Maternity Clinic

Life here is different from home. My placement for volunteering is a maternity clinic...talk about culture shock. I would now consider the birthing process back home a luxury. Here the clinic is in town, one that everyone goes to. Its funny because it is always full of women and children, but I have yet to see one pregnant lady on the streets. The clinic is basically set up into two rooms. First of all you dont really go to the clinic til you are basically ready to have the child. When you go to the clinic you enter the first room which is full of women who are also birthing. The women wait there, in the open room, until literally the baby is about to come out...I am talking like only need 3 or 4 pushes. Once the woman gets to that point she is brought back to the second room which has one table. The woman then has a couple of pushes to push the baby out and if she cant then she is brought back to the first room and someone else goes back. The delivery is done with ZERO medication. If a c-section is necessary they must go to one of the hospitals. After the birth of the baby the mom and child are fixed up and they are sent on their way back home. Talk about difference, no amenities, no time, no anything. It is pretty amazing what these women must go through. So that is the basics of my placement but I will give more updates as I begin to learn more and experience more in the position.

On a different note, since I only volunteer 40 hours during the week we have the weekends free to explore Tanzania. I went to a snake farm in Meserani, which is 25km west of Arusha. It is weird how quickly you can beome comfotable with the metric system. Anyways I saw some of the worlds most posionous and deadlist snakes of the world many of which are located in Africa. I met an amazing Tanzanian family and walked around with the 4 children. I will post some pics of the family once my camera charges. I also got to hold a snake which was pretty amazing, and I was able to ride a camel. There is a Maasi Warrior maket and talked with the Maasi. You can tell a Maasi by their distinct blue and red garmets and also their shoes made out of tire treads. To learn more about them Wikipedia has a lot of information...it takes a special person to become Maasi. Also today I went running and explored some other towns of arusha (like our suburbs) It was interesting. Most people look at you and first but once you say hi in swahili they normally smile. I also explore back in my own suburb. I met a ton of children. Some are scared at first because seeing mzungu (white person) is uncommon. Once you say mambo or tano they seem to smile. I played soccer with a couple boys. Our ball was made of a bunch of trash tied together with a string. It was SOOOO much fun playing with the boygs. At first I was nervous I would break the ball, but you would be surprised at how well trash holds up. In fact that might be the most fun I have had so far because seeing the boys smile and being able to laugh with them warms my heart. I actually just saw them on my way to the cafe and we are playing some soccer tomorrow! :)
Life here is so simple. I am learning to go by what my body wants me to do instead of always pushing myself in a million directions. It also makes me feel a thousand times more grateful for everything that I have in life. Many of the things most people, including myself, really are so trivial in the long run. I wish everyone had the opportunity to do this because you are able to learn so much about life. Not only from the country you visit but from all the others you can volunteer with. Everyday I learn something new...not hard considering I live with people from 5 or so different countries and then 7 more who are from the same country but different cities which is just as different as a New Yorker and a Californian. One thing that was amazing though was I was walking through town yesterday and saw someone else with a KENTUCKY shirt on. It made me smile and it was funny because I happened to be wearing a KENTUCKY shirt too. I had a great new food for lunch today...well new combination. It was mashed potatoes and some sort of sause made with beans. In sounds pretty gross but in reality is was pretty good. AND of course we had the standard mango, pineapple, and banana. Breakfast we had toast again but we got a new "multifruit" jam and we had pancakes but they were not really what I consider pancakes, really thin and different taste and texture. They were good with peanut butter and bananas...sometimes you have to do what you have to to get a different taste. It is almost dinner time not sure what it is but I am banking on some sort of rice, beans, and fruit. Its funny how differnt prices are. 300 shillings (25 cents) for a coke, 800 shillings (75 cents) for 1.5 L of bottled water, 1200 shllings (1 dollar) for a 500ml beer, soccer balls are 8000 shillings, dalla dalla ride to town about 10-15 mins is 300 shillings (25 cents) , there are dvd sets with 800 dvds on them for 5000 shillings ( a little less than 5 dollars) they are pretty good sometimes the sounds just doesnt match the mouths and no they wont play in america. Things in glass bottles tend to be cheaper than cans because all of the bottles are collected instead of thrown away and reused. I took some videos of the town just so everyone can see but it is not loading so I will have to figure it out another time. It is getting close to 7 pm here and it is unsafe to be out past 7 here by yourself since it starts getting dark.

REMEMBER HOWEVER BAD LIFE IS...IT CAN ALWAYS BE WORSE!!