Sunday Fun-day.

Of course the electricity didn’t cut out Saturday night, but it cuts out for 3.5 hours Sunday morning. Electricity outages, just part of the island way of life.

Sunday we got up around noon after Preston called us, the plan was to go to Zanzibar Park (zoo). We went to lunch at Lukmaan, where we went with Adam the first day we had lunch here. The restaurant was really packed with both locals and tourists. They serve the typical types of food found here: curries, biriyani, pilau, etc. Chels and I have been on a vegetable binge and try to get vegetable dishes wherever we go, so we both got a plate of biriyani and a side of vegetable coconut curry. When our plates came, the dish was enormous, it was like a 10 inch plate completely filled with rice. Apparently there are small and large portions, which we weren’t told by the waiter and we were just given the large portion. The two of us could have shared a plate for sure since both of us ate only half of it. The coconut curry was really good, not too strong with a small hint of coconut and lots of carrots and peas.

After lunch, we picked up Mary and her boyfriend and we drove to the zoo, which was only about 10 minutes away.  The local price was 3000TSH (~2USD), but tourist price was 7USD, that’s more than triple! We asked at work today whether we could get a resident card since we’re here for two months but were told that the chances would be slim…guess we’ll be paying more tourist prices. I didn’t really know what to expect at this zoo, I thought it would be fairly small with just a few animals. As we went inside, I was surprised that a guide was with us the entire time explaining all the animals in each cage; Mary said that’s never happened before and it was probably because it wasn’t busy at all. The first exhibit was the giant tortoises that are well known to Zanzibar. I was a little startled when they told us we could walk into the exhibit and touch the turtles…then we were allowed to sit on them!

Who needs cars when you have an over 100 year old tortoise.

The zoo here is definitely different from those at home. The next exhibit was an anaconda, and of course they took the snake out of its cage. And because that’s not enough, we also got to hold it! We were allowed to also go into the gazelle, camel and zebra exhibits. The camels and zebras were a meter away from us, it was pretty cool! I wanted to touch the baby zebra, but it ran away and I was scared the mom would come after me and then that would be the end of my trip haha. We also saw baboons, porcupines, hyenas, and some other birds and cat species. And we finally got to try Fanta Passion! I’ve been wanting to try it since we got here, but we couldn’t find it anywhere. It was really good, my favourite Fanta flavour so far.

Way heavier, but softer than I thought it would be!

 Nice bum, where ya from? (It's a baboon)

 Black and white colobus monkey, only found in Zanzibar. It looks eerily similar to a human.

Even they can't take the heat here.

Porcupine eating a mango.

How you doin?

Wouldn't want to be anywhere near this hyena without a cage between us.

It's so close, and they're gorgeous!

Then we went to a the Zanzibar Beach Hotel to just hang out and have a drink. The hotel was really nice, there was a Man U vs Liverpool game on so a lot of people were watching the game at the bar; soccer is huge here. After that we went to a hotel called Mbweni Ruins Hotel, rightly named because it used to be ruins. The hotel had a lot of different types of trees growing and the beach was pretty nice. The coolest part was that there were mangrove trees growing in the water! We took some pictures and hung out for a bit, but the mosquitoes started getting really bad when it got dark out. There were swarms and swarms of them around us and they were actually diving straight at our faces, we could feel them hit our face. It was disgusting; I got 8 bites from last night. Can’t seem to get rid of them no matter where I am.

 Mangroves

Walking Trees

For dinner, Mary suggested an Ethiopian restaurant in town. I always wanted to try Ethiopian food when we were in Montreal but never got the chance and this seemed more authentic since we’re in Africa! Chels doesn’t like eating with her hands, she thinks its gross, but she was down to give it a try. Chels ordered a chickpea dumping in a spicy sauce (she’s basically gone vegetarian here cause she’s really picky with her meat) and I ordered a Sunday special of lamb. We also got to try the homemade Ethiopian wine, which is made with honey so it’s a lot sweeter than normal white wine.; it was so good! They explained to us that the “bread” that comes with the meal is made out of rice and you rip of pieces of the bread and grab a bit of whatever dish you order with your hands and eat it. I didn’t have any issues getting my hands dirty since they can easily be washed afterwards. Chels’ dish was a bit messier because it was very saucy… I don’t think she took a liking to eating with her hands; the sauce was good but too spicy for me so I couldn’t eat much of it and the dumplings I found too dry inside. I liked my dish, it was very flavourful and I don’t get to eat lamb much at home (it was also very cheap, only 8000TSH = $5.33 USD). When you finish your meal the waiter comes around with hand soap and a vase of water for you to clean your hands with, what impeccable service!

Lizard in an umbrella as a lampshade at the restaurant.

All 5 of our meals! The white stuff under the dishes and rolled up on the side is the rice bread.

It was a random, but fun day for sure. We got back around 10pm and I was able to call home, which was nice. I only call about once a week because it’s hard to find a time when everyone is home. I didn’t think it would hit be so early on in the trip, but I’m definitely starting to get a bit homesick. I guess the first week here was more like vacation and everything was about having fun, but now that we have a work routine it’s really starting to feel like we’re here for two months for placement. And the fact that our kitchen recently got invaded with ants didn’t help, it was way worse than when I mentioned it in my last post. But this morning we took action and sprayed the kitchen with special bug spray before we left for work. It was pretty much instant death for the ants, but we know this is only temporary and eventually they will be back. Definitely not used to the heat still, and I don’t think I will in the two months that we’re here; I do think I’ve complained a lot less about it though (Aman, Victor, Jo: yes I realize that this is a very PLA moment). We’re also still adjusting to the food and the inaccessibility to cook and eat vegetables, but today we went to the market and bought lots of veggies and fruits and we’re gonna make more of an effort to eat healthier. One step at a time. Today, Preston showed us a place really close to our apartment where we can get water for a good price, which is amazing because the other place we were going to before was a 10 minute walk and when you’re carry six 1 litre bottles of water…it kind of sucks. So right now, he’s kind of our hero.

Sweeping away the dead ants; this was only a small chunk of them.

 Happybirthday Aman, wish I could have been there!

I’ve been here for two weeks now and there’s seven more to go. Although I do like it here and I get to do and experience a lot of things I would never get a chance to do at home, I am looking forward to going home. But I decided to come here and in the end it will be a memorable experience and something I would ever get to do otherwise so I’m trying to look at everything with optimism and an open mind. There’s a lesson to be learned in everything and “every situation has the potential to make an amazing story” (said to me by the loveliest Laura Klaponski, miss you and hope you’re reading this!), so I’m going to try my best to embrace everything! Hakuna Matata (it’s awesome to actually be able to say this with purpose in real life situations, we use it all the time). 

Just keep swimming.

MOST AMAZING DAY EVER!

Today was definitely the highlight of our trip so far. We got up bright and early at 6:15 so we would make it for sure under the big tree to wait for a car to pick us up for the Dolphin Safari. We were told that chances would probably be high of seeing the dolphins, but swimming with them would be a very low chance. With high hopes, we headed to Kizimkazi, which is about an hour drive to the south of tip of the island. Since we only got a couple hours of sleep last night, most of the ride there was dozing in and out.

Once we arrived, we were given flippers and snorkeling masks and ordered food for lunch. We were brought down to the beach where many local fishermen were coming in from fishing earlier in the morning. We met the captain of our boat on the beach and continued 5 minutes down the beach until we reach a wooden boat with a motor. Off we went into the amazing blue water.

 Fishing boats on shore

 So pretty this island, can't get over it

 We were on the boat for approximately 30 minutes until we saw maybe 5-6 other similar boats in a concentrated area and we knew we had reached the spot where we would wait for the dolphins. It didn’t take long before they made an appearance. The dolphins definitely weren’t shy, they came very close to the boats! It was hard to tell whether we were seeing the same pod of dolphins over and over again or if they were different ones. People from the other boats were already jumping into the water to snorkel with them but Chels and I were a bit hesitant at first. I’m not too confident with my swimming abilities and the water seemed pretty deep. But after some persuasion from our guide, we both decided it was something we had to do or the trip wouldn’t be worth it!

Quick, spot the dolphin!

Ready to get in the water!

Oh my god, it was the most amazing thing!! The dolphins were so close and they’re so used to humans that they carry on doing their thing like we didn’t exist. They were swimming under and around us, it was so cool because this is their natural habitat and they weren't in captivity. They were playing with each other and jumping in the air. I really really wanted to be able touch one of them but it was hard to keep up with them cause they swim so fast and a lot of times they were further down in the water. Once they swim away we get back on the boat and move around and then jump in again when we find them. We went in about three times, it’s the most crazy feeling when you’re a couple meters away from them, they’re the cutest animals and so graceful. One of them was SO FREAKING CLOSE, like literally a meter away from me. I tried to touch it, but it swam away, I was so excited!

 So close! Near the top of the water.

 Pod of dolphins playing near the bottom of the water.

 I shall call him Flipper. No zoom, actually a meter away from me. Poor thing, has a bite mark on it's fin.

 Cutest!!

After swimming with the dolphins we went snorkeling in water that was closer to the shore and more shallow. There were some corals and some tropical fish. It was a lot more calm and relaxing than swimming with the dolphins. When we were with the dolphins it was very rushed cause you’re trying to catch up with them and there are so many people around; the waves were also much stronger since we were further out. But here the water was calm so we were swimming fairly slowly and got to see the fish pretty closely. Our guide was awesome, he was very enthusiastic and pointed out new fish for me to take pictures of. I am so glad I got an underwater camera for the trip! It was worth it just for the dolphins. The tour was way better than I expected, Chels and I were so happy with the way it went and how close we got to the dolphins! Can’t wait to go snorkeling again!!

There must have been hundreds of these in one spot.

Pretty colourful fish.

Oh hey, thanks for reading!

We’re considering going up to Kendwa tonight to party with the Italian dentists before they leave, but we haven’t decided yet. It’s been the most surreal morning, but tiring so we’ll see where the day goes!

Dala Dala.

Keeping up a blog is hard work…I don’t think I’ve done this much writing in years.

WEDNESDAY

What a greatttt day! We had it off so we got to sleep in, that always makes a day better. Chels still wasn’t feeling very well so Mylene and I went out to lunch. We decided to go to Zanzibar Coffee House, which is supposed to be more on the tourist side, but we wanted to check it out. It took us probably around 15 minutes to get there, only to realize on our way home that the restaurant is literally 5 minutes away if we took another route. That’s the thing about this crazy town, there are a million ways to get to the same place and when you’re not familiar with it, you always end up taking twice as long as you need to. The place doesn’t serve too many options in terms of food, it was mostly drinks and sweets, but they had savory crepes so  we decided to stay. It was fairly empty except for another table. We both ordered an iced latte; Mylene got a spinach, cheese and onion crepe and I got a vegetable curry dal crepe. We both agreed that mine was a lot better! It was also really filling, stuffed with tons of vegetables. We both only ate half of our crepes and took the other half home for dinner.

 Zanzibar Coffee House menu, taking pictures like a tourist

Iced latte + curry vegetable dal crepe

After lunch, I came home to hang my laundry and found a girl sitting on top of the washing machine. I had heard from Mylene that there were people from Switzerland in the apartment below us so I assumed this was one of them. She was, but it turns out she was by herself, her friend had left the day before and she still had another week here. I invited her to come to the beach with us, seemed like the friendly neighbour thing to do, the more the merrier!

So at 3:30, off we went to catch the dala dala with our new friend Valentine. Good thing she came with us, because we didn’t know exactly where to catch the bus and she also showed us a shortcut to the market that takes only 5 minutes rather than 10. At the main area to catch the dala dalas, the only way I can describe this is actually as a “clusterfuck”. There are people everywhere waiting for their bus, people selling things in between, bikes/motorcycles coming through, and no specific system as to where to wait for the dala dala you need to catch. We asked a man where to find the 502 and then another guy showed up that brought us to the right line just as the dala dala was pulling up, and holy shit, even before we could make sure that’s the bus we needed to take people were running at it and the guy that helped us yelled at us to hurry or we couldn’t get on. Then he drags us to another bus with a final destination of I still don’t know where and tells us to get on. The three of us stood there super confused cause it wasn’t the bus we were supposed to take and we didn’t want to get on a random bus that a random guy told us to get on. But then I hear him tell the drive we’re going to Fuji Beach and he tells us get off at the Police Station, which is what I read online. So we board this dala dala, which was more of a van than a bus, but they are apparently the more legitimate of dala dalas compared to the trucks with backs converted into seats. It only cost 300 TSH/person for one way = 20 cents at home. My round trip on the dala dala was 40 cents, cheaper than making a call on the payphone in Canada!

It only took about 15 minutes to arrive into the town of Bububu. We find the police station and ask someone how to get to the beach. We walk down the dirt path and come to a beach that is completely deserted except for a couple local teenagers in the grass area and one man fishing in the water. We decide to take turns going in so someone would always be with our bags. Mylene and I took the first turn going in. The first part of the beach was extremely rocky, it was fairly hard to make it past and I thought I would fall over so many because of the waves pushing me. We finally found an area where it was more sandy but also had a lot of small plants growing. It was really nice to be able to just relax and float in the water, the first time we had done so! From the water we see two tourist guys approach Valentine, so we keep an eye out just in case they’re creepy and we need to go rescue her. Turns out they’re super friendly, two Italian dentists here on their vacation from work but also using it to volunteer at a clinic. Alessandro is really talkative and slightly animated, while Stefano is more down to earth, but still social. They acted like an old married couple, bickering about little things. We ended up spending the rest of the afternoon with them at the beach. The beach itself was mediocre, it definitely wasn’t white sands and turquoise waters, but it’s the closest beach that is safe to swim to for us. Our first venture on the island went pretty smoothly!

 Fuji Beach

Exercise area for locals, they jump the tires and hang off wooden monkey bars, pretty impressive.

THURSDAY

This was our early morning at work, we were supposed to be there for 7:30am for a meeting. The meeting was actually a presentation more geared towards physicians. The room was fairly small but it was trying to accommodate what must have been at least 50 people. The presentation was on cervical cancer screen and HPV prevention, so pretty irrelevant to OT. We went straight to the department right after and started treatments. It was yet another crazy busy day with constant stream of patients. Today we saw more children with CP, but we also got to see a couple of children with down syndrome and microcephalus. The kids with down syndrome were adorable, reminded me of some of the students at Summit School.  At first we were getting some guidance from our supervisors, but then it got too busy and we were all seeing patients on our own.

I’m still trying to learn how to properly position and hold children that are extremely spastic. A lot of times I am trying to do passive range of motion, but it is impossible to do when the limbs won’t bend. We borrowed a book called “Handling the Young Child with CP at Home” and it has been really helpful, but it’s hard to remember all the techniques without being able to practice on the spot. Slowly but surely we’ll get the hang of it! It still blows my mind how the charting system here works. The patients are given a notebook, the ones we used to use in elementary school with lined pages inside and coloured covers. In the book, all medical notes are written inside from physicians, specialists to OT/PT. The patient brings the book home after each session and brings it back each time. The department itself has ZERO chart notes on the separate treatment sessions that take place. The charting is also very simple, just a description of what was done maybe 2-3 sentences. The policies here are a lot more slack.

Once again we got off around noon and headed for lunch at the Passing Show. Pineapple fanta + fish biriyani, yum. Chels and I had to go exchange more money since we were starting to run out of shillings, hopefully this will last us for 2-3 weeks! After cooling down and having some time at home, we went souvenir shopping again because we wanted to go back to one of the stores from Monday where they gave us really good prices and get more stuff. We were surprised that the people at the store actually remembered us, they remembered we were volunteers at Mnazi Mmoja hospital and even which items we bought and the exact paintings Chels bought last time! We also stopped by a store that sells items made by local women and the money goes right back to them. Mylene loved this idea and had bought a scarf there for 25,000 TSH early. We went in to look at the stuff and it’s good to know that what you buy goes back to the community and is unique and handmade!

We went to Africa House to meet up with our new Italian friends for drinks. Adam’s sister had told us that this hotel/bar has a really good view of the sunset but you have to order drinks. We had a great table at the front of the patio facing out into the waters. Not long after we get there, there’s a huge commotion because people spotted a huge fish (maybe a dolphin) close to shore and everyone is trying to catch a glimpse of it. A lot of people saw it jump out of the water, but all I saw was it moving through the water and blowing out some water. The sunset was really gorgeous above the water!

 Sunset from Africa House, sun touching the water

This is how touristy it was; picture of all the tourists taking sunset pictures

Afterwards, we went to dinner at Archipelago, which is just a couple minute walk from Africa House. The menu wasn’t too big, I was content with the chicken burger and fries I ordered (yes I ordered a chicken burger in Zanzibar). The patty was made of dark meat rather than the typical white meat breast we have a home, which made it less dry. So the Italian guys had came down with their friend whose a local dentist at the clinic they volunteer at. When we first met him I thought he was kind of creepy, he had shifty eyes and it seemed like he kept staring at us. Then during dinner he basically tells Mylene that we’re not doing any good at the hospital if we don’t understand the environment and how the hospital runs and how are we supposed to help if we can’t speak Swahili. WTF? I think even though we can’t communicate efficiently with our clients, we are still capable of treating the children, many of them are able to do what we ask of them through gestures and a couple of Swahili words. And I think 3 being here is still better than having  only one OT for the whole department. On top of that, at the end of dinner as we’re paying, the three of us leave and tip and he tells us not to tip because it causes trouble for the waiters cause the boss thinks they’re asking for more money and they don’t get to keep the tip in the end. This was not something that we knew, so we said although we feel bad we can’t leave a tip, we would take the money back. But then the guy just keeps holding onto our 4,000TSH and doesn’t give it back! It’s not very much money (~2.66 USD), but it’s the principle of the whole thing, what a douche! Anyways, so we like the Italian dentists, but not the local one. The day was filled doing and going to very touristy places, but it’s good to get to see and try new places!

FRIDAY

We went into work today at the normal time and are told that there are no clients scheduled to have splints made so we weren’t seeing anyone today. The PT/OTs are starting to have presentations on Fridays for continual education. Every week someone from either department will make a presentation. Today, a PT volunteer from Japan presented about the 5S, which help to enhance efficiency in the work environment. I actually heard about this previously when I had my orientation at St. Mary’s hospital in Kitchener when I did my second placement. It was cool to see that this concept was starting to be widely used internationally, originating out of Japan. There was a practical aspect where we applied the concepts to organize a messy drawer and we split up into two groups to do it. In our group was a PT from Norway (I think), a PT student from Tanzania, and a local midwife. Wow, the midwife was a bitch, she got really upset over the fact that we decided TV guides were not a necessary item and basically went against everything we said. Apparently the midwife in Chels’ group was a bitch too. When the presentation was over, the PT says maybe the students want to also present something right now. We were definitely caught off guard since we had nothing prepared, so instead we’ve been assigned next Friday to present about CP and OT.

After work, Chels and I went to find Tony Madeira’s tour office. He was referred to us by Natasha and Adam’s mom. Because Mylene and Rod were in Dar this weekend, we didn’t want do any of the half day tours they wanted to do as well since it made more sense to do those ones together. The only other tour left was a dolphin safari, so that’s what Chels and I booked for tomorrow morning! I’m excited to go see dolphin in the wild and take pictures!

I bought lunch today at an Indian restaurant, I got vegetable hakka noodles. They kind of just tasted like a mediocre pad thai. But it was a nice change from rice and to be able to eat some vegetables.

So those mysterious bites I talked about before, I think I’ve concluded that they’re flea bites. Disgusting. Cause the ones on my ankle I got while in a shop with a table cloth draped over the side and it was touched my leg. These bites are different from my mosquito ones, more itchy and very swollen and hard without scratching them. And I’m not surprised if it really was fleas since there are an insane amount of stray cats roaming the streets! But I also got these bits on my left calve, which I think are from the hospital! Theres one mat that we sit on that is ripped and the inner cottony material is showing. I was sitting on that part the other day at work and nasty insects could definitely live there, especially since I don’t think those mats ever get cleaned! It’s such a drastic change from clinics and hospitals at home, this would not be acceptable at all. Oh well, here I am with about 12 bites on one leg. It also seems to be only me that is this sensitive and prone to bites, the rest of them have one or two mosquito bites but that’s it. I guess I just have very special, very sweet blood cause I'm so sweet, haha.

Also, there are SO MANY damn ants in our kitchen, it's so gross. They're crawling up the walls in a line and all over our food and in our bread contained. But I don't think there is anyway of preventing this as long as we have food in there. At home, this would have made me freak out. But here, I'm just dealing with it. I bet most you wouldn't think I'd be able to handle that, but T.I.A. (this is Africa), my friends. 

It’s Preston’s birthday today so we’re going to go out later on tonight to Maru Maru. But we have to catch the transport taking us to the boat for our tour at 7am tomorrow, it definitely won’t be too late of a night!

Sorry for the ridiculously long post…I guess I really shouldn’t wait three days before updating my blog. I’ll try harder to keep it up to date, although I’m pretty sure there are only a handful of you that actually read this on the regular haha.

Kids, kids, kids.

Yesterday we went souvenir shopping for two hours and Chels showed off some very, very impressive bargaining skills. We walked away with most things at our ideal price! I didn’t buy too much, there are still two months here to figure out what to get everyone. I feel like souvenirs are not useful half the time and get tossed aside, so I want to get things that are unique but also purposeful. Never going shopping without Chels though!

Rod  (Mylene’s boyfriend) made us a delicious homemade dinner last night, we hadn’t cooked at home (except for toasting bread) at all. We had a cucumber and red onion salad with pasta and mixed vegetable sauce that has tandoori masala spice in it. It was deliciouss! I was actually happy to be eating vegetables, we haven’t really had any since we’ve been here. A lot of rice and oily foods that taste great, but are more than likely clogging my arteries.

We still weren’t too certain of how to take the inner routes to the hospital this morning so we took the big roads. I think it would be a lot cooler if we’re able to take the inner roads cause the sun doesn’t shine as brightly in the morning on them. We got to work sweating like crazy this morning and Amina looked at us and said (nicely) that we should take a couple minutes to cool down outside haha. I guess we were pretty gross.

Holy crap was work busy today!! We saw patients nonstop, back to back the entire time we were there. We were gonna go in today asking if we could work together at first since we weren’t familiar with treatment of the conditions they have, but even before we could Amina already assigned us kids. My first patient was an adorable little boy; at first it was hard to get him to do what I wanted since neither of us understood each other. The main objective was to get him to walk in a straight line, focusing on where he was going cause when he walks he doesn’t look at his peripherals. Amina explained what they normally did with him and I started with those. I mostly had him chase after a small soccer ball following a straight line and then he would be able to kick it. He seemed to love it, but then he kept yelling things at me in Swahili when I would make him run longer before he could kick the ball. I wanted to do something where he was having fun but alsot effective, but it was impossible to tell if he liked it. When he was leaving, Amina told me his mom said he liked me, so success with my first patient here! The rest of the patients I saw were mainly infants who have CP or hemiplegia and needed to work on crawling, walking, etc. Most of them wouldn’t stop crying no matter what we did! I felt so bad, I didn’t want to leave the babies with a negative impression of the OT environment, but we tried everything. I had another client that was a 3 year old boy, he was such a big kid! He couldn’t walk unsupported so I had to carry him outside to work on walking, he was soo heavy. 2 months of working with him and I’ll be jacked by the end haha. The last little girl I saw today was adorable; she had on a pretty dress and she was such a good kid! She did everything I asked her to do, no crying, no difficulties. Even though it was crazy busy, we still got off work just after noon. We were all drained though and took naps when we came home. No work tomorrow though! This work schedule couldn’t get any better. We were supposed to do community outreach tomorrow but it got cancelled so we had the day off to research treatment options for our patient list.

I think we’re gonna go to a beach nearby tomorrow and “study”. Chels still isn’t feeling too well, so she might not come. The beach is only 10km north of Stonetown, it’s called Fuji Beach and we have to take a Dala Dala to get there; that’s the local transportation here, it’s basically a truck that had seats added in the back. Dala Dalas are supposed to go at fast speeds and be kind of unsafe, but it’s part of the culture so it’ll be interesting to give it a try! Hopefully we don't get lost.

I finally ventured out on my own today to buy dinner since Chels didn’t want to eat and Mylene and Rod went out to dinner. I only went to Forodhani but found my way back on my own; I’m finally getting this maze of a town…kind of.

Our laundry machine got fixed today after being down since we’ve been here. I didn’t bring too much clothes since I plan on leaving everything here for the locals so I was REALLY close to running out of basically every type of clothing I need. For once, I was actually excited to do laundry. Clean clothes are now hanging out to dry (no dryers)! We also asked our landlord to have cleaning service for our apartment cause we don’t have any of the supplies we would need to clean. We’re gonna get the place cleaned about once a week and it’s only going to cost ~5000TSH each time, so cheap! That’s $3.33USD, split between 3 of us = just over $1 each. I wish this existed back home, I would never clean my apartment myself again!

I could bit yesterday by an unknown insect and now my ankle is swollen and hard. It's itchy and hurts, and pretty nasty. I iced it a bit tonight and it went down a good amount, but it'll be a pain for the next couple bites. I don't exaggerate when I say I am very prone to mosquito bites. I've consistently had at least two active bites since I've been here even though I spray bug spray at night, but no one else seems to be getting many. Hope those malaria pills are doing their job...

Another day gone by in Zanzibar and even though I'm pretty adjusted, it still hits me pretty often that I am actually here for 2 months. So surreal that this is happening! And with that I'll end this already super long post; if you're still reading at this point, I give you a high five from halfway across the world because you're awesome.

Working Gal.

1 week down in Zanzibar, 7 weeks left! Forewarning: this post has no pictures.

Today was our first day of work at Mnazi Mmoja Hospital, which is supposed to be the biggest hospital on the island. We were told that it is also the only hospital with specialized departments such as OT, PT, and ENT. The wake up this morning at 6:45am was not fun since we weren’t able to sleep last night. The electricity cut out in all of Stonetown last night from 6:50pm-11:30pm. We were too lazy to go out for dinner and I was just going to make an instant ramen since my stomach was acting up a little anyways, but the power went out before I had a chance to so once again we had Pringles and crackers for dinner. I also hadn’t called home since I’ve been here cause the first time I was supposed to call our internet cut out and then I still couldn’t call last night cause the power was gone. Chels and I watched Pocahontas, and tried to go to bed at 8:30, but it got soo frigging hot in the apartment that we couldn’t sleep. After the electricity finally came back, I called home and attempted to sleep but failed, I think around 3am I fell asleep.

We barely had enough time to toast our bread this morning and off we went with our half warm, way too hard peanut butter toast. We took the route we knew would lead us to the hospital, it took about 20 min to get there. At first it seemed pretty nice out, good breeze and not to hot yet. But as we kept walking it got hotter and hotter and by the time we got to the hospital we were once again dripping in sweat. I think that will be a key theme for my two months here. We asked the guard for the OT department and accidently wandered into PT where we were told OT was upstairs and Amina (our supervisor) was not in yet.

There’s another OT student working as well, she’s from Australia and doing a 2 week placement. Amina arrived and showed us around a bit and explained that Mondays were set aside for children with Erb’s Palsy. It’s interesting to see children who have this diagnosis since it is not too common in Canada. We observed the treatment of the first few kids and learned more about the assessment, treatment and organizational style of the department. Because it’s a neurological condition in the upper arm, most children presented with low tone, decreased muscle strength and muscle mass. Main treatment for babies seemed to be incorporating range of motion of the shoulder and elbow into daily activities like feeding and play and educating the caregiver on how to dress and position the infant. With older children, more creative treatment options are possible. We were more interactive with the last couple children and actually got to do some activities. Tuesdays and Thursdays (on Thursdays we start at 7:30am) are busier days as it’s open for children of any diagnoses. Wednesdays are usually community outreach days and Fridays are meant for administrative stuff. By noon Amina told us there wouldn’t be any more clients and we could go home…8-12pm workdays, I could get used to this!

Starting tomorrow we will have our own list of children to see! It’s so exciting to be able to work with the pediatric population again, I’ve missed it since being at Summit School. The kids are all so cute, but it’ll be a lot more challenging since there is a language barrier. The department has posters up with English translations on it that I will probably need to learn. At Summit I was used to working with just the child without the caregivers present, so this will be a good experience to have as most pediatric treatments won't be like Summit (I wish they all were though!). The methods and resources here are different from home as well so it’ll be a process of learning, incorporating and adapting. But it’s nice to be doing something hands on, OT related again! A week of vacation before starting work was perfect. Chels and Mylene aren’t as keen about pediatrics, but it might grow on them or they can ask to do adults.

For lunch we went to the Passing Show, had some yummy biryani and a blackcurrent Fanta. Then we went to get more water and top up our electricity for the apartment. We put in 40,000 TSH (~ 26 USD) last week and we’re almost out already, so we topped up another 70,000 TSH. The AC drains electricity like crazy, but I don’t think we could live without it!

Yahya (landlord) brought back our TV and it works now with the cable box, apparently we have 150 channels... I didn’t even have this luxury in Montreal. Tomorrow should be an interesting day, hopefully the electricity doesn’t cut out tonight! It's weird to think that we finished our first day and everyone at home are just starting their first day now. Good luck fellow OTs, we're off to souvenir hunt!

Friday night out, Zanzibar style.

 Our sleep pattern is just a mess right now. Yesterday we woke up at 1:30pm even though I went to bed at a about 11pm. I think the sun is just wearing away at me.

We hung out around the apartment yesterday for the most part, catching up on the internet world. We had breakfast at our apartment for the first time. Yummy Zanzibar bread with some peanut butter and nutella. Can never go wrong with that! We went around 6pm to Forodhani again to meet up with Adam’s friend Preston. Natasha’s really good friends with him too so it was nice to finally be able to meet him since he wasn’t around for New Years!

Forodhani and all the vendors

Chels and I in the middle of it all, yes I am on my tippy toes.

Forodhani looked so different this time around because last time we went it had just rained really hard so a lot of the vendors weren’t out. There were so many more booths and people this time! I had some difficulty finding the same ones we went to last time. We started off with some chips (fries) and chicken skewers. The chips taste were kind of like a taste of home, not too common since we’ve been here! Then we got sugar cane juice, they have these wheels where they press the sugar cane through to press out the juice and they put ginger slices in between too. I didn’t think I would like it at all, but it was really sweet and refreshing!

Assortment of deliciousness including naan and samosas

Chips and Skewers

Of course we had Zanzibar pizza again, can never get enough of that stuff. Got some pictures of it this time. We had beef ones and then for dessert for a mango nutella pizza. The banana one is better, but the mango was still good! I think I might prefer Zanzibar pizzas to Crepes a Go Go (here's your shout out Aman and Jo!).

 How the Zanzibar pizzas get cooked, yummmm.

      Guy making our dessert pizza                

Adam and I with our plate of deliciousness

Afterwards we went to Maru Maru, they have a rooftop patio and a live band. You could also oversee a lot of Stonetown when you’re at the top. It was a really nice place to just hang out and have a couple drinks. I think we found our choice of beer here! It’s called Safari. Then we drove to Paje to go to a beach party there. I think I could get used to beach parties all the time. We’ve gone to quite a few areas on the island already! We stopped by the sketchiest looking place for food after, it was in the middle of nowhere and kind of just next to a bunch of trees. But I trusted the boys that the food was safe, I think Chels was a bit more skeptical haha. We had more chips and some very random hot dogs without the buns. I wasn’t expecting that as after bar food! The boys are too nice though, they wouldn’t let us pay for anything, and we tried really hard too! We did learn more Swahili on the car ride home. Although I’m not sure knowing how to swear in Swahili will do us any good here…

Preston and I at Maru Maru; Hi Natasha! 

In Paje, at the beach party

We finally welcomed Mylene to Zanzibar today, happy birthday Mylene! We weren’t sure how we would communicate with her since she didn’t have access to internet. But at 3pm we got an email saying she had just gotten off the ferry from Dar es Salem to Zanzibar and was heading to Mercury Restaurant. We went to meet her and her boyfriend, it was cool to hear about their travelling in Tanzania before!

We’ve gotten around to unpacking our suitcases today and putting our clothes in the closet and zipping up our luggage, we’ve been living out of them the last few days. Don’t know what adventure tonight holds, but I’m sure you’ll hear about it tomorrow!

Asante sana (thank you very much) for keeping up with me!

The first days.

Jambo (hello in Swahili)! We’re officially into our fourth day in Zanzibar! It feels like we’ve been here for a lot longer though.

Adam (Sue’s friend) picked us up from our apartment on New Years Eve and we spent the next two nights at his family’s beach house, which was gorgeous and they're all so nice! For New Years Eve, we went to Kendwa for a beach party. It’s a really touristy area and there were an insane amount of people. There were bars and dance floors everywhere playing different music and at midnight there were fireworks. It was an awesome New Years, definitely something way different than anything I would have done at home! Hopefully the kick start to a great year.

 Adam's beach houses pretty view

 New Year's Beach Party with Adam's friend and Adam

With Chels and Adam's Sister

The next day we went to another beach for the day, it was really interesting cause there were resorts along the beach, but in between resorts there would be local homes and on the beach tourists were surrounded by locals, children, goats and fishermen. After that we went back to the beach house and jumped off the jetti into the sea. Salt water = burning eyes, but it was fun! And then we went into his pool and took a bunch of underwater pictures.

 I'm a bully. He's too nice.

So asian.

Food wise the first couple days were pretty straight forward since we were eating at Adam’s place. We did eat Zanzibar bread, which was super tiny, like the size of a 9 inch sub. Since being back in Stonetown, we’ve walked around quite a bit trying to learn all the crazy inner roads and mazes. When I said I was bad at directions at home, that was an understatement… I still can’t figure out how to get home here. The town itself isn’t very big but there are so many inner streets that twist and curve everywhere, and cars and motorcycles and people on bikes are constantly speeding through! We went to the market both yesterday and today to buy basic things we would need around the house and some snacks. The market is soo busy, always packed with people everywhere. It reminded me of the markets in Hong Kong, but outside on the street. We tried jackfruit (fennesi) yesterday for the first time, it was sweet but very very sticky and stringy and it smells awful. For lunch yesterday we had delicious local food (birani, curry and naan), I think I could live off birani my whole trip here. It started pouring around 8pm and we weren’t sure if we would be able to go out for dinner, the streets were flooded! Good thing I had Pringles and chocolate biscuits I had brought from home to eat in the meantime, always have food on me…even in Zanzibar! But the rain stopped and the streets drained at about 9:30pm and we went to the Forodhani market, which is a night market and very well known in Stonetown. We had the Zanzibar pizza, which consists of a pastry outside, egg, meat, cheese, mayo and onions and then we had a dessert Zanzibar pizza. The dessert one was really good, it was sort of like a crepe but thicker and they put nutella, bananas, chunks of chocolate inside and then when it’s done they drizzle chocolate sauce on top, mmm I want one now thinking about it. We also had some beef skewers, delicious dinner overall. We hadn't brought our cameras out so I'll definitely take pictures next time.

We actually went to bed at a decent time (1am) for the first time being here. We met up with Adam again today and went to buy more stuff at the market and in town that we still hadn’t had a chance to pick up. On our way there we stopped and had some madafu (juice from a not yet ripe coconut), it was less sweet than I thought but refreshing! For lunch we went to eat a Mercury’s Restaurant named after Freddie Mercury. The restaurant is right next to the Ferry Port and looks out at the water. The food was good, but the place was fairly expensive! It was definitely very touristy, I don’t think there were any locals in there. We finally have some down time at home and our internet is up and running smoothly! We’re on our own for the first time tonight, so Chelsie and I will have to venture out into town and find a place to eat. So far, we haven’t encountered anything to make us sick yet which is a big relief. We’ve been approached a lot cause we look like tourists, but no one has been extremely persistent. I definitely have been called “hong kong” more than a few times, and even “japan”, haha no biggie though.

Madafus!

It is SO HOT here. I mean think hottest summer days in Canada (the Civic day long weekend this past summer) = everyday here in Zanzibar. It was 43 degrees out yesterday with the sun shining perhaps a little too much. I don’t think I have ever sweat so much in my life, not even when I do Insanity. I don’t think I will ever get used to the heat here. We’re drinking lots of water to keep hydrated but it actually feels like you’re melting when outside. Thank God we have AC in our apartment! Walking to and from the hospital everyday when we start work will be dreadful.

We finally met our landlord yesterday since we had been away for a couple days. He is super friendly and helpful, answered all our questions and seems to be around a lot which will be good in case we need anything. There are roosters somewhere near our apartment and they are the most frustrating things in the morning!

That’s pretty much a quick summary of everything that’s happened our first couple days here!