I’ve been told presentation is everything when it comes to baking so here it is below. Eva asked for the recipe in a manner which gave me the impression that she’d been told to say that whenever someone cooks her something.

Peanut butter and mashed biscuit slice #vegetarian #treat

On Saturday we went to another nearby waterfall, which is in Marangu, one of the five original Chagga tribelands. Deo took us on the drive there which was a couple of hours, but it was fun as he has great banter. We had a Chagga history tour, and then went down to the waterfalls. There is a legend of these waterfalls, and there is a stone carving of a young woman atop of them, legend has it that she became pregnant before marriage, and knew under Chagga law that meant her death by impaling. So she went to the waterfall to commit suicide, however she had a change of heart and decided to beg for her forgiveness and hope for mercy, and turned around to leave, only to be confronted by a bloody leopard, and in her terror fell off anyway. When we got ready to swim again it started to rain, but we persevered. After the swim we walked back through the jungle, we stopped along the way for the guide to show us wild strawberries and passionfruit. Delish!

Juliet looking like she is trying to push the lady of the waterfall off

Juliet, Deo and I spelunking in a Chagga protective cave

Marangu Falls

Juliet bloody loving it

Search for wild berries

Wild strawberries

On Sunday, we went on our much anticipated trip to Lake Challa. It is a crater lake on the border between Tanzania and Kenya. We caught another local bus to the border, and then convinced a Boda Boda (motorbike taxi) to take us both to the lake. After an hour ride, the lake looked like a mirage, so out of place in the surrounding area. It was a steep climb down, but was unbelievable once we got there. I think I filled up a memory stick alone with photos of me from every angle with the lake behind; I’ll leave those gems for my Facebook uploads. We had been warned from the Rough Guide (not Lonely Planet) that there were crocodiles in the lake so I attached my pocket knife to the waterproof camera just in case I needed to kill myself faster, but we didn’t see any unfortunately. The water was the perfect temperature, which was ideal for our swim to Kenya. We crossed the invisible line that signified we’d hit Kenya, and already we noticed stark differences. Everything was just way more Kenyan, the water, the bugs, the wind, even the Tanzanian people we were watching from Kenya.

The way to Lake Challa with Jonny Christian

Lake Challa

Enjoying a cappa by Lake Challa (One of the facebook gems)

Relaxing Kenyan style

Kenyan side of Lake Challa, soo Kenyan

Juliet trying to catch us on the Boda Boda

We start at the hospital this week; we truly don’t know what to expect. I feel I am well out of my depth, but I’m sure all that stuff can be learnt on the job. As far as childbirth goes, I’m pretty good at catching.

Kwaheri