What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Been so lazy this week to write a blog post, nothing too exciting has happened, maybe that’s why.

SUNDAY

I went to the beach with Chels. We were supposed to go to Matemwe with Mylene and Rod, but Mylene had broken out into hives Friday night and sun wouldn’t have been good for her. So Chels and I went to Paje again. We left around 10:30am. When we got on the dala dala the man told us it would be 3500TSH and we asked why it was so expensive since it’s supposed to be 2000TSH and he gave us some bullshit about it being a private bus, we were too lazy to find another bus so we stayed on. The ride was a little less exciting than last time, but it did get extremely crowded, which is expected. The man sitting next to me was trying to make room for a woman that had gotten on and he ended up sitting on my left thigh for the entire trip. We were more than happy to get off when we got there, our butts were so numb.

We walked towards Paje by Night cause we knew that’s where we were last time. There were so many people on the beach today! It was crowded with kite surfers. Paje is known to be the best spot for kite surfing, but last time we went there wasn’t much wind, so no one could kite surf. We tried to find a spot where there were less kite surfers in the water so we could go in. We went in the water for just a little bit, the waves were really frequent and it wasn’t as fun to relax in as last time. We were just waddling in the water and suddenly a kite drops and falls 30cm in front of me from way up…if that had hit me I probably would have been knocked out. The guys that dropped it didn't even say sorry, so rude. Kite surfing looks really fun, but I don’t know if I would have the arm strength to do it. It was super windy today, we were only in the water for 15 minutes and by the time we came out our towels were already half covered in sand that was being blown around. I didn’t want to lay on my towel cause then sand would constantly be whipping in our faces and we would be eating so much sand. Chels didn’t care as much and on the side that the wind was hitting her, she was covered in sand. Eventually I gave in cause I got tired of standing, but I put my towel on the other side of Chels and kind of used her as a shield from the sand haha. At one point, a couple girls were trying to get their kites up on the beach and when it fell it hit a local girl on the head and the mom kept yelling at the tourist in Swahili but she had no idea what she was saying. 

 So many people kite surfing!

 Random person kite surfing.

Myself and Chels in the beautiful, clear water.

We got hungry pretty soon, around 2ish we went to eat lunch at one of the hotels. I have been craving calamari for a long time, but have been scared to eat it cause we were told not to eat seafood, but I figured we were at a hotel and it was full of tourists so it would be safe. It was delicioussss and I didn’t get sick from it, so exciting haha! After lunch we took the dala dala back into town, this time we only paid 2000TSH. On our walk home we passed some locals and they tried to imitate Chinese when I walked past, this is like the 3^rd time it’s happened, I don’t think they’re trying to be rude but if this happened at home I would consider it racist.

Mmmm, calamari with lemon and garlic aioli. 

MONDAY

It was pretty slow at work today, there weren’t many kids so a lot of times we were seeing kids together instead of individually. One little boy’s mom was trying to explain to us that the boy couldn’t lie prone, but we didn’t know what she was saying (oh, language barriers) so she pulled the kids pants down, pushed over his diaper and showed us his newly circumcised penis. That was totally unexpected haha.

Amina asked us how much we were paying for rent and she was so shocked we were paying so much. She said that we should just tell our landlord that we were going to get accommodation from the hospital for the second month so we would need our money back. So after lunch we went home and no one wanted to call cause it’s so awkward, but finally I manned up and did it. But he didn’t understand what I was saying on the phone so he came over and talked to us, which was even more awkward. We explained it again and he was like oh ya hakuna matata it’s okay so I thought he understood. But when he left Chels was like I don’t think he understood at all, but for some reason she didn’t say anything when he was there... We talked to Preston after and he said he would call our landlord for us and see if he understood…and of course he hadn't fully understood. He said we could move out, but we weren’t getting our money back cause it was already gone and that it was a family business so he doesn’t have control over all the money, blah blah blah. So…life lesson learned…pay by month. Ugh, it’s so frustrating because people keep telling us how much we’re being scammed and for $800/month we could get a huge house with our own AC-ed rooms and even someone that would cook and clean for us!!! What a different life that would be…I really just want my own room, it’s not that Chels and I are fighting all the time, but it would be nice to have my own space and not always have  be mindful of the other person in the room. And the worst part about not moving is that I feel so bad for Mylene, it gets ridiculously hot when there’s no AC, I don’t know how she sleeps at night!

Anyways, then we went to the market to stock up on fruits and other stuff we were running out of. Our main snack here are Pringles. We bought a 6 pack the first week we got here and they were finished. We went back to the same place but they didn’t have any. Our other option was to buy 14 cans…so we bought 14 cans. Haha I’ve never had so much Pringles in my life. I got some oranges (green on the outside) and more mangoes; it was so cheap, I paid $2USD for 6 oranges and 4 mangoes, they were small but still.

Zanzibari oranges.

Chels got the worst sunburn from the beach cause she only applied sunblock once and then went into the water and didn’t reapply after and it was so hot yesterday. She was so red she looked like a lobster! I felt bad cause it was really painful. I guess I’ve been the lucky one so far, I have been hit with anything crazy yet and at the moment I’m the only one that’s free of anything other than mosquito bites. Oh those damn mosquitoes, I’ll never find a way to get rid of them.

TUESDAY

Today we saw the cutest girl with down syndrome. She was one of the last kids we had for the day so all three of us saw her together. She was so sweet and laughed easily. It’s children like these that make me love peds! Although peds here is so different from peds at home and there are times when I don’t look forward to going to work at all.

For lunch we went to a place called Palm Tree Café. We ordered milkshakes, I got a mango and it was really good, first milkshake since we’ve been here. We were worried cause they put ice in it and it was probably from the tap, but none of us got sick. Afterwards we went shopping again and bought lots of souvenirs. I know we’re shopping all the time, but we have so many people to buy souvenirs for and we’re always finding new stores with different things in them! I’m almost done my souvenir shopping though, only a few more things to get for others and a couple things for myself. I don’t know what we’ll do with all our spare time when we’re done our shopping since that’s what we do so often after work!

Chocolate, banana, and mango milkshakes.

WEDNESDAY

For once, we didn’t have Wednesday off today. We had to go in at 9 to go over our presentation with our supervisor cause we’re supposed to present tomorrow to the PTs. We sat around for 45 minutes before our supervisor finally came in, she was 45 minutes late!! And there wasn’t even an apology. She really runs on African time. It only took 20 minutes for her to go through the presentation, but then we sat there for another hour talking about random stuff awkwardly because she never tells us that we can leave. We always sit there super awkward, starring at each other until Mylene asks if we can go, but for some reason Amina won’t ever initiate it.

We went to the Chinese place for lunch again because it was cheap and we didn’t want to spend a lot of money. This time the food came a lot faster and we didn’t get charged for takeout boxes. Mylene and I had both gotten noodles and Chels got rice. We had the leftovers for dinner and I found a couple dead, cooked worms in my noodles. I was telling Chels and Mylene and Mylene sounds shock to hear it, but then she quietly says that she did in her too. I also had one in my noodles last Saturday. If I was at home, I would have been so grossed out, I wouldn’t have continued to eat the meal. But here, I just took them out and finished my food, I don’t feel like anywhere we eat is exceptionally clean. We didn’t get sick from it, we reasoned that it was cooked rather than alive so it was better and worms = protein haha. I guess Zanizbar is really changing me.

The Chinese restaurant.

Then we went to Madeira Tours to book the Jozani Tour. We booked it for Friday morning since it’s a public holiday and we don’t have to work! Chels needs USD to pay for her safari trip but all the ATMs will only allow us to withdrawal in shillings. She was telling Tony and Mary this and Tony said he had to go to Barclays anyways so we went with them. And then they brought us to their house and gave us fruits and drinks. Tony gave us a fruit called cherimoya, which we’ve never seen before. He said that they’re only available in Arusha, but he bought a tree and grows it in his yard. They were pretty tasty and unlike any fruit I’ve ever had before. Mary gave us each a shot of Sherry to drink, but it was strong so I couldn’t drink it. Everyone that we’ve met here has been so nice and helpful, they go out of their way to make sure we’re okay! Our trip would be so different if we didn’t have them around.

Outside of a cherimoya.

The inside, it's really sweet.

After we went back into town, the girls and I went to get a banana split. There was a place we always walk by that has banana splits for 3000TSH (2USD) and Chels has been wanting a banana split for forever so we went. It was good, it had one of the tiny bananas they have here with vanilla ice cream and some strawberry and chocolate syrup. It was the perfect size for a treat. I’ve been on an ice cream binge for the past week, I always want to eat ice cream. There’s a shop on our street that sells ice cream/popsicles and we’ve been saying we would try it but every time we’re going home we forget to get it. You can never have too much ice cream!

Banana splits!

THURSDAY

Went in at 730 this morning for the weekly presentation, but when we got there we were told that there wasn’t going to be a presentation today. Awesome, we woke up an hour early for no reason. Amina doesn’t even go to the presentations and they’re not relevant to OT, so I think I’m gonna stop going to them. Since we were there early and had nothing to do, we started interventions at 7:30. There were very few children again today so for the most part we saw children together. We were also told that we wouldn't be presenting today because the PTs have a meeting and didn't know when they would finish. We're supposed to present Friday now, but the way it's been so far, I don't know if we'll ever actually present. When there wasn’t a line outside anymore, Amina said she was going downstairs, so we sat around waiting to see if anyone else was coming and for her to come back. When she came back she says “Oh, you’re still here?”... haha what. Where else would we be, and why would we leave if you haven’t told us it was okay to leave since it was early still? So bizarre.

At lunch we went to Lukmaan since we didn't want to spend a lot of money. I was a daredevil today and decided to get a coconut curry calamri...hopefully I'm not on the toilet all day tonight. But it was yummy, and I even treated myself to chapatti and a Fanta Passion. I got an extra chapatti to take home with my leftovers so I would have enough food for dinner. Chapattis remind me of green onion pancakes, which are so good. I love how cheap local food is, I paid 7000TSH including tip which is ~ $4.50 USD and that lasts me both lunch AND dinner. I already spent more than usual there today because I had gotten calamari, usually we spend under 4000TSH (~ $2.50 USD) for both meals, definitely can't find something like that at home.

Tomorrow is a holiday, which means today was our last day of work this week! Helloooo weekend. Tomorrow we’re going to Jozani Forest to see the colobus monkeys and Saturday we’re going to go up and stay the night at Nungwi if we can get a good rate for hotels with Preston, Mary and her boyfriend And we’ll go to the Full Moon Party at Kendwa Saturday night. Should be a good weekend!

Vickie and Sandy get in on Sunday!! Last I heard from Vickie, she got delayed in Europe because of snow, but I haven’t heard from her again, but I think that means shes in Africa now with no internet. I’m excited to see them, it’ll be like a little piece of home in Africa. They’re only here for Sunday night though and then travelling the rest of Zanzibar for a couple days, but it’ll still be nice to see them.

It’s been insanely hot this week. I think it’s been around 45 degrees everyday and very sunny. We haven’t complained about the heat as much lately cause I think we're starting to get used it, but these last couple days have been awful, we actually feel grimy when we come home cause of all the sweat. It’s also really tiring being in the heat all the time. It’s weird thinking about how cold it is at home while we’re dying in heat! Everyone keeps telling me that it’s freezing at home, so I am happy that I’m not there for that. Instead I am dripping in sweat, but it’s not so bad when we get to lie on the beach haha. We’ve also been looking at spas in town so we can go for a massage. That would be heaven right now, oh how I miss massages at home.

Happy weekend friends!

Appreciative for what we have.

Brace yourselves, it's a long one.
Side note: the aggressive kid with the nails I talked about in my last post...he actually cut my skin with his nails, I have scabs healing from it.

FRIDAY

Today has to be the most interesting day at work since we started. We went in and one of the PTs from Norway did a presentation on pain. We were supposed to go to the school of a little boy to do classroom interventions (as per my last post), so after the presentation I ask Amina when we’re going to the school and she looks at us blankly and then says that she completely forgot. WHAT? How do you forget that you have to go to a school to see a client…especially after we asked her every day this week if we were going. Mylene was right once again, she always has gut feelings saying things won’t happen and they turn out true every time. Anyways, still so blown away by how unstructured and laid back things are here; if that happened at home, you’d probably be put on some sort of warning.

Because we aren’t going to the school anymore, the head PT asks if we want to go with them and see the wards in the hospital, which we’ve never seen before because PT/OT have their own building next to the wards and OT stays in department since the patients come to us. One of the Norwegian PTs, Anna, pulls us aside and quietly tells us that we shouldn’t go to the big rounds now because the conditions are so horrid we might not be ready for it and she can take us on her own another day if we want. But since we had no excuse to not go at the moment, we went anyways.

Walking towards the orthopedic ward, we pass by the “X-ray room” and the ICU. Outside there were probably around 30-40 people waiting around, which later was explained that some people were waiting to visit family members, but others were waiting to see a doctor…some even wait overnight for a visit. That’s unheard of in Canada. Walking through certain halls there is a very strong, pungent scent of urine in the air and Anna and Karen (the other Norwegian PT) tell us to close our noses and sometimes our eyes. We get into the orthopedic ward, which is really one large room with 25 beds along the sides of the walls. Although not every bed was occupied, there were at least around 15-20 patients in the room. Since we missed the big rounds, which are supposed to start around 830, but we didn’t get there til 9, the PTs decide they’ll just start treating and we can observe. Anna has patients in the burn ward and says one of us can go with her, so Chels goes. Both her and Mylene say they have an interest in burns so Anna said she can take another one of us next week. I knew from lectures that I wouldn’t be able to handle burns so I opted out.

Mylene and I each followed a PT in the orthopedic ward. It was mostly mobilization of the patients. I saw a patient with spinal cord injury and it was interesting because the PT student was doing a test to see at which level the lesion was at. He explained that the nipples were at T4, and the width of two fingers under would bring you to T5. At each level they pinch the skin looking for sensory input, when they can no longer feel the pinching, that is where they assumed the level of lesion is. I don’t know how accurate it is, or why they don’t just check the charts to be sure, but it was a pretty cool method. It was a really sad case, the guy was only 20 years old and he was a complete lesion at T5; the reason got the spinal cord injury was because he fell off a mango tree during harvest season. I can see that being a very common accident that occurs here, but he was so young and he definitely wouldn’t get the intensive rehab he would need to become as functional as possible! It was pretty heartbreaking.

Afterwards, we went to the stroke ward with Karen and observed more. The PTs are lucky because there are PT students that speak Swahili and can translate for them when they want to talk to the patients and their families. Although, it seems like the transfer methods used here are very different from home. The PT wanted to shift the patient onto the bed more and the PT student was going to just grab the shoulders of the patient and yank him up. The education system here is just very different, the PT student seemed very knowledgeable theory wise, but practically they seemed a little uncertain. I have never worked with SCI or stroke patients before so it was interesting to see even though it wasn’t on an OT level. It made me realize how little experience I have with physical OT and my last placement will definitely need to be in this area with adults so I know it well enough to work in this field if I need to. The bizarre thing about this hospital is that the PTs barely treat pediatrics, regardless of need, and OTs ONLY treat pediatrics, but mostly outpatients.

The conditions of the wards…I don’t even know where to start. First off, there is no AC anywhere in the hospital and since I’ve been here it has consistently been 40+ degrees including humidity. The OT room is small and has two huge fans and looks out into the ocean so there is constant breeze coming through and isn’t too hot. But inside the wards where there are only small windows next to each bed…it’s insanely warm. We had to wear white lab coats when we went in to the wards to be more professional and I was actually dripping in sweat; it was probably the most I’ve ever sweat since I’ve been here and that’s saying A LOT. The heat is definitely not healthy for patients with open wounds, surgery, etc. And on top of that, because the windows are opened with no screens there are tons of flies everywhere. Open wounds + flies + heat…that’s a deadly combo. Even if you weren’t that sick before, you’d probably get more sick from being in there. The beds all looked ancient; they were extremely simple metal framed beds that were all completely rusted and peeling. Some of the beds you are able to raise/lower the head of the bed by turning a metal spool at the front of the bed, but some of them didn’t even have that option. The PT student explained that a lot of the mattresses are brought in from home by families and linens had to be brought in as well. The linens don’t get changed unless the family does it. And the patients only get bathed and fed if the family comes in to clean and bring them food, the hospital doesn’t provide food for the patients. For patients that are incontinent, they simply place a plastic sheet on top of the linens to prevent soiling. Most patients lie in bed all day topless, with a blanket covered their lower half, and if they aren’t pushing themselves to mobilize, no one will help them except for when the PTs come in. The family also has to bring in a fan for the patient if they want to. There are old dishes and water bottles lined on the floor, no one seems to pick up the garbage for patients who can’t mobilize. And nurses? What nurses…I think I saw one nurse actually doing something productive the 3 hours I was in the wards. Majority of them can be found in the break room sleeping or watching tv. Mind blown. What’s even worse though, is that when we were in one of the break rooms there were around 25 BRAND SPANKING NEW mattresses just sitting there. Completely wrapped in plastic and being sat on by the nurses watching tv. If there are new equipment available, why aren’t they being used?! Why are patients using old, dirty, stain covered mattresses????

As we were passing through wards, Karen showed me the bathroom facilities the patients use. It was beyond appalling… the shower was a room with a rusty, thin shower head coming out of the wall. The bathroom was basically a hole in the ground with a rusty bar for patients to hold on to. Out of all the places, why are there not proper toilets in the hospital?? The conditions were unsanitary and overall unhealthy. I’ve never appreciated Canadian health care so much. We’ve been told by a lot of people since we’ve been here that Mnazi Mmoja is not a well kept hospital and if they were ever sick they would never go there. I can definitely see why now, I feel like I would be better off sitting at home than going there for medical care. As with a lot of developing countries, the problem Is not that the country doesn’t receive aid or have the funds to improve conditions, but it’s that the people who run everything…the people on top are pocketing the money and the funds never get put towards where it needs to go.

Chels saw a completely different side of the hospital. She almost cried and almost fainted during her time in the wards. She said in the pediatric ward, one of the little girls had at least 50% of her body burnt and was running around the ward with no bandages on!! That is completely absurd. And when it was time to put her bandages on, because they don’t use pain killers here, they just dump saline on the wounds and then wrap it in gauze. I can’t even imagine the pain this child was in, Chels said the girl started to squirm and squeal at the top of her lungs and multiple adults had to hold her down so they could continue bandaging her. I don’t quite understanding how her burn will heal if they’re using gauze since gauze STICKS to open wounds, so when they take it off it’ll basically pull off whatever skin has started to regenerate and that would be extremely painful. It’s insane because at home patients with major burns are practically sedated since they are given so many pain medications. Although I have no interest in burns, I am really curious to see these wards that I didn’t get to see this time. I think it’s important to see how  the conditions are because I will never get another chance. We knew coming here that things would be different and the conditions would not be good, but seeing in person really took a toll on me.

After our morning at the hospital, we came back home before lunch because Rod had come back from Dar for the weekend. Mylene wanted him to try to vegetable coconut curry at Lukmaan, but Chels didn’t want it so the two of us went to eat at Amore Mio instead. We ordered pasta and enjoyed the view of the ocean from the restaurant. The pasta was good, but what we were looking forward to most was the ice cream for dessert! I ordered a scoop of coconut and a scoop of passion fruit ice cream. They were soo delicious! Chels ordered the Amore Mio cup, which had “cream ice cream”, chocolate cake and chocolate sauce. It was good too, but the cake was a little bit dry.

yummmmmmmmm.

Hand propelled bike, so cool! OTs, isn't this awesome?

Following lunch, we went to Madeira Tours to book our Spice Tour and we finally got to meet Tony, very close family friend of everyone we know here. He said Mary (his daughter) had told him how much we were paying for rent at our place and said it was too high and our landlord was ripping us off. He said he could help us look for another place for cheaper and we’d all have our own rooms!!!!!!!!! The luxury of having my own room and bed…I can’t even imagine how great that would be. The only issue is that we’ve already paid our landlord here, so we’ll have to see if he gives us our money back…hopefully! Then we just explored more around that area, going to different shops and Chels did more souvenir shopping. I bargained on my own this time without Chels helping me and I was pretty happy without the amount I ended up paying. We also found the liquor store in town!  We had to be home by 3:30 cause the cleaning ladies were coming, but then they never showed up and we call our landlord and he says he forgot to tell us that they weren’t coming. I spent the rest of the night reading the book “Sarah’s Key”, which I really liked, it was interesting.

SATURDAY

We booked our Spice Tour for 2pm today, so Chels and I slept in. We left around 12:30 to go get lunch at the only Chinese restaurant on the island called Pagoda. On our way there we ran into Mylene and Rod, who then also came for lunch. The place was empty except for a table of Chinese tourists and one guy at another table. It was decorated pretty typical Chinese, red everywhere with Asian lanterns hanging from the ceiling. Our waiter was Zanzibari and it was the weirdest thing being served by an African and speaking Swahili to him in a Chinese restaurant! We put in our order, not knowing what to expect and waited..and waited…and waited. Our food didn’t come until 1:40, 40 minutes after we ordered!! It wasn’t busy at all, we don’t know what took so long. But we ate really quickly (and for anyone that knows me…that’s a very difficult thing for me) and asked for the bill and take out boxes since we had leftovers. The waiter tells us that it costs 200TSH for a takeout container…what the hell, who charges for that. Anyways…we just paid the bill and left, basically running home to get our stuff for the tour cause we were already late.

The Spice Tour was interesting. It was a 10 acre farm with various fruits and spices that are grown in Zanzibar. It’s cool to be able to see the spices in their original form and how they grow since when we buy them from the stores they’re already processed. And Zanzibar is known as the spice island, so we had to see all the spices. We spent around 2.5 hours walking through the farm with a guide who was fluent in English AND French, that was a shocker and another guy who was sort of an assistant to the guide, climbing trees to get fruits and spices and making us various items out of coconut leaves. At each tree we were asked to guess what the fruit or spice was and we got to smell the leaves and taste certain spices and fruits. The three most interesting things to me were: 1) seeing a guava tree and trying the fruit, I love guava juice but have never tried the actual fruit 2) COCOA TREES! They had two different kinds, one that is a red fruit and one that is green and they use that to make chocolate. My favourite thing ever. I was really sad when the guide said the fruits weren’t ripe yet so he couldn’t let us try the seeds in the tree that are really sweet and locals eat them as candy 3) coffee trees. At home we see whole coffee beans, but seeing the original form of green fruits on trees was really cool. Other than that we also tried lychee from here, we saw a fruit called lipstick which locals use the seeds as lipstick and as dye/paint, papaya trees, avocado trees, etc. At the end of the tour we got to eat some of the fruits grown there. A guy peeled and cut each fruit in front of us, he had really good cutting skills…I know that sounds stupid haha but he actually just held a pineapple and cut the outer shell with a knife so easily. We got to try oranges that are grown here, the oranges aren’t orange! They’re green on the outside, but orange inside, so deceiving. Then we got to buy spices collected and prepared at the farm. We knew this would be possible, but the spices were more expensive than I expected. Mylene said that for each individual pack of spice at the market it was 1000TSH, but at the farm it was 5000TSH. We justified the price that it was more fresh. They had an overwhelming amount of spices, teas, and coffees to choose from. They also had vanilla extract, which I thought was really neat since I use it to bake a lot and this was definitely the real deal. All of us bought lots of spices as souvenirs and spent way too much money. Chels had brought 100,000TSH with her and didn’t have enough to pay for her items!

 Massive jackfruit growing on tree. 

 Lemongrass.

 Lipstick fruit. They mush the seeds inside and use it.

He makes a pretty lady wearing lipstick fruit.

 Guava tree.

 GUAVA!

Like cotton but falls from a tree, used to be stuff it in mattresses, but stopped using it because of new technology.

 Red cocoa.

 Green cocoa.

 First coconut leaf jewelry: a necklace of a frog?

 Zanzibari lychee. Slightly different from what I'm used to.

Coffee tree.

 Cinnamon tree, they use the bark to make cinnamon.

 Cloves in its original form.

 Pepper; bit into it and it was really strong.

 Second coconut leaf present.

 Vanilla.

 Nutmeg.

 Turmeric, dyes things yellow...including my hand.

Third coconut leaf present, a ring.

 Starfruit. 

 Pineapple tree.

 Rod sporting his new tie.

 Papaya.

 This is where almonds come from!

Seed of the fruit that gets produced into almonds.

 The amazing fruit peeler peeling grapefruit.

 With our tiaras.

 Check us out.

 We're so cool, all decked out with our new shades.

 Endless rows of spices.

All the coconut leaf presents we got, handmade during the tour.

Spending the night in today, doing some much needed laundry. I’ve never done so much laundry in my life…I still haven’t had a chance to wash the clothes I wore on the place here because they’re of low importance and I need to keep washing the other clothes first. But we did wash our bedsheets today! I still have at least two more loads to do, but it’s hard to get them all done since there are so many of us sharing one machine and there is only so much space to hang the clothes after. I think I may start to bring my towels to get washed at the hotel across from our apartment. Our landlord had mentioned that it’s only 200TSH per item and I only have 3 towels = 600TSH, which is about $0.33USD/week. I don’t want to wash it myself is because we don’t have a dryer and the towels get so hard and it feels scratchy on the skin even though we use fabric softener. The other style isn’t so bad, I can deal with it, but the towels I can’t stand. After a shower I want to be able to use a soft, fluffy towel!

Anyways, this post is already way too long and I’m starting to get tired. We’re going to the beach tomorrow, we’re going to Matewa, which is north east, just a bit past Nungwi. It’s going to be a longgggg ride on the dala dala and the last bus comes back at 4:30, so we’re going to go early and come back early. 8:30am departure tomorrow, hopefully that means less people and less chickens haha. Or I might just have more interesting dala dala stories. 

Beach Bums.

TUESDAY

The day started off smelling great; our neighbour Valentine lost power in her kitchen so she was using ours to make chapattis and she made each of us one as well. It was her last day and she didn’t want her stuff to go to waste so she used it up and it was delicious. With yummy food in hand, we left for work.

It was Tuesday, so it was busy. The first boy I was treatment was so aggressive! When I was holding him was clawing at my arms, my face, my chest with so much force. At one point he managed to pull my glasses from my face. It was like his nails were pincers, they definitely needed to be cut. Another little girl I had with down syndrome had very weak trunk muscles so she preferred to flop her torso towards the ground and have her face on the floor, but she would lick everything. When she was on the mat, she licked the mat. When she had a toy, she licked the toy. When I was holding her, she licked my arm and at one point attempted to be breastfeed off of me! Another girl had on a floofy princess dress, but it was all this hold glitter on it that was continuously falling off. Her dad was covered in it when he brought her to me and by the end of that session I was like a walking disco ball. But on the plus side, I only had one crying baby this day, and oh did he scream his head off, but only one.

After lunch today, Chels and I wanted some sort of pastry or dessert. It was the first time since we’ve been here that we’ve gone out for dessert of some sort. We decided to go to Zanzibar Coffee House cause last time Mylene and I went they had a large menu. Chels got a humongous piece of chocolate cake, Mylene got a chocolate tart, and I got a cappuccino tart. It was really good, mmm sweets.

Chels' ginormous piece of chocolate cake

My cappuccino tart.

For dinner, we chose to stay in and make pasta and a salad. It was the same as the one Rod made for us last time, but this time we were on our own. Mylene and I want to start by cutting onions and peeling the vegetables, so she takes out the brown bag with the eggplant in it. Then she turns to me, showing me the bottom of the bag and says, “Is that a worm??”. I look at it very closely and then it freaking starts to move! And then another one comes out, and another one. At this point I am flipping out, they were so nasty. Mylene runs to get a garbage bag to put it in and we hope they didn’t get into the eggplant. I cut open the one that has holes on the outside, half freaking out and of course, there were like 5 worms squirming around inside our eggplant. Another couple seconds of freaking out and Mylene bravely chucks away the worm infested eggplant. Our first homecooked dinner was not off to a good start. After that though everything went smoothly; all the vegetables got cut, sauce got made, pasta got cooked, and salad got put together. It reminded me of undergrad and having roommates again, talking and cooking and just spending nights in together. I miss all that; living alone really isn’t my cup of tea. The meal turned out almost exactly how Rod made it, so we were successful and got to eat loads of healthy vegetables!

WEDNESDAY

Once again, we had the day off from work since there was no community outreach plan and we were supposed to work on our presentation for Friday. But instead we worked on it Tuesday afternoon so we could go to the beach today. We wanted to go to a nicer beach than Fuji, and Preston told us that the second closest nice beach would be Paje, which we went to only at night for a beach party. Paje is around a 45 minute drive from Stonetown, but we would be taking the dala dala so we estimated over an hour for sure. The night before I looked up which bus we would need to take and Tuesday around 1:30pm we left to head towards the central dala dala station by the market. It was no different from the first time, still as crazy and hectic. We couldn’t see any dala dalas in the 300s (we needed the 309) so we asked a man who pointed us in the right direction. As we were looking at the front of the cars for the numbers a man asks where were going, we tell him Paje, and he tells us to follow him and get onto the bus. The front of the sign didn’t say 309 so we were hesitant and stood outside, but he was very persistent. We asked the driver if he would pass through Paje and he said yes so we sat. We were the only ones on the bus; it was the van like one again and not the truck with converted seats. We had to pay 3500TSH for one way, which we later found out was the “mzungu” (meaning white person in Swahili) price and locals typically pay around 2000TSH. We thought we would have to wait forever cause we were told before that the dala dalas won’t leave until they’re full. But after another man got on the car left the station. I was asking Chels the other day if they have a fire department here cause we hadn't seen any firetrucks but as we were pulling out we saw one so I took a picture of it. Then the bus attendant says he wants a picture with him and Mylene...haha she was so awkward about it.

 Zanzibari Firetruck.

Hahah oh Mylene.

It got progressively more and more packed, especially because people were bringing with them huge sacks of what I think were potatoes and other random things. So we get to one stop and they throw these cargos next to me on the dala dala, which I’m fine with. We’re pulled over for about 10 minutes when I start to notice the bag right next to my left slightly shake. I can see the bag moving up and down rhythmically and I lean over to Chels and tell her that whatever in that bag next to me is alive cause I can see it moving. We kind of peek inside and there are live chickens in the bag! Slightly thrown off, but okay with it, I continue to sit. Then the chickens start going crazy, they start jumping out of the bag and one of the almost pecks at me! Needless to say I start screaming, so the bus attendant grabs the bag and moves it. Everyone on the dala dala is now laughing at me, but it really was just a hilarious situation and Chels and I can’t stop laughing either. But then this one guy keeps saying “kuku” (chicken in Swahili) and laughing and re-enacting my reaction for the next 20 minutes until he gets off; at the point it got annoying.

On our way to Paje, we pass through Jozani forest and we actually saw the red colobus monkeys sitting on the side of the road eating! It was so cool, they were chilling like it was nothing. No one else seemed intrigued, but the three of us being super touristy got really excited. A little further down a black and white colobus monkey runs across the road out of nowhere, we almost hit it! The dala dalas don’t seem to have a capacity, if someone wants to get on, they will be allowed regardless of how much cargo they have with them. It was sweet though, because there is a really big sense of community here. Other people on the dala dala will help carry the loads on the, reshifting already existing stuff so everything will fit. One woman came on with her son and they made a seat for the boy at the front and the man next to him made sure he was safe since he was sitting on a bucket haha. Everyone is super friendly (besides the man making fun of me) and chats as they travel to different destination points.

After 1.5 hours, we finally get to Paje. We’re at a roundabout and are told to get off, but as we come off there is nothing close to us. We see a bunch of signs for resorts pointing in one direction so we walk towards there, knowing that we would be able to walk through any resort and onto the beach. We walk about 10 minutes before we hit the resorts, but the walk was so quiet. It was so different from Stonetown where there are constantly people yelling at you to come into their stores, trying to sell you stuff, bikes and motorcycles honking at you to move out of the way. We didn’t know until we got to the beach that it would be low tide. The water so really far out and there were long patches of sand out into the ocean. We walked towards the part where the water was closest to the shore and set up shop. Mylene and I went into the water first, it was gorgeous there. Paje is known to have the finest sand on the island. The water was completely transparent, you could see everything at the bottom and it was clean and turquoise, unlike Fuji. The first 10 minutes the water was only up to our thighs, we went out maybe 20 minutes before the water was up to shoulders. The water was extremely calm, there were no waves, it was barely moving. It was so relaxing just floating and swimming there! At one point I look at Mylene and I tell her that I can’t believe we’re doing our placement right now, it feels like paradise. The beach barely had locals harassing you to buy stuff, only a few so we actually got to enjoy our time just laying on the beach. But there may be a random cow that walks by, or maybe 10. There were some tourists there as well, which made us feel a lot more comfortable in bikinis. Preston joined us a little later and we sat around and watched the tide rise, which happened very quickly. I was really shocked, but amazed, at how quickly it rose! Even the 30 minutes Mylene and I were in the water, by the time we came back in, the water had risen like 40-50cm.

 The seaweed is normally where the shore meets the water, but the tide was super low.

Mylene and I soaking in a little bit of paradise.

Herd of cow taking a stroll on the beach.

Initial shoreline. 

Tide when we left, 2.5-3 hours later.

Orange coconuts. 

We came back into town for dinner. All three of us were craving burgers, real burgers like ones at home, because a lot of the burgers here are not made from ground beef but it’s more like a piece of stake inside. Mylene had a burger at the Old Fort restaurant before so we went there. It was a decent burger, although I would take a Wendy’s junior bacon cheeseburger over it hands down. When we were walking home Chels and I bought ice cream from one of the vendors attached to a bike. First Zanzibar ice cream! Although it wasn’t really authentic since it was package. I’m waiting to go to Amore Mio for gelato and to see the sunset. It was such a nice, relaxing day. The picture perfect beauty of the beach still blows me away, it looks like a postcard.

THURSDAY

Last night Chels and I slept with the AC off in our room, but around 1:30am we both woke up cause it was so hot and stuff. Our room was at 30 degrees…it was gross. Today was our early day (start at 7:30am) because we have to go to the presentation before OT treatments. The presentation today was on appendicitis; I was exhausted from the beach and was pretty much dozing off through the presentation. I think I might stop going to them, they aren’t relevant to OT and our supervisor doesn’t even go. Work wasn’t too crazy today, we finished around 11am. Amina told us that we don’t have to present tomorrow though because one of the Norwegian PTs were presenting and we could present next week. No interesting stories from work today.

We went to eat at Green Garden restaurant for lunch. Chels and I ordered pastas and Mylene ordered a calzone; everything was delicious and we had leftovers for dinner. Afterwards, we went to the market because we wanted to buy more fruits and we needed bread, peanut butter, nutella, toilet paper and napkins. I’m getting pretty used to the hectic-ness of the market, it doesn’t phase me anymore. It’s also rained a bit yesterday and today so the temperature has cooled down slightly, today was the first time we got to work and weren’t sweating! It’s a lot more exciting than it sounds haha.

Mylene and Chels bought a Zanzibar board game yesterday, but the guy didn’t have instructions for it so they had to go back today and get it. The plan was to go there and go to a store with handmade clothes and accessories. But along the way we stopped at souvenir stores and sporadically we all ended up buying more souvenirs. I don’t think this souvenir shopping will ever end, we’re always surrounded by it! Chels wanted to buy banana leaf placemats and the guy told her at first 18,000TSH for one and she ended up buying 4 placemats for 15,000TSH!

I got my four mosquito bites from sitting outside for dinner yesterday. I think I need to start carrying around bugspray with me cause I never know where I’ll end up. I don’t think I’ll be bug bite free until I get back home…that s a pretty depressing thought. Lots of bug bite and tiger balm for the next month and a half! Not too exciting of a day today, we’re all pretty tired. It’s probably gonna be an early night. Tomorrow we’re going in for the PT presentation and then we’re going to one of the kid’s schools to do interventions there with the teacher, so that should be interesting!