Now that our little immigration ‘hiccup’ is over, things are moving along relatively smoothly. I’ve been spending my time learning about healthcare in Singida. It’s pretty amazing that anyone is actually alive here. In the area we are working in, there is the health center run by the district, which provides in- and out-patient services, as well as minor surgeries. Singida District has over 120,000 people; however there is no doctor at the health center and only one “Assistant Medical Officer” which is somewhat akin to a nurse practitioner. Also, they only have 35% of the health workers they need, and only have enough money in the budget to pay salaries. There is no ambulance, and there is a constant shortage of drugs and medical supplies. If we get sick here, we’re heading to see the Norwegians in Haydom (where there’s a slightly smaller shortage of drugs and supplies)!
In our spare time, Ryan and I have both started running again. We’ve found a relatively deserted path along Singidani, the lake Singida sits on. Running is not something Tanzanians do; in a calorie-deficient environment, expending extra energy is a pretty foreign idea. Since Ryan is a faster runner than me, people usually think I’m chasing him, and I’m constantly told, “He went that way!”. “He’s ahead, up the hill.” Gee, thanks.
-Betsy
Saturday, January 23, 2010
Monday, January 18, 2010
Dar-tour
Singida, oh Singida, you were so good to us for the first few days, what happened?! Ok, Singida is still beautiful, tasty and overall pretty darn nice place to be but the immigration officials of Singida Region caught wind of our presence last week, apparently not good. We awoke Wednesday morning to an average Singida day, overcast and eggs done just right for breakfast, smothered of course in hot sauce (thank you Ryan & Tamara); that's where the "normal" day ended. We were just setting up our computers and getting ready for a day of research assistant training when the concierge of the hotel came to the conference room to say that someone was at the front desk for us. The person waiting at the desk was an immigration and customs agent who asked to see our documents. As all of our papers would suggest, he said that everything checked out but that he needed to take us down to the immigration office to verify, at this point we were accosted.
As we entered the office it seemed as though everyone knew us or at the very least had seen us in the streets. Singida, I didn’t realize was so small, although we are definitely the only wazungu in town, which makes us stand out a bit. They took one look at Betsy’s passport and alarm-bells started to ring! Apparently, the Dar es Salaam immigration office did not stamp her passport properly, not good. After grilling me for about 15 minutes about what I was doing in the country, they seemed to think that I had everything in order and were prepared to release me. That is where the trouble started; Betsy had applied this week to change her COSTEC permit so she would be able to do research in Singida region. Only problem with this is that the COSTEC wheels move at an amazingly slow pace! We were awaiting approval, which we were given word that next week Monday we were good to go, unfortunately this was a few days too late. They quickly realized that she was not yet approved to do research in this region, although we had not started and did not plan to start the research until given approval we were in some trouble here.
After about an hour of finagling we managed to convince them to release us from their custody with the promise we were leaving on the next bus to Dar es Salaam. After calming our nerves we checked the bus station to see if there were any buses leaving pronto, there were. We regrouped with the idea that maybe they would let us stay in Singida until Sunday, the day before the permit was to be retrieved, then return thereafter. We went and ate lunch, returned to the immigration office to be received by the very annoyed looking immigration officer who sent us away. We asked to leave on Sunday in which he threatened legal action against Betsy for over-staying her visa, which she didn’t but according to the stamps in her passport, she did. Nothing here is digitally entered, so they would have had to call Dar to verify she was here legally, apparently that’s too much to ask.
After a long ride to Dar, Monday morning was surprisingly productive! Being MLK day in the US, the embassy was not open (sorry, Mom, we weren't able to pick up the box) but everything else went smoother than it would an a Western country! Betsy had the passport stamp and COSTEC revision in hand before noon, it was simply amazing! We called the bus station to have our return tickets ready for the next morning, looks like it was a short vacation in Dar, time to go back and get ready for research.
-Ryan
As we entered the office it seemed as though everyone knew us or at the very least had seen us in the streets. Singida, I didn’t realize was so small, although we are definitely the only wazungu in town, which makes us stand out a bit. They took one look at Betsy’s passport and alarm-bells started to ring! Apparently, the Dar es Salaam immigration office did not stamp her passport properly, not good. After grilling me for about 15 minutes about what I was doing in the country, they seemed to think that I had everything in order and were prepared to release me. That is where the trouble started; Betsy had applied this week to change her COSTEC permit so she would be able to do research in Singida region. Only problem with this is that the COSTEC wheels move at an amazingly slow pace! We were awaiting approval, which we were given word that next week Monday we were good to go, unfortunately this was a few days too late. They quickly realized that she was not yet approved to do research in this region, although we had not started and did not plan to start the research until given approval we were in some trouble here.
After about an hour of finagling we managed to convince them to release us from their custody with the promise we were leaving on the next bus to Dar es Salaam. After calming our nerves we checked the bus station to see if there were any buses leaving pronto, there were. We regrouped with the idea that maybe they would let us stay in Singida until Sunday, the day before the permit was to be retrieved, then return thereafter. We went and ate lunch, returned to the immigration office to be received by the very annoyed looking immigration officer who sent us away. We asked to leave on Sunday in which he threatened legal action against Betsy for over-staying her visa, which she didn’t but according to the stamps in her passport, she did. Nothing here is digitally entered, so they would have had to call Dar to verify she was here legally, apparently that’s too much to ask.
After a long ride to Dar, Monday morning was surprisingly productive! Being MLK day in the US, the embassy was not open (sorry, Mom, we weren't able to pick up the box) but everything else went smoother than it would an a Western country! Betsy had the passport stamp and COSTEC revision in hand before noon, it was simply amazing! We called the bus station to have our return tickets ready for the next morning, looks like it was a short vacation in Dar, time to go back and get ready for research.
-Ryan
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Singida-a-gogo
So, week one of Singida down, and we’re settling in nicely. We’ve already found a new favorite restaurant, Cheshi Cliff, which is literally built into the side of a cliff. It’s about 4 stories tall, and 20 feet wide, and would never pass ANY building code in the Western world. But they have great “wali rosti” with hot peppers, and cold beer, so we’ve become huge fans. Also, the cliff offers an amazing view of the city of Singida. We’ve also settled into our hotel, the Stanley, chosen mostly because of the concrete animals in front. There are several hotels in Singida all owned by the same person, all identifiable by the concrete sculptures on display. Sadly, the Aqua Vita, which has a concrete dinosaur scene was too far from the city center to be feasible.
Interestingly, the perception that Ryan is Chinese has followed us here, and rather than shouts of “Wazungu! Wazungu!” when we walk through the streets, we more likely hear, “Mchina! Mchina!” This make a modicum of sense however, as many of the kids here have probably seen a lot more Chinese people than Americans or Europeans come through Singida. It seems that every road or development project in the area is sponsored by the Chinese government.
We’ve moved forward with setting up research here, and have hired a couple of research assistants, and started meeting local government officials. They’ve largely been very helpful, and I’m really excited to start working here. Unfortunately, we have to go to Dar for a few days to get some paperwork before moving forward (see Ryan’s blog post). People keep reassuring us, “don’t worry, it’s only a 12-hour bus ride”….great….
-Betsy
Interestingly, the perception that Ryan is Chinese has followed us here, and rather than shouts of “Wazungu! Wazungu!” when we walk through the streets, we more likely hear, “Mchina! Mchina!” This make a modicum of sense however, as many of the kids here have probably seen a lot more Chinese people than Americans or Europeans come through Singida. It seems that every road or development project in the area is sponsored by the Chinese government.
We’ve moved forward with setting up research here, and have hired a couple of research assistants, and started meeting local government officials. They’ve largely been very helpful, and I’m really excited to start working here. Unfortunately, we have to go to Dar for a few days to get some paperwork before moving forward (see Ryan’s blog post). People keep reassuring us, “don’t worry, it’s only a 12-hour bus ride”….great….
-Betsy
Monday, January 11, 2010
Divine Intervention
Wow, the past week or so has been more than exciting on our side of the planet! First of all, I’ve been ill with flu-like symptoms for the past couple of weeks until a few days ago. It wouldn’t attract much attention aside from the fact that I had my first, “Pu your pants on the side of the road” experience. Yep, you heard it right, although I didn’t go in my pants there was no way I could not possibly make it to a bathroom, so that was great! I’ve been on a daily regimen of cipro for the past week and seem to be on the mend which has made for a much more pleasant trip.
Well, we decided this past Friday was going to be the “great escape” for us. We arranged plans to head out for Kigoma. According to Betsy, Kigoma was to be a land of “milk and honey” in which we were to be delivered. After speaking with a few of the locals who were helping in arranging the trip, one of them, Esto (research guru of Haydom) warned that going from Haydom to Kigoma direct was an “adventure”. Betsy, having heard the warnings from locals that the trip was not necessarily the most pleasant and deciding to forge ahead was also warned by her fiancé. Our massive amounts of luggage, coupled with us being wazungu, meant that this trip, no matter how pleasant the bus, was going to be a difficult one. Again, Betsy dismissed any reluctance or reservations I had and decided that going straight through was the best plan of action.
(see below: Betsy no longer makes ANY decision from this point on)
We awoke Friday morning and much to our chagrin, it was pouring rain! This also wouldn’t be of immense importance aside from the fact that all of the roads out of Haydom are dirt paths; so any type of precipitation makes for quite the eventful landcruiser ride! We found ourselves at the hospital garage with the drivers around in a circle arguing about whether or not we were going to be able to leave that morning; we were not happy people at this point. Finally, one of them made the decision that we were to try and three separate drivers hopped in to the car. I’m not sure why we needed all three drivers… not sure if I’ll ever understand that. Well, we believe from this point on it was direct divine intervention which kept us from Kigoma. About two hours into our trip to SIngida, the stop-over town for buses heading from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma, we came to a river which traversed the road we were to cross. Being in a Landcruiser I told the drive, “Twende”, since we were running late, but he hesitated to continue. Our landcruiser was outfitted with a snorkel and had 18” of clearance, I knew we would be fine, but they were still hesitant. Before we knew it our drivers had walked off, leaving Betsy and I in the car surrounded by 50 bored Tanzanians wanting to cross the same river on foot. About two hours after our drivers deserted us, having been ogled over for a similar amount of time by the bored Tanzanians and countless efforts to convince Betsy we should just take the landcruiser ourselves across the river, our drivers returned. We think they went and grabbed a cup of chai, although neither of us was certain either way. Finally, after watching a large charter bus enter and forge the river successfully, we made our attempt and to everyone’s relief, we made it just fine.
Two hours later we arrived in Singida the same time our bus was scheduled to leave. One problem, we were lost and didn’t know where to go. As we frantically called people to find out where to go, we happened upon the bus-stand and to our relief; the bus had not yet arrived from Dar. So, we bought our tickets and crossed the street to grab some lunch around 3pm. For the following six hours we were continually told that the bus would arrive within the current hour only to find that it never arrived. As time approached 9pm, our hospital drivers were antsy to head back to Haydom, since it was over a 3 hour trip back. We released them after they drove our stuff to the side of the road; we had five LARGE suitcases, two large boxes of Betsy’s surveys, two laptop computers and a large daypack! I decided to run to the restroom since the bus hadn’t arrived yet and was over 6 hours behind schedule. I exited the restroom to find an out of breath Tanzanian chasing after me yelling, “your bus, your bus!” Inferring that he meant my bus had arrived I doubled it back to the spot on the side of the road I left Betsy to find her deep in argument with the concierge of the bus on how much extra we needed to pay for all of our luggage! He wanted us to pay him 60,000 Tsh, about $50 USD, almost the price of our two tickets to Kigoma combined. She offered him 20,000 Tsh in which he responded in silence. As the argument continued on the side of the road, Betsy became more and more despondent while I became increasingly jovial, it was quite the juxtaposition. As we ate the dust from the bus pealing out as it left us on the side of the road, we came to realize, (Betsy: that we were stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at 10pm, me: that I didn’t have to ride in a bus crammed with 100 stinky Tanzanians for over 24 hours) that we were on the threshold of hell!
Well, that’s where we stayed, not on the side of the road but in Singida. We decided, I decided (see below) that we were going to stay in Singida and do the second part of her study here. We awoke in the morning to find that Singida is a surprisingly nice town, with cassava chips and the golf channel! We couldn’t have asked for a better mistake, it even seems to make more sense for Betsy’s research to stay here, as kids in Haydom could feasibly come here, where as Kigoma is too far away. So, cheers to all of you back in the US, I’m going to enjoy a little more soccer and CNN news on the TV, it’s been a long time!
-Ryan
Well, we decided this past Friday was going to be the “great escape” for us. We arranged plans to head out for Kigoma. According to Betsy, Kigoma was to be a land of “milk and honey” in which we were to be delivered. After speaking with a few of the locals who were helping in arranging the trip, one of them, Esto (research guru of Haydom) warned that going from Haydom to Kigoma direct was an “adventure”. Betsy, having heard the warnings from locals that the trip was not necessarily the most pleasant and deciding to forge ahead was also warned by her fiancé. Our massive amounts of luggage, coupled with us being wazungu, meant that this trip, no matter how pleasant the bus, was going to be a difficult one. Again, Betsy dismissed any reluctance or reservations I had and decided that going straight through was the best plan of action.
(see below: Betsy no longer makes ANY decision from this point on)
We awoke Friday morning and much to our chagrin, it was pouring rain! This also wouldn’t be of immense importance aside from the fact that all of the roads out of Haydom are dirt paths; so any type of precipitation makes for quite the eventful landcruiser ride! We found ourselves at the hospital garage with the drivers around in a circle arguing about whether or not we were going to be able to leave that morning; we were not happy people at this point. Finally, one of them made the decision that we were to try and three separate drivers hopped in to the car. I’m not sure why we needed all three drivers… not sure if I’ll ever understand that. Well, we believe from this point on it was direct divine intervention which kept us from Kigoma. About two hours into our trip to SIngida, the stop-over town for buses heading from Dar es Salaam to Kigoma, we came to a river which traversed the road we were to cross. Being in a Landcruiser I told the drive, “Twende”, since we were running late, but he hesitated to continue. Our landcruiser was outfitted with a snorkel and had 18” of clearance, I knew we would be fine, but they were still hesitant. Before we knew it our drivers had walked off, leaving Betsy and I in the car surrounded by 50 bored Tanzanians wanting to cross the same river on foot. About two hours after our drivers deserted us, having been ogled over for a similar amount of time by the bored Tanzanians and countless efforts to convince Betsy we should just take the landcruiser ourselves across the river, our drivers returned. We think they went and grabbed a cup of chai, although neither of us was certain either way. Finally, after watching a large charter bus enter and forge the river successfully, we made our attempt and to everyone’s relief, we made it just fine.
Two hours later we arrived in Singida the same time our bus was scheduled to leave. One problem, we were lost and didn’t know where to go. As we frantically called people to find out where to go, we happened upon the bus-stand and to our relief; the bus had not yet arrived from Dar. So, we bought our tickets and crossed the street to grab some lunch around 3pm. For the following six hours we were continually told that the bus would arrive within the current hour only to find that it never arrived. As time approached 9pm, our hospital drivers were antsy to head back to Haydom, since it was over a 3 hour trip back. We released them after they drove our stuff to the side of the road; we had five LARGE suitcases, two large boxes of Betsy’s surveys, two laptop computers and a large daypack! I decided to run to the restroom since the bus hadn’t arrived yet and was over 6 hours behind schedule. I exited the restroom to find an out of breath Tanzanian chasing after me yelling, “your bus, your bus!” Inferring that he meant my bus had arrived I doubled it back to the spot on the side of the road I left Betsy to find her deep in argument with the concierge of the bus on how much extra we needed to pay for all of our luggage! He wanted us to pay him 60,000 Tsh, about $50 USD, almost the price of our two tickets to Kigoma combined. She offered him 20,000 Tsh in which he responded in silence. As the argument continued on the side of the road, Betsy became more and more despondent while I became increasingly jovial, it was quite the juxtaposition. As we ate the dust from the bus pealing out as it left us on the side of the road, we came to realize, (Betsy: that we were stuck on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere at 10pm, me: that I didn’t have to ride in a bus crammed with 100 stinky Tanzanians for over 24 hours) that we were on the threshold of hell!
Well, that’s where we stayed, not on the side of the road but in Singida. We decided, I decided (see below) that we were going to stay in Singida and do the second part of her study here. We awoke in the morning to find that Singida is a surprisingly nice town, with cassava chips and the golf channel! We couldn’t have asked for a better mistake, it even seems to make more sense for Betsy’s research to stay here, as kids in Haydom could feasibly come here, where as Kigoma is too far away. So, cheers to all of you back in the US, I’m going to enjoy a little more soccer and CNN news on the TV, it’s been a long time!
-Ryan
Sincere and Public Apology
This is a public announcement to say “I’m sorry” to my wonderful, patient, amazing fiancée who I have put through the ringer repeatedly. I promise I will never have you left on the side of the road with all your belongings, at night, by a bus in the third world country again. I promise to listen to your worries more. I promise to do the exact opposite of whatever I think is best. Please accept my apology, and please don’t bash my head against a rock.
Also, I want to send a belated Shout-Out to my sister Megan for taking her dental boards this weekend. I'm sure you kicked butt! One more step to free dental care for me!!!
-Betsy
Also, I want to send a belated Shout-Out to my sister Megan for taking her dental boards this weekend. I'm sure you kicked butt! One more step to free dental care for me!!!
-Betsy
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
An end in sight
Well, our time in Haydom is wrapping up, but in true Tanzania fashion, not without a few bumps along the way. I finally finished collecting data yesterday, but have yet to enter it since the electricity in town has been out for more than 2 days. We’ve been saying good-byes to people we’ve met in Haydom. Although we will miss people, we may not miss the meals they serve us. This weekend we were invited to various people’s houses to say goodbye, and served various types of meat (we think goat and beef) from various parts of the animal – definitely some tubes, maybe a bit of tongue, and something that was a texture similar to lizard skin that I didn’t really know existed anywhere in mammals. But, being polite guests, we choked it down and smiled.
We’ve made fast work of the Christmas boxes, and had better leave Haydom soon, or we’re going to be back in the barren snack-wasteland that this town is. American food (and fiber) has made us feel much better – both mentally and GI-tract-wise!
We said our goodbyes at morning prayer at the hospital this morning, and we (when I say we, I really mean Ryan) were awarded with a coveted HLH heart. Not just everyone gets one of these. We’ve only seen one other person in our time here be awarded one, so we’re among the elite few, I think. The rest of the majority of our time has been spent trying to figure out how to get out of here, and the best way to get to Kigoma. We’re half way across the country now, so it doesn’t seem to make much sense to go all the way to Dar on the east coast to get to Kigoma, which is on the very western edge of the country. ….although, logistics and lack of roads make what should be a pretty simple thing to do, nearly impossible. I think our plan now is to hire a car, drive to a mid-way city which has a paved (possibly gravel) road, and take a bus from there to Kigoma. In theory, we will be able to get there in one day….
Well, sorry for the somewhat boring update, we should get a lot more interesting in a few days!
Betsy
(Photo: Apparently, after their Orange Bowl win, they Hawkeyes have become so popular they have fans here in Haydom! Who would have thunk it?!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
