On Friday July 4 evening, after a day and a half flight with a short stopover in Zurich, my two classmates and I arrived at the Airbnb we rented for two months to stay.
We're in Moshi, which is a town at the base of Kilimanjaro. We're here as Master's of Occupational Therapy students on our last of four fieldwork placements in a program. We will be at the KCMC Regional Hospital - Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre - that regularly takes students from all over the world (most likely mostly Global North countries but we'll see).
Speaking of Kilimanjaro, for these first five days, I have not seen it even though in pictures of the city it features prominently. That's because it's been cloudy and cool and will be for the foreseeable future. Our Airbnb host joked that we brought the cold with us from Canada. It is currently going up to only 22 degrees during the daytime and about 16 degrees Celsius at night. It is their winter, but I suspect it's supposed to be hotter. However, I see that Canada, at least Toronto, is in a heatwave in the 30s and feels like 40. So here I am wearing a fleece jacket in Tanzania while people are melting in Toronto!
Which brings to mind a neat thing - the hot water for their showers are solar powered! But since there's no sun, we need backup electricity to run it. And since it's been so cold, it's hard to take a cold shower (one without heating the water). I don't want to waste the electricity but the alternative would be to do something like sponge bathe, as it would be too cold for me to shower. I can see how it would be refreshing on a hot summer (November - March) day though.
We were slated to start the placement today, July 7. Then, over the weekend, we heard from one source then another that there will be closures because of a national holiday (Saba Saba Day, which means 7/7 or July 7). According to the Wikipedia article I am reading at this moment, it was when the Tanganyika African National Union was founded. It is also a holiday in Kenya but for another reason (commemorating protests for free elections). Luckily when we communicated with the hospital coordinators last night confirming whether or not to go in, they replied pretty quickly and said no.
It also happened to be World Kiswahili Language Day the day we landed. Kiswahili is the language of Tanzania (other than English)! I am trying to learn as much Swahili as I can within these months so I can at least say some things.
One thing that is taking some getting used to is the sounds of a relatively less white noise filled place (because, for example, there are no street lights), but full of the zoom of motorcycles and other cars, and if not that then the animals: hens, whinnying guard dogs, cows and if not that, then music from a club that plays nearby at night. You are surrounded by sound, it's not that quiet!
An interesting thing to note is the ban on plastic shopping bags brought into the country. Then we noticed, like in other places, they burn their garbage. It's true that burning things like water bottles releases chemical toxins into the air, but it'd be great to see which one is better, or which one is worse rather: burning water bottles, or "recycling" them into a garbage pile so massive that it has to go into the ocean which then leaks its contents and litters the sea like in North America? I'm going to run this dilemma through ChatGPT to see what it says: it says for the long term dumping is worse, but for the short-term and human health burning is worse. Well, it then says to avoid plastic waste altogether. All good advice without taking into account human behaviour!
Okay, you didn't come here for my ramblings but some pictures so I will show some!
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