When We Come To It

It is officially the half way point. The rookies are veterans, we are in the groove, we are ready for the challenges of the next day, we are…..wait!…. What!… Mama Jen (her Tanzanian handle) just left for the airport.

Full stop, don’t pass go. It’s moving day…

While I’m obviously biased, words can not express how much Mama Jen has helped our household function smoothly. Nothing here is easy or fast. If you want to cook dinner, you first have to figure out where to find fresh food or how to walk to the nearest market or take your life into your own hands on a tuk tuk. Mama Jen had this all down to a science.

And then there’s laundry – not a tide packet and a button to press on the machine. I won’t go into details today – I think Jen wrote a post a while back on the trials of African laundering. I do think those of us remaining are all in for a rude awakening. I think after posting this blog I will go count my underwear to see how often I will have to do laundry!!!

Thank you to our den mother – she made the trip function while we figured out the hospital.

But the changes don’t end there. We will welcome Dr Casey and her daughter as they descend from Mt Kilimanjaro. The KCMC residents are very excited to learn and chat with Dr Casey. She is a pediatric (Children) orthopedic expert – and there is a huge need here. I suspect that her visit will be challenging because it will be hard to get a whole lot done in a short time. But, if we can begin a relationship, perhaps future visits from the pediatric team can be arranged. I look forward to writing about her experience.

So it is a day of changes. Exciting to see our trip progressing, but definitely a bittersweet change as Mama Jen heads home to her boys!

PS – Today we visited Lake Challa – which actually spans into Kenya. It was a nice hike with a short kayak ride and a chance to getup close to a huge baobab tree – Africa’s “Tree of Life”. These trees are remarkably wide and can live hundreds of years. Some call them upside-down trees, as it almost looks like the tree root are pointing up and the branches must be underground.