Baby Nirvana, or all the watato I can get!

What an incredible beginning of the week!  I was able to start work at St. Elizabeth’s and have already experienced and learned so much!  I have done rounds with doctors, oriented to the hospital, and I was literally grabbed and hugged by a needy matron. That’s what they call the head nurse of each ward.

 

 

They have what they call “Florence Nightingale Wards” here.  What that is, is a large room with rows of beds in them.  Each bed rusted iron, circa World War II, with mosquito nets.  They have different wards here, Medical ward, Surgical Ward, Maternity Ward, Pediatric Ward, and so on.

just have to say here we are so blessed in our country to have the health care we do.  You really can’t appreciate what we have, until you see what other people don’t have.  The doctors here are dedicated and giving, talented and inspired, but it is a whole different approach to medicine.  Not to say its a worse type of medicine at all, but in all honesty it has been difficult for me not to want to whip out my stethoscope and do a proper assessment.   Things do move at a slower pace here, and I appreciate that.  But it has been a real eye-opener.  I thought I was prepared, but I guess in no way a person can be, until you see things with own eyes and actually experience it, can you really understand what it’s all about.

I’ve met the most wonderful people.  My previously mentioned “needy matron’s”  name is Alodia.  Doesn’t she look like the sweetest kindest lady?  Well, she is.

She runs the mother/baby ward pretty much single-handedly.  This ward does all the prenatal care, then postnatal and baby care.  She is an unbelievably cheerful and hardworking nurse and a woman with a daunting task.

When I was being oriented around the hospital to the different wards by “Doctor Happy”, (that’s what I call him because he is so jolly and friendly,) as we passed through her ward, she grabbed me and told Dr. Happy she wouldn’t let me go, she needed help so desperately.  I did eventually come back to her and so happy that I did.  We make a great team.  She put me immediately to work.   I get to do all the exams on the expecting moms, and get to weigh and assess babies.  Loving it!  Can you imagine anything better than that?

I’ve held more beautiful infants in the last 3 days than would appear on a Huggies advertisement!  And I get to palpate and feel the growing babies in the mother’s belly, make sure they are in right position, etc.  I get to listen to baby’s heartbeats of each momma.  We also have to test for diseases, HIV, Syphilis, TB, Malaria.  We give Tentanus shots, Malaria tablets, and a worming tablet.  But it is a happy place to work.  Pregnant mommies and cuddly babies, can it get better than that?

The exam table in the room I work.

Yes, that is a rubber sheet.  No fancy tissue paper to switch out between each patient.  And don’t freak out, but no running water.  How we wash our hands is in a bucket.  No joke!

I get to work by taking the local transportation called a Dala Dala.  It is a converted van, about the size of our soccer mom vans, but with 3, (yes 3 extra rows) put in.  They crowd people into these like you can’t believe.  My last ride I counted 25 people.  Of course, 3 were babies, one was a chicken, and 2 were boys hanging off the side, but it was an adventure!  These Dala Dalas are as thick as fleas all over the city, and have their routes.  This is how all the people get around.  They have a conductor who hangs out the door and sings out the destination.  If you want on, you whistle, when you want off, you stick your arm out the window and knock on the roof.  It’s great fun!  You do get very close and personal with your seatmates.  One little girl, that was sitting on her momma’s lap next to me, kept touching and petting my hair.  I don’t think she had ever seen straight hair before.  But it actually works really good!

Dala Dalas lined up going to the different neighborhoods.

 

 

 

 

Some of the typical homes I pass on the way to the Dala Dala.

 

 

 

 

I take a Dala Dala from our volunteer house, (after walking down our very muddy and dirt churned up lane), then get into town center.   About a 30 minute ride.  I then walk about a half mile to the hospital.

 

 

 

 

 

To get to it I have to pass through the Central market.  That’s always an extremely colorful experience too!   

When I was walking back from the hospital yesterday, after a full day with mothers and babies, I stopped to purchase some avocados for dinner.  Genie makes the best guacamole!   It seemed so natural to have a conversation with the stall owner, use the proper schillings.   Walking through the market, everyone is so friendly, calling out, “mambo!”,  I shout back “Sijambo!”  everybody smiling and laughing.  I am the only white woman I have seen here in Tanzania except other volunteers, yet I feel so completely at home.

As I was calling out to a passing Dala Dala, I thought to myself,

“wow”  I am really doing this.  I am in Africa.  This is real.   Gotta pinch myself.

And, oh, by the way, watato means babies.  Dozens and dozens of babies.