We have now been in Tanzania for more than a week! The time runs so fast!
We arrived safely in Dar El Salaam on sunday morning, and took a local bus for a seven hours journey to Tanga. Apart from some misunderstanding about which bus station we where to be picked up at, which lead to two hours waiting… there was no problem at all! We are staying with the organisation Tanga international competence center – TICC. It is a Norwegian organisation that works on many local grassroot projects! They are supporting families so their kids can go to school, they work with schools, health centres, elderly homes and nutritional gardens and more. Mainly students from Norway, but also some from Denmark and us two from Sweden, stay here to do clinical training or to wright an essay as we are. The goal is to meet and learn from each other. TICC is really the best place to be for us! They are helping us with all practical stuff regarding our data collection! Wow 🙂 Also, we got swahili lessons! So now we can at least greet each other (mambo, habari gani..) say our name (mimi ni…) say thank you (asante) and some other good to know stuff! Now we just need to repeat, repeat, repeat…
Regarding our study, we have started with observations, to get an understanding about the health situation here. We have been to a health centre in Tanga, a sub-urban dispensary and a more rural dispensary. The last will be one of the places where we will do the interviews. It has been so interesting! The healthcare is very different here, especially regarding the environment, the equipment and the integrity. They also seem to have a culture where everyone takes care of each other, one’s health issues is the collectives health issue. Still a lot of things are the same, just a bit different due to their circumstances here.
We’ve also been to a local market, out on a boat tour and we also we have had some time to rest our heads in the sun.. So far we really love this place and we have learned so much! Now we are really looking forward to start the interviews and get to know this country more!
Kwaherini! (Good bye to you all!)
