Dana’s Avenue

As I said in my last post (better read it first), the staff at the hospital was amazingly good to me.

One of the things I hate most in life is having blood drawn.  It’s not seeing the needle as much as the thought of veins popping out and that rubber band thing they strap to your arm.  I even hate having my blood pressure taken. 

My IV had to be put somewhere in my lower arm and they had to use that band to try to find a vein.  I knew there was a problem right away because she flipped my arm around a couple times and said something in a strong voice.  I always have these problems.  The lady finally said, “You have little veins.”  Uh-oh. 

They’re trying to find a vein and I’m struggling with the process so I decided to explain why.  I said, “Nipendi” (I don’t like) and pointed to the rubber band thing.  The nurse took it off and then tried squeezing my arm instead.  Not exactly what I had in mind.  The other nurse told her that they need to use the band and she responded in a loud voice, “She doesn’t like it!”  I was like, “No, no!  You can use it.  It’s okay.”  Now you know in the States that would never have happened. 

They finally found their target and tried their best to get the IV set but it wasn’t working out and the more they messed with it, the closer I drifted to la-la land or wherever that is you go when you faint.  They gave up on that one and proceeded to look for another place to poke me.  Before they got very far, Jonathan said, “Anahitaji Coca-cola.”  (She needs a Coke.)  They stopped and said, “Baada [something].”  We just looked at her and she said in English, “Before the needle?”  Oh yeah.  So this nurse left the hospital and went to a store to get me a Coke.  I took a few sips and was fine until the second try.  At least that time was successful.

Each time they were trying to get the IV in I would look away and hum.  They kept giggling about it.  I tell you, African women must be tough.  They didn’t understand my aversion to all this and had no idea I may pass out.  The song I usually sing and the one I started with was “Nothing but the Blood of Jesus” but each time I got to the word blood I lost it.  I just couldn’t think so I started humming “Jesus Loves Me”.  It helped.  J

Let’s just say I hope to have zero IV’s in the future but if I get that sick again (assuming the vitamin B complex helps) I’ll go right back for more.  And I’m happy now to know what to expect in the staff there.  We just couldn’t thank them enough.

*Warning:  This post is long.  It’s a good story of my adventure though so read on.  Take breaks as needed. 

Okay, it’s time to finally face facts.  My morning sickness is bad, or severe as the doctor put it.  I’ve been on medicine daily for five weeks and still have plenty of bad days.  Even on the good days the medicine itself knocks me out so either way I’m bed ridden a lot.  And if you know what kind of medicine I’ve been taking you know why I’m so tired of it and why I’m sort of glad to be out of it. 

Last Thursday I decided to start trying to manage the sickness with nothing but natural remedies such as eating before lifting my head in the morning, eating frequently throughout the day, and all that jazz.  I had a good day.  Then I woke up at midnight feeling terrible and ended up vomiting every 30 to 60 minutes from then on out.  Jonathan arranged for us to get a ride into the doctor Friday morning at 9:30.

That was the first time I saw the prenatal doctor in town.  He’s fantastic.  He ordered some blood tests to make sure I didn’t have anything outside of morning sickness.  We did the lab work then waited for the test results.  I was still vomiting and so sick I couldn’t sit up.  The staff there was so wonderful and accommodating I couldn’t believe it.  They totally vacated one (of the two) examining rooms so I could lie down.  They even brought me a pillow.  I heard “pole sana” so much on Friday I’ll never forget what it means.  (“very sorry” as in “I feel very sorry for you”… awww…)

After an hour wait the doctor went over the test results with us.  Apparently I’m one of those women who have severe morning sickness called [insert that technical term I forgot here].  So I told him that I just couldn’t continue functioning this way and didn’t know what to do.  Without medicine (of which I haven’t been able to find here) I can’t hold down a drop of water.  He said that what women here do is have an injection of a vitamin B complex.  I heard that same thing in the States before I left so I decided to have that done.  Injection though didn’t mean “shot” like I thought.  It meant IV.  That IV takes 3-4 hours to administer which they were ready to do right then.  Fine with me.  I was miserable.

As we walked to the “Recovery Room” where I had my IV Jonathan called an SIL nurse who has toured that hospital to make sure we were safe getting that done there and she said we were.  When they brought everything into the room we asked for new needles, bags, and syringes (just in case).  They assured us everything was new and we watched them unseal each package so we knew they were. 

That’s when the real “fun” began.  I won’t go into all the details but lets just say I don’t have good veins for IV’s.  But they got it on their second try and I laid there for over 3 hours with the liquid slowly drip, drip, dripping in.  By then it was 5:00 and our ride back to the campsite was leaving.  The nurse said it would be fine to stop there since I had gotten so much in (probably 85%).  After being there for 7 hours, seeing the doctor twice, having blood tests, a urinalysis, and an IV of vitamin B complex, the bill came to about $18.  The interesting thing to us was that you had to pay for each step along the way before actually having it done.  (So we would pay to see the doctor and then see him.  We paid for the lab work then had it done.  Etc.)

So we left and I felt okay as we rode the bumpy, dusty streets back to town but just not great.  I hadn’t had anything to eat or drink since the afternoon before and it had been a long day.  I held on for as long as I could but ended up vomiting in the car just before reaching the gate to the campsite.  (Sorry fellow passengers!!)  Thank goodness I had my throw up bowl with me.

So right now it is Saturday afternoon and I’ve made it this far with no vomiting.  I’ve been slowly reintroducing food and liquid back into my system and hopefully the vitamin B stuff will work for 2-3 weeks like the doctor said it should.  I hope to never have to have it done again but it beats daily medicine that only half-works.  I’ve heard that when women have severe morning sickness it’s more likely to last the entire pregnancy.  Hardly seems fair, does it?  But we’ll see how this does and go from here.

Sorry I didn’t have any pictures of myself there at the doctor.  I was way too unwell to have my picture taken but now I wish there were some for documentation sake.  It was very surreal to be lying in an African hospital.  (Well we do have ONE picture of me getting the IV but I look way too pitiful.  It’s not quite share-able. )  There are other pictures but after an hour trying to upload them… I give up… for now…

Oh!  And we even got to use a little of our Swahili.  There were moments that we actually communicated what we intended.  Outside of that we were grateful they knew some English.  That’s just not the place for miscommunication!

Sorry it’s been so long since communicating with you!  We have been sorely out of touch and will continue to be for a while yet.  We are at the campsite in Iringa preparing to begin language school next week.  At the moment I’m at an internet cafe in town (which we don’t get to very often).  The speed of the internet is quite good I’d say and for only about 45 cents a half hour. 

Although I have continued to be sick, I have tried my best to keep up with the schedule.  This has proved to be a bad decision.  Tuesday of last week was my worst yet and even with the medicine I was sick all day long and only managed to keep down a few strawberries.  I have continued to get better since and haven’t gotten sick in a few days now.  I don’t know yet how I’m going to handle language school since all morning long is my worst time.  I’ll do the best I can without pushing myself beyond these new limits of mine. 

So, as for the campsite…  At first we were in a tent and there was a hike to a bathroom that was just grueling on me.  We got to move into a banda with a bathroom but only until this morning when we moved back into a tent but one closer to bathrooms.  If any bandas with a bathroom open up in the future we’re second on the list to get one.

I guess in summary it’s been tough going but the Lord has definitely met us at each moment and gotten us through.  I will be through my first trimester on Friday and will soon go for another ultrasound (at a cost of about $8) to make sure the baby’s progress is still moving along nicely.  With how I’ve been feeling, I suspect he or she is well (one benefit of the sickness I suppose). 

As far as temperature it definitely gets cold here but so far we’ve done well to keep warm.  We’ll see how the temperature is at the new tent.  I have to say I really like our new location the best of anywhere we’ve been so far.  I hope we can just settle in there.  This is our fifth move since coming to Tanzania and I’m tired of saying, “Where is my…?”  :)  The campsite itself and its surroundings are beautiful.  Hopefully now that I’m feeling better I’ll be better able to enjoy it. 

No pictures to post here now.  You can see some on our main website though under “photos”.  At each picture there’s a link to show where on a map the picture was taken.  So enjoy and hopefully I’ll be able to communicate more frequently now that we’re more settled into our location.  Now to figure out how to send cards and letters…

This morning at the convenience store Jonathan bought 2 Cadbury’s chocolate bars.  This afternoon, after checking the wrapper and finding out it was made in Kenya, I tried one.  Never before in my life have I had bad chocolate but that was truly bad chocolate.  And not like, ‘oh French chocolate was so much better’.  Or, ‘I’m used to gourmet chocolate and this just doesn’t compare’.  Think of the cheapest chocolate you can get in the States.  This is a lot worse.  It really didn’t even taste like chocolate.  I didn’t even know there was such a thing as bad chocolate.  But I’m here to proclaim the news - there is!  I’ve heard you can get chocolate here from South Africa that is pretty good and some from the UK that of course is the best but the most expensive and probably hardest to find.  Worth it?  If I’m going to eat chocolate at all it is!  I’m also glad I still have some chocolate with me that we bought in France.  After tasting the bad chocolate, the good chocolate just blew me away.  Never take that stuff for granted.  Who knew!?

Well, we spent a week in Europe adjusting our body clocks to the new time and it took one measly flight to get us off whack again.  Ugh.  Our overnight flight was good and I did sleep about 3 hours but 3 hours does not a good night’s sleep make. 

We arrived in Dar es Salaam early and easily got through customs and received all of our luggage.  That was a huge blessing because you definitely don’t want anything to go wrong there.  When we walked out of the humble airport into the morning heat and humidity (right now we’re on the coast - but have yet to actually see the coast) our colleague was waiting for us.  Our luggage fit nicely into her land cruiser and she drove us to the SIL (Wycliffe’s international name) guest house after a stop at a gas station.

The gas station was interesting.  We got there at 8:30am but the doors were locked.  She asked someone about it and he said, “They usually open at 8.”  Well, okay.  So we waited outside for a while (maybe 20 minutes?) until someone came and opened the store.  There we got a few familiar snacks to take with us and SIM cards that we will use to switch our cell phones over to Africa service.  As soon as the U.S. cell companies give us the “international unlock codes” we’ll be up and running with our new numbers here.  Pretty easy on the Africa side I’d say.  For “minutes” you just buy these little cards as you need them.  (I’m not sure technically how it all works.)  Apparently electricity works much the same way.  Our colleague left us for a moment to go “buy electricity” then started walking toward vending machines.  We thought she may have been getting a caffeinated drink but no - she bought electricity.  You go home and enter the code found on the little card purchased and voila - more power.  You just monitor your own to know when to buy more.  It’s very hard to explain as I hardly understand it myself.

So we made it to the guest house where there are 2 bedrooms (each with a room air conditioner), bathroom, kitchen, living room, washing machine, and wireless internet.  (It’s on the same site as the SIL offices.)  When we got here we ate a little snack then went to sleep until noon when another colleague picked us up and took us to have lunch with his family.  That was much fun and we got a lot of our questions answered and just enjoyed hearing of their experiences here as they’ve only been in Tanzania 4 months coming here from their homeland of Ireland.  (Although they did spend quite a number of years in Kenya as well.)  It’s good to hear the real story of people who come here so when you start going through the emotions of transition you realize it’s all normal and everyone around you knows it.  (No need to apologize or explain.)

On our way back to the guest house late afternoon we stopped to get something for dinner since there’s nothing much in the house to eat.  We got a burger and fries (and ketchup).  That ended up being the absolute greasiest meal I’ve ever had in my life.  But that’s okay.  Now we know.  After dinner I layed on my bed to watch Fiddler on the Roof.  Oops.  Asleep again.  Now it’s 11:00 at night and I’m sitting in bed under my mosquito net eating doritos (yes, real doritos) and blogging.  I hope to get back to sleep soon so I can get back on track.

Tomorrow we’re being taken to a supermarket… and I’m not sure what else.  We’re only in the guest house for 2 nights before moving to a Swiss run mission house where the first week of orientation is held. 

As far as pictures, the battery in the camera is almost dead (terrible timing, I know) and the battery charger for that is in a late shipment that may not arrive for weeks.  We can take pictures with the video camera so we’ll try to do that tomorrow and give you a feel (visually) of what it’s like here on the Tanzanian coast and in the guest house.  We have to be fairly careful having equipment out in the open here but we’ll do our best.

I’m sorry this post is so long but I wanted you to get the full story of our first day here.  I’ll post my first impressions soon.

Okay, we didn’t get the pictures uploaded in time for me to include them here.  Eventually, they’ll be on the site under ‘Photos’ along with the others that are already posted there. 

We’re checking out of our hotel now going to the airport to check our bags before heading back out to Notting Hill, assuming we have time.  Our flight doesn’t leave until 7:00pm but you never know how long it will take to get through security.

We land in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania in the morning after a 9 hour and 40 minute flight.  Hopefully we’ll sleep much better this time than we did on the overnight to London from Charlotte.

I wish I could promise to blog regularly from Africa but we just don’t know what the internet situation will be like there.  Please be patient with us and know that we’ll update you as frequently as we can.

Thank you for following our journey thus far! 

We made it around London today without any mishaps.  Oh.  Except we learned the hard way that you’re not allowed to take pictures inside Westminster Abbey.  No biggie though.  Most of the day was filled with the usual touristy London stuff.  We had lunch at Gourmet Pizza next to the River Thames.  It was wonderful.  (I ate all of my food - a miracle!)  After a rest in the evening we went back out for the traditional fish n’ chips.  That was also great.  Now we’re back in the room for our last night here before heading on.  The plan for tomorrow is to visit the market at Notting Hill.  Our flight doesn’t leave until 7pm.  Once again I promise a few pics soon.  Jonathan is also working on putting many of our trip pictures on the website.  I think it’s under the google earth link.  I’m not sure…  (I should really research these things before blogging about it but… I didn’t…)  **Update:  The pictures of our trip from Charlotte through France are posted on our website under the ‘Photos’ link.  The Google Earth thing is still under construction.**

That’s it for me tonight.  Jonathan’s having his evening hot tea with milk (when in England…) and I’m off to sleep.  Will post again tomorrow!

Well, we made our way to Buckingham Palace this morning and hung out a bit until I felt like I was (once again) going to be sick.  So here we are back at the hotel.  I’m taking my second dose of medicine for the day.  The plan is to keep moving so it doesn’t knock me out.  We’re about to head back out to see Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, and the London Eye.  From there we’ll probably take a bus to St Paul’s Cathedral (where Princess Diana got married) then the tube to the Tower of London and the London Bridge.  Please pray I don’t get sick or fall asleep on any national landmark. 

I’ll post pics soon!  Cheers!

After a full (very full) day of traveling we have arrived in London for our last 2 nights before heading to Africa.  I can’t tell you much about the day because I slept through most of it.  Yesterday and today have been rough morning (all day) sickness days but I’m feeling much better now.  I don’t know why it intensifies here and there like that.  I’ll be glad when this part is over.  (It does end, right?) 

So, after 2 long train rides we made it to London and briefly saw Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, and the London Eye as we traveled to our hotel.  We got settled, ate dinner in the hotel restaurant, and are now in for the night.  Believe it or not I need more sleep. 

As far as dinner goes, I decided to be risky and ordered the salmon fishcakes with tartare sauce.  Remember what tartare is in French?  Raw.  I was just hoping that tartare in England was the same as tartar in the U.S.  Thankfully, it was!

I’ll try to update you more while we’re here and actually have a reasonable (and free) internet connection.  Cheers!

It’s world renown right?  Most of the food here has been wonderful but we have had a few surprises. 

At lunch in a cafe Jonathan ordered a hamburger.  The waiter asked if he wanted that cooked medium.  Huh?!  Jonathan requested medium well.  I looked over at his plate halfway through the meal and almost gagged.  Medium well in France is medium rare in America.  A burger - medium rare!?  Yikes. 

The next night we had dinner in a restaurant.  You can either order things a la carte or as a fixed menu of items where you choose one of three appetizers, one of three main dishes, and one of three desserts.  It costs less to order a fixed menu than selecting the items individually.  Our choices for the main dish were chicken, beef, or fish.  I couldn’t figure out how each was prepared but I prefer beef so I ordered that.  Big mistake!  Apparently I ordered a raw patty of ground beef.  I about died when she sat it down in front of me.  Jonathan touched it and said, “It’s cold.”  EEKS!

The thing about French service is that they bring one course out then completely disappear until you’re finished with that course and ready for the next.  So the odds of us finding our waitress weren’t good.  After waiting quite a while she made her way to a table near us so we called her over.  Then the fun began.

Jonathan tried his best to tell her that we didn’t understand that tartare means raw (you’ll remember that word forever now won’t you?) and that we want it “tres cuis” (well done - thanks to my phrasebook we knew how to say that - bad thing is that tartare wasn’t in my book).  She understood just enough to begin saying over and over “no cuis”!  I wanted to say, “Yes, I realize that.  No cuis, no eat.”  Finally we got our point across and she took the plate saying something like, “I will check to see if it’s possible.”  Uh oh.

Eventually a man who seemed to be a manager or something came out with my “tres cuis” burger and as he left I realized yet another mistake.  I forgot to ask for ketchup.  Doh!  I kept looking for someone, anyone to come back by but no one came and I didn’t want to make anymore of a scene than I already had so I ate my little beef patty with no condiment.  As long as it was cooked.  That had to happen or I was just going to go hungry.

(P.S.  The picture is of our entrees (appetizers) so, as you can see, the whole meal wasn’t a bust.  )