Tuesday we were pretty lazy and did not do much. We still don’t really have a schedule to follow. ‘Pole pole’. Tomorrow we will finalize some volunteer paperwork, go to the bigger city Moshi in the morning to get more information on safaris and the Kilimanjaro climb, and do some grocery shopping. Maybe eat somewhere? Moshi is considered the hub of Kilimanjaro so it has some nice restaurants and hotels, and more of a tourist atmosphere. In the small village of Machame, we are the only minority here. Every day kids giggle when we walk by, and I think they are even more fascinated with Tom because he is such a tall white guy. The Messai peoples, who are the original inhabitants of this area, and the ‘protectors of the Serengeti’ are very tall and slender—they are easy to pick out from a crowd, and the ones that come to the hospital are all in traditional colorful dress. They look like they are straight out of a National Geographic magazine. They have an incredibly interesting history, and are one of the original peoples of the area, coming from present-day southern Sudan thousands of years ago. They still live the simple nomad life and are well respected in these parts. They are so fascinating. The taller they are the better, for farming/grazing purposes, to be able to see over the tall grasses. Apparently, long ago, they would kill anyone in the tribe who was short –survival of the fittest Darwin style. . I will ask for a picture one day.
Thursday we went to Moshi to visit one of the main psychiatric units. As usual, everything was very unorganized and when we arrived they were not expecting us. They were very nice but each person who was supposed to be showing us around just seemed to throw us off to the next person. Finally, one of the psychiatrists showed up and we joined into a group of medical students from the local medical school in Moshi (KCMC- Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College). We went to see the male and female inpatient wards. Most of the differential diagnoses included epilepsy, seizure disorders, acute psychoses and schizophrenia. It seemed there was a bit of a mix of neurology and psychiatry here. Everything was in Swahili, so we had to depend on the infrequent translations provided to us. They use very similar drug regimens for some disorders as in the West, and there seems to be a good understanding of different disorders and concepts. Overall, a short but informative day.
