First days

After a day or two of orienting, I'm getting more adapted to the time and culture. Dr. Lyimo arranged for a small house for us to live in a few Km outside town. It is 2 bedrooms with a small kitchen and livingroom. The beds are small but usable and the landlord has provided sheets, towels, and a few basic kitchen implements. She also brought over a couple dozen eggs, some bananas and papayas the first day I was there!. Rent isn't cheap, but is probably less than we would pay getting rooms in a hostel. There are Daladalas (minivans) that run every few minutes and cost ~$0.30 to ride.

Town is divided by a stream into east (touristy) and west (less touristy). On the east side, every couple minutes somebody tries to sell you something or befriend you and suggest going on a safari with them. Yesterday I got good and lost on the west side and felt less like a money target and more like a visitor. This seemed more like the "peoples" side of town. People generally seem friendly even when they aren't asking for money. Traffic is a bit hectic with bicycles, cars, trucks and rickshaws all darting around. I still have to be careful to look the correct direction when crossing the street (they drive on the left here).

Yesterday, I spent ~6 hours with Dr. Lyimo in his father's private clinic. He works both for the government hospital (Mt. Meru) and for his fathers x-ray/ultrasound clinic. Being an OB, we did several ultrasounds of pregnant mothers where we measured head size and femur length, location of the placenta, and checked the heart and spine. We also saw patients with broken bones and abdomen pain who needed xrays. I will start in the hospital Monday.