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This week has gone by so fast! Actually every week does, but we still need to say it to make you realise how fast it goes!

The week started with us leaving for a three hours car ride to get to a Massaj-village. We had a private driver who was the best! He drove us at a rode…we wouldn’t say it was a rode, rather a path…but he took us 🙂 Several times we thought it wouldn’t work, but he just kept on going! So we arrived at the massaj-village and we slept there and cooked some food there. We also to a walk around the village and got to meet the leader of the village. He served us half a litre of hot milk – Jesus! That was good but we were so full after drinking it.

After visiting the massaj-village we traveled to a town called Lushoto. There we got the best guide who we travelled with for two days. Wow wow wow! Lushoto was so nice! We went up in Usambara mountains and that was the most amazing thing we’ve seen and done so far in Tanzania. It was so green, and beautiful, and cool, and something that you never could stop getting amazed of. We can just say WOW.

With sore legs and a smile on our face we went back to Tanga to stay for a week and continued to write our essay. The essay goes very good and our teacher is helping us out with all the details 🙂

During Sunday we went to Amboni caves here in Tanga and it was a really cool experience! When in Tanga visit the caves if you have time 🙂

Usiku mwema! Good night! Now we will go to sleep!

Mambo! (Hello!)

We have been busy righting our essay, so we felt that we did not have that much to wright about! We have finished our interviews and since then our life has been mainly about sleep, some training in the morning, food, writhing, food, sun, writing, food, sleep… repeat! But we are making very good progress! Actually, as I am now placed in my bed writing this post, Mirijam is finishing the last things on the essay! Tonight we will send in the first draft including all parts! Ofcourse, this is just the first draft, so we are sure there will be a lot more work to do.. But still! Hongera (Congratulation) to us!! 🙂

But actually we did something totally amazing today! We got the chance to visit a family living in a village just outside of Tanga City. It is a rather interesting family, as it consists of three wives and one husband. Together they have twelve kids!

It is allowed as part of the Islamic belief, that a man can have up to four wives. For us this is rather strange, even provoking, mainly since it is not allowed for a woman to do the same thing. Still, this is not Sweden, it is a totally different context, and thus, you can not judge the individuals in the same way as you might had in Sweden. It is not the person, it is the structures of the society. Rather it is important to be open and to discuss our thoughts and views.

As for this family it was the most amazing one! We met two of the wives, the husband, and almost all of the children. We spent the day playing with the kids and helping out with some cooking. We enjoyed a fantastic meal and took a walk though the village to visit the father of the husband. They were so friendly, honest and generous!  We wished we could have stayed longer! Also because this is to experience the real Tanzania! In TICC we have had a very good stay, and it has been perfect when writing our essay, still it is far from the real Tanzania.. 

We are really longing to get out there and experience the country more 🙂

And: That is soon! On Monday we will leave TICC and head of to new adventures.. More about that next time 🙂

 

The past week we’ve continued visiting dispensaries, observing nursing staff and also begun with our interviews 🙂 we’re doing good!! We have the best interpreter and we’re learning something new every day!

Our days usually starts around 6am. We rise and we train, it’s yoga, running or tabata each morning and then we enjoy a long chai ya asubuhi (breakfast). After breakfast we head out for the dispensaries in the rural areas. When we get there the nursing staff and the patients are welcoming us and speaks open about their work and their issues. We’ve met around 10 nursing staff and everyone sees their work as a mission in life. Their happy being at work all day, evening and night cause they love helping people. Even though they say it’s hard, they still finish every ”complaint” with a smile and says ”this is what I want to do”. The patients are often kids and they are often very sick. Some of the patiens don’t have clean water and there’s a lot of tests for Malaria since it’s very common in rural areas. It’s an experience seeing these people being calm and dealing with Malaria or other diseases as if they had a regular cold.

Things are often different from Sweden who’s a developed country, and even though it’s a non developed country, we have much to learn from Tanzania. The way they help each other, cheer for one and other, and speaks to each other is so humble, friendly and encouraging. It’s truly a joy to see all this happiness in one of the worlds poorest countries 🙂

This week we’ve visited an elderly home and joined a campaign about fungus. The elderly home was a joy to see even though the conditions often are difficult for the elders. They don’t have clean water, two elders share one room (10 squaremetres), and their food often consists of only Ugali. Ugali is maize flour. Even though the circumstances aren’t the best the elders are the happiest elders we’ve ever met, and both me and Nike has worked as assistant nurses at elderly homes in Sweden.

The campaign about fungus that we joined was a bus tour that travels to rural villages and Norwegian nurse-students dance and talks about fungus as part of a fun show for the villages. There were also Tanzanian students that made an excellent role-play/theatre about fungus to increase the knowledge in villages. It was a happy and cheerful campaign!

Asante sana Tanga! We’re enjoying every second of every minute!

Hello again!

Second week in Bali!
Since the last post we have moved and started to work with the actual essay. Our new accommodation is nice and quiet with good work spaces but actually we are moving again! We’ve met and befriended a couple who have been here for 6 months and they recommended a hostel to us which would be cheaper! So we’re gonna try it and see if it’s good, if not we’ll just move back to the place we’re at now!

So about our work… Last week there were some miscommunication by e-mail between us and one of the organisations we’re in contact with. We thought we worked it out but now we haven’t heard from them for a while. They are the ones who are going to help us with an interpreter so we really don’t want to lose them. So, no interviews this week either. Meanwhile we’ve been working on the rest of the essay and gathered more information and we feel good about our process!

Other than this, our week has consisted of scooters, beaches and good company. So not too shabby!

Talk to you next week!
Aron and Emma

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!)

 

 

Our first week in Bali is coming to an end and we’ve already experienced so much! We had decided to spend the first week to settle in and get used to our new home and sort out practical things such as getting sim-cards, figure out the transportation system and familiarising ourselves with our new surroundings and culture. Everything has been going fine so far expect for a few hick ups! When we first arrived at our apartment we found it perfect, we had our own room and a pool and the staff were very nice and helpful, although we soon discovered that it was located far away from the city centers. Meaning we would have take spend a lot of money on taxis quite often, and we soon realized that we had to relocate to a more central accommodation. So today we are moving to a new hostel with a lot of work spaces and good reviews, hopefully this will work out for the best!

As for the weather, the rainy season has begun but so far the weather has mostly been sunny and enjoyable, it has only been raining during the nights. We also had an earthquake! Although it was only a small one and we slept through it though some of our friends felt it and their toilets overflowed! Luckily that didn’t happen to us.

We haven’t met our contact persons yet but we have e-mailed with them and hopefully we will begin our interviews next week! They seem positive and excited to help us!

Warm hugs,
Aron and Emma

 

 

Är nu tillbaka i Sverige.

Har sovit i två dygn och nu börjat landa lite. Har skickat mitt sista utkast till de intervjuade, råkade dock tappa bort en av deras mailadresser så hoppas han hinner läsa innan söndag. Idag har jag opponering, det känns ok. Lite vilsen gällande hur det kommer att gå. Hursom känns det riktigt fint att vara tillbaka i sommar Sverige. Om några dagar tar jag min lärarexamen!

Ska ära gröt nu och förbereda mig inför opponeringen.

Hej svej

Det är där vi har varit de senaste veckorna!

Nu när våran tid börjar lida mot sitt slut här i Mozambique så har vi passat på att resa lite utanför Maputo. Inhaca blev första stoppet och är en ö som ligger utanför Maputo. Vi tog färjan dit och spenderade några nätter där. Vi besökte bl.a. Portuguese Island där vi skymtade några delfiner, blev körda av Mr Piri-piri till Inhacas fyr och gick alla 116 trappsteg och besökte coconut village. På väg tillbaka lyckades vi även köra fast, med halva bilden i diket och andra halvan i leran. Det var bara att ta av skorna, hoppa ner i leran och börja skjuta på.
– Det var den klänningen det..

Därifrån tog vi en liten båt till Santa Maria där vi träffade på en massa sydafrikaner som var där för att delta i en fisketävling kommande vecka. Det blev barbecue och en och annan 2M och många goda skratt.

Vi har även varit en runda i Tofo som är mest känt för dykning och surfande. Ingen av oss två dyker eller surfar men för er allas vetskap, så är här faktiskt en lååång vit sandstrand också vattnet tempade 26 behagliga grader. Vi gav oss ut på en deep ocean safari där målet var att få snorkla med valhajar (världens största fisk). Safarituren bjöd på säsongens största rocka som mätte 6 meter från vinge till vinge! Då vi båda trodde att rockor var max 2 meter stora blev vi ganska överraskade och
Uppsatsen börjar bli så smått färdig men jisses, tror aldrig man har försökt att hitta så många olika synonymer för ett och samma ord. Meningar och stycken vrider och vänder man på 100 gånger innan det känns helt rätt.

Inhaca:

Santa Maria:

Tofo:

Nästa inlägg: Kruger!