More Donations!

Another beautiful morning near the base of Mount Meru. You can’t complain when you wake up with this view every morning.

 Once again, I’m sitting here drinking my tea, and I was about to cut up some fruit for breakfast when I came across this! 

 You know you’re in a house of medical students when you find an orange full of sutures...and I don't think this patient would be very happy with our skills haha!

The three of us (Ben, Grace, and I) had a full but satisfying day yesterday filled with donations and last goodbyes. Phabian (our program coordinator) came over Sunday night for a glass of wine and some cake-baking. Phabian was interested in learning to bake when he saw us baking a cake for our Pakistani neighbors last week. So, we promised him we would bake two more Sunday night. Success! We ended up with one vanilla and one strawberry cake smothered in Nutella frosting! We couldn’t find real frosting lol The strawberry was a little deformed but I think it turned out pretty well considering our oven is crap and we didn’t have any measuring cups. Haha!

Richard picked us up yesterday morning to make our rounds around town. We went to the bank, dropped one piece of cake off for our friend Angel who works at our favorite supermarket, and then picked up our donated supplies from the pharmacy. And by picked up, I mean we waited for over 2 hours as the pharmacy scavenged to find supplies that were missing from our list. Motorcycles were randomly brining supplies from other pharmacies and we still didn’t fulfill our comprehensive list. After a somewhat frustrating morning, coupled by the reassurance that this place is simply lacking supply chain management and the western hustle and bustle attitude, we managed to find all of the items with the help of another pharmacy. Woohoo! Blood pressure cuffs, sutures, thermometers, glucometers, gauze rolls, an otoscope, 19,000 doses of pain medications, and other essential supplies. The hospital was extremely grateful as Dr. Geoffrey and several of the nurses thanked us multiple times for the donation. What a great feeling! 

Cake delivery

 meds on meds on meds

pharmacy crew

 

  2 mil in Tanzanian shillings!

 a little excited about the new glucometers 

 16,000 doses of pain med!

After the donation, Grace and I stopped at Mt. Meru Laboratory to say our final goodbyes and deliver a cake. The lab staff had welcomed us with open arms during our first week at the hospital and we thought it would be appropriate to end in the same place with a celebration. It was so nice to see all of our “mamas” again and laugh over our attempts of Swahili communication. I will miss all of those wonderful people. 

 Not sure why but they wanted to feed us the cake first haha!

 Mama Mary and Redempta

Then, Grace and I walked around town to say goodbye to some others like Thomas, a street vendor who befriended us and never tried to sell us his merchandise (unlike other street vendors). But secretly, that’s how you get someone to buy your stuff! I’ll think of Thomas every time I look at the painting I bought from him to hang on my wall at home :) We walked to the post office one more time to look for Grace’s mail, only to assume it had been lost in transit. Not surprising in Tanzania but it was worth a try! We finally got home at 5pm, just in time for a little siesta and dinner with our  neighbors. We had some traditional Pakistani dishes and learned the rules of eating with only our right hand and without silverware. They were excited to teach us all of their religious/traditional ways, just as we were excited to learn. A perfect ending to the trip for Gracie!

Our sweet neighbors :)

We rescheduled our second visit of St. Jude school today so we plan to do that just before Grace leaves. Sad to be sending her off but I know she is just as excited as I am to see her family and friends. 6 weeks sure does fly by though. Can’t believe I am already leaving tomorrow! As Bayne says, I am trying to suck the city dry of all the opportunities it has for me this last couple of days...See you in 3 days America! 

Love,