Chino-Latino, Wazungu?!

Recently, the locals have started to call me “mchina wazungu”; my first thought about this is that since plain old “wazungu” wasn’t working in getting my attention that they would add a little something to it and maybe, just maybe I would show some sort of reaction. I told Betsy what the people were saying to me and she told me that this is the word they use for Asians. Apparently, they think I’m Chinese, mainly because they don’t differentiate between any other Asian culture and every Asian is Chinese to them. At first I thought, they must be semi-retarded to think I’m Chinese, but upon further contemplation my hair is pretty dark and since all of the other wazungu here are from Norway, they all have light brown or blond hair, it started to make sense. They probably haven’t seen an Asian, so I’m assuming they just went with it. Even though it could possibly make sense, I still think they’re idiotic. Although one of our research assistants thinks we are from Japan, the other wazungu don’t think that I’m Chinese, yet…

Being the project architect of the hospital has been going well so far, although they had about 15 projects in the queue, so Anders and I have been plenty busy. This is a great thing since it keeps me occupied and at the hospital, allowing me to successfully dodge data-entry with Betsy, muhaha! We just finished up designing the master-plan for the Maternity Ward Expansion. In our first meeting to discuss the design the only feedback I received from the local nurses is that they will no longer have a dedicated room to put their shoes. Apparently, this is a major issue for them, since every subsequent meeting we’ve had the issue continues to circulate. I would have addressed this issue but I have explicit directions to omit these design changes from the man at the top. This is in part because the hospital currently has over 5,000 deliveries per year with four delivery rooms; it is exceedingly taxed right now so every bit of additional space is imperative to be used for services, not shoe collections. Below is the current design for the expansion, the Red is Phase I to start construction January 16, Green is Phase II to be completed immediately after Phase I. Blue is Phase III, which will be in 10 years to keep up with increased demand, and Yellow is Phase IV which will be added in 20 years, give or take 5 years.

Last week Betsy and I went to the “Supermarket”, yes the supermarket, that’s what the locals call the semi-monthly market that comes to town. We were dismayed by the fact that the circus only stocked things you can already purchase in Haydom, only at an increased price which doesn’t make much sense to us. Either way, one stand was selling machetes which were inexplicably bent at the end; which confused the two of us for weeks. Confused us until just the other day when I saw a man cutting the hospital’s grass with it! Since the only place in Haydom with any grass is the hospital, I’m sure they’re the only one’s purchasing these “bent-grass cutters” (I apologize for the ridiculous pun).

Passing the time on the weekend has become difficult to say the least. Especially now that most of the Europeans have departed for Christmas back home, it’s pretty much just Betsy and I here. We went to a salt harvesting lake at the base of Mt. Hanang (see our last posting of pictures). It was great to get out of Haydom for a little while, even if it were only to watch a bunch of guys shoveling bottom of a murky lake into giant sized piles. The salt itself is quite tasty, which is what the locals use to salt their food here which we unwittingly ate before knowing its origin. We also stopped by the hospital’s farm, which consists of 15,000 acres of farm-land and about 100 goats imported from Norway! Not much to say about the farm, it was pretty unspectacular aside from its shear enormity and the fact that they imported goats; as all of you already know, goats are everywhere here, seriously!

Speaking of people being stupid, we’ve come to the conclusion that people here don’t know where they’re walking. They drive on the left side of the road, fine, just please walk and ride your bike accordingly! Everyday it seems as though people run into us or near-misses occur. Betsy and I have tried to make sense of it, our longest running hypothesis was that they are like water, taking the path of least resistance but that has since been disproven. Just yesterday I had a man run his water cart into my leg as I was moving to get out of his way. I think it could be that they stare so intently at us “wazungu” that they completely forget to walk the tangents, or something of that sort. Betsy has the Ludacris song “Move Bitch” (sorry everyone) on her iPod, which plays through our minds every morning while dodging the shotgun scatter of people, potholes and puddles which line the roads to the hospital. Some may find that Betsy having Ludacris on her iPod is absurd but I would say that’s just about right, watch for her to pimp her ride out when she gets home...
-Ryan