Well..we have not had much chance to update this vital historical archive of our attempt to find the source of the Nile..I beg your pardon.. to work for a year in Beautiful Tanzania.
For one, we were dashing round and barely touching the ground as we left UK and arrived first in Dar and then on down to our digs at Nyangao.
And then we have had a bit of a slog getting onto the internet - all better now we think!
We've been at the hospital for 4 weeks or so but have now come up to a lovely spot called Morogoro for 2 weeks of intensive Kiswahili training.
We are living in a house, in a domestic school quadrangle, in a convent, just off the hospital site. We are luck enough to have a 2 bedroom house and a living room and also an eating room/study with a great desk for sitting at and thinking.
We have been divesting ourselves of much of the clutter that characterises life in UK. Our days stretch out luxuriously after we come home from work at 3.30 with a good 6 hours before slumber to do all the things that get squeezed out at home. Jim is reading books again. No daily papers to get in the way, although I have tried to subscrive to Guardian weekly. It seems there is so much more space and time to just feel the simple pleasure of existence..loving it!
We are enjoying the work at the hospital. Pam has a good pharmacy department to help in. She is working with Andrea, our pharmacy technician who has recently qualified and will be running the department after we leave. Since arriving Pam has seen hundreds of patients in the HIV clinic and tried her best to counsel them in Swahili!
Jim is working mainly on the kids ward and also trying to make some inroads in the clinic. Swahili is our big priority and to this end we are now in Morogoro. Staying at another convent and meeting with the other new arrivals in-country. Enjoying eating meat twice a day - unheard of in Nyangao!
We have also had a really nice relaxing weekend in Mtwara, which is just a couple of hours away on the coast with really good snorkelling and a nice beach house that belongs to the Brothers and nuns.
For one, we were dashing round and barely touching the ground as we left UK and arrived first in Dar and then on down to our digs at Nyangao.
And then we have had a bit of a slog getting onto the internet - all better now we think!
We've been at the hospital for 4 weeks or so but have now come up to a lovely spot called Morogoro for 2 weeks of intensive Kiswahili training.
We are living in a house, in a domestic school quadrangle, in a convent, just off the hospital site. We are luck enough to have a 2 bedroom house and a living room and also an eating room/study with a great desk for sitting at and thinking.
We have been divesting ourselves of much of the clutter that characterises life in UK. Our days stretch out luxuriously after we come home from work at 3.30 with a good 6 hours before slumber to do all the things that get squeezed out at home. Jim is reading books again. No daily papers to get in the way, although I have tried to subscrive to Guardian weekly. It seems there is so much more space and time to just feel the simple pleasure of existence..loving it!
We are enjoying the work at the hospital. Pam has a good pharmacy department to help in. She is working with Andrea, our pharmacy technician who has recently qualified and will be running the department after we leave. Since arriving Pam has seen hundreds of patients in the HIV clinic and tried her best to counsel them in Swahili!
Jim is working mainly on the kids ward and also trying to make some inroads in the clinic. Swahili is our big priority and to this end we are now in Morogoro. Staying at another convent and meeting with the other new arrivals in-country. Enjoying eating meat twice a day - unheard of in Nyangao!
We have also had a really nice relaxing weekend in Mtwara, which is just a couple of hours away on the coast with really good snorkelling and a nice beach house that belongs to the Brothers and nuns.
