Saturday 11 August 2012

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.". . . Blanche Dubois


It's been a exciting week with visitors to Dusty Kibaya. Djoke and Marc, VSO colleagues from Ndolage, made the three day bus journey, arriving on Monday. Fredrik from Dodoma and Juanito from Pemba joined them. So we've had a big crowd at B.9 all week.

Things got off to a rocky start. Within hours of our guests arriving we heard that an SUV carrying nine young Americans blew a tire and cartwheeled thirty miles outside of town. They were anthropology students from California here to study Masai culture. One of them died in the local hospital during surgery and four others were seriously injured.

 Djoke transferring a patient to a waiting vehicle

Cars are badly maintained here and the roads are little more than rutted dirt tracks. Road accidents are all too common. In this case a blown tire, excessive speed and an oncoming motorcycle were responsible. I will never again complain about vehicle inspections in Nova Scotia.


The Medivac airplane

One of our primary teachers came by and told us about the tragedy. Djoke, a medical doctor, volunteered to go to the hospital and offer her help. She examined the patients and went with them in the medivac airplane to Arusha. The hospital staff told Djoke that a neurosurgeon was on duty in Arusha and that they had a CT scanner. This was not totally true. There was no neurosurgeon and the CT scanner was broken. Tanzanians often tell people what they want to hear out of fear of disappointing them.
Djoke boarded the plane with no money. She was able to borrow some but it took her two days to return to Kibaya.

Meanwhile, Marc, her husband, an artist, painted in the market while the rest of us socialized, cooked on the charcoal jiko and watched movies on the computer.


Marc painting in the market

It is always wonderful to have visitors here. It is such a shame that the young Americans' field trip to the Masai steppe ended so tragically and so needlessly.


Debra and Djoke


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