Sarah

Couldn´t have said it better myself, thank you Toto for finding words with a rhythm. And folks, suddenly it happens. Not only am I (once again) doing a new attempt to blog but I (once again) have left Sweden and my comfort zone. This time for Tanzania and four weeks at a hospital in Dar Es Salaam. And not any hospital but the hospital that travel books and the locals recommend anyone who is sick to avoid. To not go to. To not seek help there. That’s where I, Jenny, Frida and Anton decided to spend our second to last internships during our studies. Another party of friends are currently in the same country but at another destination. They are in Moshi, which I have no clue how to spell or pronounce, but somewhere close to Kilimanjaro. The eight of us will later meet up on Zanzibar to discuss and exchange experiences, catch up on sun, swimming and, if wi-fi allows, Game of Thrones.

It’s been a few years since last time I wrote but I will, once again, do an honest attempt to share mine and my fellow travelers experiences. So that anyone of you back home that are interested and way too curious to wait for the powerpoint-show can be up to date. And some of you may question why I write in English. I could say it´s all about how English is a much more creative language where one can really paint a picture with words compared to Swedish. It could be that reason. Or, it could be that I bought this mini-pc in a small store in Bolivia and therefore the keyboard is missing some of the swedish letters.

Anyway, let me present the crew I am sharing this experience with. We have Frida, a happy girl from Stockholm who has been up to a little bit of everything before she started nursing studies. She has been traveling through Russia, Mongolia, India and more on her own. Also she’s studied some criminology. And much more. She is one of those friends that keeps on dropping new facts about herself all the time. In Dar Es Salaam she has currently taking the part of our personal yoga teacher. And our dealer. For this trip she got a whole bunch of pills against anything and everything from her doctor parents and gladly shares them.

Jenny, also brought stuffs to share. She brought 15 stuffed animals in her luggage that we will be able to give to children. A few of them also served us quite well as neck pillows on the airplanes and uncomfortable chairs in Addis Abeba. She has been backpacking through Australia, New Zealand and fallen off her motorbike in Thailand. Also she knows almost all the names of different yoga poses and eagerly learns the unknown. On our trip she has so far taken the only place as photographer. After only two days here she is by far the person with the most pictures taken. It probably will be a few of her pictures shown later on in this blog.

Anton is the one who probably get the most attention down here. He is blonde, almost 2 meters tall and looks like our bodyguard. At least if you should ask the man who fixed us ID-cards at the hospital. He has been backpacking through Asia, interrailing in Europe and eaten noodles for almost every day when he was in Austrailia. He is not a big fan of selfie-sticks and completely froze when I in January put on my safari-hat and said I got the whole trip figured out.

We live in an AirBnb-apartment owned by an Abdul. It is close to the hospital and today we also found a nearby pool where one can go and cool down after internship-hours. Today was our first day at MUHAS, Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences, where we arrived one hour late but still earlier than our contact person and fixed all paper work. Tomorrow the real adventures begin when we will put on our scrubs and do our first day at the Muhimbili National Hospital.