Mambo rafikis! (Marta's tatu post)

I thought today I would share some of the more routine things we do. I find those are things you miss the most when the experience ends, but they are also the things that get overshadowed with stories of more exciting excursions when you come home and ‘sum up your experience’ to family and friends.

Every morning (and quite often night) I wake up to a range of different sounds. Most often there are car horns, yells, chatter and music. But to shake it up, there are sometimes roosters crowing, cows mooing, crickets chirping, birds singing, motor cycles speeding, or my personal favourite- our dog Blackie barking. As for smells, the wind seems to carry the smell of burning charcoal through my window in waves.

Spending time with Blackie is a daily routine that also shouldn’t be overlooked. When we unlock the gate surrounding our house on our way home from work, Blackie is often the first to come greet us (well along with the really nice men that guard and maintain the outside of the house- Taysha and Frenk). He is a really calm and affectionate dog, but at the same time his loud barks at night remind us that he’s still watching over us.

Olive is by far the best part of our daily routines. She is essentially our housekeeper and mom. She has the most welcoming, beautiful smile. We are so fortunate to wake up to her kind greetings and delicious breakfast every morning. She patiently teaches us new Swahili words, and smiles at our failed attempts to understand her responses to the phrases we so carefully practiced.

And finally, one of the other amazing daily routines that I never want to forget is the time the four of us spend together in our living room. Even when there is a computer on all of our laps, the company could not be better. We share great music, and even greater laughs. Actually, just last night I announced that I expect to come home with a 6-pack from all the laughing we do!!

         

A great country, great friends and great laughs. What more could you ask for?  

Jaffaray's 2nd posti

I miss bagels.

Jaffaray's 1st posti

I still can't believe I'm here. How exactly did a little brown boy from Jane and Sheppard make it to Moshi, Tanzania?  Every morning I wake up and it hits me (literally) as I bang into my mosquito net and realize that I'm a world away. A world away from my mother's chicken curry and potatoes, Toronto Maple Leaf highlights and most importantly my man cave (essentially my basement). But before I share my thoughts on this on-going adventure, I want to give a big shout-out to Martha a.k.a. M-Dizzle for creating this blog. What a great way to share our stories with our family and friends as they takes place. I can't wait to re-read these posts when I'm freezing in a library on campus procrastinating from studying sometime in 2012.

It's only been five days, but I have come to know many things about Moshi and its people. For instance, a morning greeting is always genuine and never takes the form of a fake head nod or  smirk. Every morning, I look forward to hearing "habari za asabuhi" or "mambo" as my colleagues file into our transport van one by one.I've also learned that a simple smile will always be met with a subsequent smile. It is usually the best approach in demonstrating to the children of Moshi that you are "rafiki yake" (his/her friend). It is often the case that they are skeptical of the "wuzungu" (white people, or any other person who does not look like them), but smiles, high fives and letting them inspect your student ID badge (they love my never-ending last name) are the best strategies to date.

Today, I had a group of little girls say "good aftaanoon saaaa (sir)" in perfect unison as our jeep drove by. I was told that the greeting was directed at me since I was driving in the passenger seat. This made me especially happy, and was only one of many ways that the people of Moshi have made me feel a genuine sense of happiness. Being genuinely happy has been a common trend during my stay in Tanzania. I feel like it's embedded in the culture here. There isn't really a concept of the traditional 9-5 lifestyle, as there is always time to connect, listen and laugh. I think I can get used to this...

God Bless,

Jeff  (also known as Jaffary to my new found Tanzanian friends and TanzCrew)

Day 3: Joyce's kwanza post. :)

Habari zenu!! It’s finally my (Joyce’s) turn to blog!  

Another amazing day in Moshi! Will never get used to the beauty of this place.

The Jacaranda Trees! 

We started today by attending a clinical conference in the main lecture hall. Very interesting ground breaking research was presented about malaria drug resistance and results from a major clinical trial that may lead to huge changes in standard practice when treating children in Africa (FEAST trials! Look'em up if you’re interested!)

It got pretty crowded in the OT department as four other student OTs from Norway had just come back from a five day safari. We saw two clients with stroke and it was fun as the students were able to jump in and teach us things since they’d already been here for six weeks! (OTs in Norway get to go on placement for 12 weeks!) We’re going to have good friends all over Scandinavia by the end of this placement.

In the afternoon, we switched to paeds and have been taken under the wing of an OT that recently started working at KCMC. Her name is Joyce! J Everyone has been quite amused about this coincidence and I’d like to think of it as a good sign. We finally made it to the in-patient wards, the “watoto” (children) ward. It was tough at first as we started in the palliative care unit. We saw three little boys with terminal illnesses; one had a combination of TB, Meningitis and a brain abscess. Most of them were still responsive, and the OT was creating stories with one child and practicing drawing with another. It was pretty crowded and hectic in the ward with tons of people coming in and out...finding charts became quite difficult and we had to postpone a few assessments. We’ll be there again Friday with Joyce and we are looking forward to getting these kids into some meaningful occupations.

            

After work, we crashed (took our cold shower and siesta!) and then the Swedish OT students texted me to let us know all the international students were getting together to play soccer in the doctor’s ward at KCMC. Jeff and I headed on over for some international mingling fun! It was GREAT. I haven’t played soccer in a looong time and despite totally failing at a head butt and choking on all the dust rising from the playing field, we had ridiculous amounts of fun with Australians, New Zealanders, Germans, Swedish, Norwegian, American, British....the list went on! There were med students, nurses, PTs, OTs...the list goes on! The international student community at KCMC is amazing! People are just so darned nice. J Makes you realize how small the world is becoming...all that global community jazz ain’t for naught I tell you!

Ta da! Our home sweet (luxury!) home: Motivation House

Jeff and I proceeded to jog home in the setting sun...(first time I’ve run since the half...sad to say I seem to have lost it all...was wheezing after the first 500m...). We returned to our beloved home to find that Martha and Elvina had already made dins for us! (I LOVE OUR TANZACREW.)  

Tomorrow Martha and I are going to visit Jeff and Elvina at CCBRT! We’re hoping to experience some of the fieeellld. AM SO EXCITED. Every day is an adventure.

Kwa heri everyone! 

Ya kwanza (first) CCBRT community field visit

Today, Jeff and I had a full day of work at CCBRT complete with a community field visit (details to come...keep reading!). CCBRT stands for Comprehensive Community Based Rehabilitation in Tanzania. It is a local NGO that has partnerships with several local and international organizations. CCBRT’s mission is “to improve the quality of life of people living with disabilities, their family members and caregivers enabling them to become full members of society.” The centre where we are doing our fieldwork placement is called Tumaini (Hope) Centre located in Moshi.

There is a CCBRT van that picks us up at 6:45 am every day and drops us home so we haven’t had the pleasure of riding the dala dala. After picking us up in the morning, the van picks up the staff (OTs, PTs, administrative assistants, etc.) and we arrive at the Tumaini Centre by 7:30 am.

After some Swahili self-study time, we helped load some equipment into the CCBRT jeep and started our day. Along with our preceptor and two technologists, we conducted three community follow-up visits with children who have spastic cerebral palsy. The mission today was to evaluate previous wheelchair prescriptions and ensure that the wheelchairs are meeting the children's needs. Our first stop was a house that has been rented by the family to an organization that provides services to children with disabilities. Renting the house allows the organization to help supplement the family’s income while also providing space for other children with disabilities in the community to come during the day while their parents are working. We spent most of our time here as we had to remove the head support and cushion and change them, and adjust the arm rest and tray. We helped the technologists remove the old parts, but I’d say they did most of the work. It was incredibly hot and I think the individuals who were supervising house today took pity on us by bringing chairs so we can sit outside.

Following the changes and adjustments, we ensured that the fit was appropriate for the child and completed documentation before we left. The next visit involved some walking across fields and unpaved roads (note to self: wear running shoes for future community visits). Unfortunately, for this child, the hip pad on the wheelchair was missing and we asked that the parents bring the wheelchair to our centre. We then conducted our last follow-up visit where we observed the technologists and our preceptor adjust the foot rest and add foot straps. We also got a taste of local culture by observing a family cook a stew outside. Their kitchen consists of having a pot with firewood around it. We both never did community field visits before so the entire day was exciting and eye-opening. It gave us the opportunity to observe and appreciate how practical and hands-on OT really is and how much seating and posture can make a major impact on a child's quality of life.

Other highlights from today include me mispronouncing the Swahili word "kumi" (number 10) for a really bad word (it prompted a laughing fit from the local children; please don't say it, kids!)...and the cook at CCBRT professing her genuine love for Jeff and her admiration for his good looks. She couldn't stop commenting, in Swahili, to our preceptor how handsome he is. She further demonstrated her admiration by scooping Jeff lots of second and third helpings. All that extra attention made two technologists especially jealous. Too bad she only has sons, Jeff!

Everyone at CCBRT from the OTs to the PTs, technologists to the kitchen staff, and security guards to drivers have been extremely welcoming and helpful. The next 7 weeks will be nzuri sana sana (excellent)!

Habari!

Well life in Tanzania is nzuri sana. Everyone we have met so far has been incredibly nice, happy and welcoming. The sun is extremely hot, and by the afternoon all you really want to do is have a cold shower or lay in bed and nap (a combination of both would be ideal!!). There are these beautiful trees everywhere called Jacaranda that have gorgeous purple flowers. We were told it is the season for them and that more should be blooming soon. Even the birds are bright, beautiful colours. Basically, everything is really great so far.

The first few days of placement at KCMC have been amazing. There are three rooms in the OT department at KCMC: adults, paeds and counseling. There is also a staff room, where we have our tea break every morning!! That’s right, every day they bring in delicious milky tea (or chai) and bags of peanuts for us to snack on- yuuum. It seems like so far we’ll be in the adult physical department, so mostly clients with stroke and spinal cord injuries. We’ve seen only clients with strokes so far, and it’s been really interesting. My first reaction is that the therapy seems more phyiso-based, as we do mostly stretch and strengthening exercises, and we focus equally on upper extremities as we do gait. Yesterday our preceptor treated a client with expressive aphasia, so on top of doing the upper and lower extremity exercises he worked on his speech by pointing to body parts and having him tell them what they were…and he also sang familiar songs with him! It was beautiful. There is apparently only one Speech Language Pathologist in Tanzania, so he supplements the speech exercises with the OT exercises.

Speaking of beautiful songs, KCMC holds a service in their chapel every morning, and our preceptor sings in the choir so we went this morning to see what it was like. The best words to describe it would be moving, beautiful and uplifting. They even danced as they sang, which made it even more amazing. We actually bought a copy of the choir’s CD- we’re hoping to learn the words to some songs so we can eventually join in! I don’t know if you can post songs on here, but I’ll give it a try!

Today we also met two girls from Sweden that are also doing an OT placement at KCMC. They invited us to play soccer with the international students at KCMC, so that will be really fun (and funny…if you’ve ever seen me try to play soccer…). And something REALLY interesting that we learned today is how widely used the Canadian Model of Occupational Performance and Engagement is!! Sorry non-OT readers, it’s basically the model that guides how we frame our thoughts and actions in practice. They call it ‘the Canadian Model’ rather than the CMOP-E, but still pretty exciting. Our preceptor and a newly graduated OT student from KCMC also said they often use ‘the Canadian model’, so that’s really, really cool!

OH and one last thing.. Yesterday we rode the dala dala I mentioned! Whaaat an experience. They seriously put our bus system to SHAME. You know when you want to get on the bus but the driver passes you because the bus is ‘full’, and then as it passes by you notice there's TONS of room in the back and it's just because no one moved back... Ya, it’s the COMPLETE opposite of that. They use minivans rather than full buses, but a trip involves: either leaning on top of someone, or practically sitting on top of someone else, or getting squished closer to someone than you would if you were going in for a hug, while desperately trying to find something to hold onto, as other braver riders are hanging out the open door... basically, it’s amazing.

Well, that’s it for today. Hope you are all doing well!

Look out Tanzania.. Joyce, Jeff, Martha and Elvina have landed!

After a 20 hour trip filled with Joyce's giggles, Jeff getting confused as an Ethiopian, Martha sleeping the whooole way and Elvina saving the day by arranging our ride out of the airport- we are finally settled in. We were very warmly welcomed this afternoon by two individuals from CCBRT (http://www.ccbrt.or.tz/) who made sure we were settled in and prepared for our first day of placement tomorrow. We are located within walking distance from KCMC (http://www.kcmc.ac.tz/) the hospital Joyce and I will be at, and Jeff and Elvina will be taking the dala dala bus into CCBRT everyday. They are small, packed buses that are used for transporting around the city- looks like quite an experience, details to come! 

It's only 8:30pm here but we'll all be off to bed soon. As you can imagine we did not sleep very much in the past 24 hours (well, I may be the exception..), and we all have big days ahead of us tomorrow.

 Kwaheri everyone!