Getting sentimental....

Well, I'm in the single digits of my countdown to Canada.  Only 3 days until I fly out of Tanzania and then three more until I'm home to London.  Exciting!  

I've finished with the clinic trips (I'll not miss that horrible road!) but I'll miss the people there.  The lab technician nearly launched herself across the table to thank me when I said she could have the lab coat that was there!  I brought them muffins which they seemed to enjoy - I'm not sure they would have told me other wise!

This morning the samples were picked up - I sure can spend $12000 in a hurry! Ouch!  It seemed too easy for some reason...I hope everything goes well.  And other than going in tomorrow to do a few things and the next day, I'm essentially done at the lab.  

Just packing to do!  I'm not sure how I accumulated so much stuff!

As for my time here in Mwanza, I've enjoyed it for the most part but I'm glad to be returning home.  I'm Africa-tired - and only those that have lived down here will understand - and I'm not being condescending.  I can't imagine those who spend longer periods down here; I give them the utmost credit. 

While in Zanzibar on the weekend with Kate and Susan, we sat around one night and talked about all the things we WOULDN'T miss about living here.  The list was long but I won't go into them here - they might sound petty and selfish but they are reality down here.

Instead I wanted to say what I WILL miss.

• The weather (I know this will shock people) and its consistency.
• I love not having to think about what to wear in the morning.
• Hearing the pounding rain and being safely inside.  It's an amazing sound!
• The landscape - it's so different from anything I've ever seen. I'll be in palm tree withdrawal for a while. 
• The fresh produce - bananas, mangos and pineapple will never be the same.
• The cheapness and proximity of said produce.
• The sky.  Everyday it just takes my breath away.  The clouds, the blueness, the speed at which the rain comes and then goes. 
• The birds.  Their sheer number and variety astound me as do their colours.
• The mongoose families that wander our property. Cute!
• The inexpensiveness of internet and data plans, albeit unreliable providers.
• Having someone do my laundry and clean my house.  I <3 Grace!
• Freddy - our house boy/guard/daily greeter.  His smile is the BEST!
• The Tanzanians I got to meet and know:
• Janeth - spent every day at clinic with me mostly happily. :-)
• Clinic people - once they warmed up to me and I to them, it was great.
• NIMR people - same as above. 
• I'll miss George and his larger than life personality and smile to match.  
• Ema, who works in the lab, also has the best smile and nicest personality. 
• Abel - our NIMR driver.  Such a charmer with the best laugh!
• Mama Mary - our land lady. Soooo nice and tried to do everything for us!
• APYN - Ana and Esther are incredible women.  Props to them!
• Tito - one of the nicest people I've met down here and my taxi driver from work.
• Ramsen and Moody - two other trustworthy taxi drivers.
• Mr. Zagalu - another taxi driver and store owner. Sweet man!
• I'm sure there are others I've missed. 
• Cheap alcohol and the ability to buy it anywhere.  
• I'll miss all my new mzungu friends!  Susan and Kate, my roomies, Emily and Sarah and her dog, Tito.  I met other people down here as well but didn't spend as much time with them.  Friends for life I hope.  TAB!

Here are some photos of the scenery and my new friends.  I don't think this will be the last blog post for here as I didn't do the Serengeti trip, Dubai trip or Zanzibar trip but I will have to do those back in Canada. 

My favourite rock formation.  Not sure why, just is. 

More rocks...with a house in them.

Kopjes - rock formations

Cool cloud formation

Hole in the sky

Simply stunning.

Sunset view from Isamilo Lodge. 

Dinner at Diners

Goofing at Gold Crest

Dinner at Gold Crest

After dinner at Isamilo Lodge

That's all for now. Other photos aren't uploaded yet or edited.  

Kwa heri,

Shannon

So this happened one day....

To jog your memory, this is what the front yard of the house looked like when I moved in:

Nice and green and full of trees and such.

Now it looks like this:

See a difference?

A few weeks ago, I was sitting inside scanning some study documents when there arose such a clatter!  I walked out the front door and saw, well, this...

This is NOT supposed to be in our front yard.  

So let me back up,  a few weeks previous to this, APYN (African Probiotic Yogurt Network) had approached Kate and Susan and asked if they would be able to park their new-to-them-van at our place for a few weeks.  They were in the process of organizing the probiotic shipments to the kitchens and NIMR had yet to start scaling up the production.  We live within a 5 minute walk to their office and there is no parking for them there.  We hesitantly said yes - what harm could come of it!?

On the morning this occurred, Kate had left with Celestine (Celly), an intern, and who was to be their driver.  They were off to deliver some bottles to NIMR.  I'm not sure I even knew the van was missing until the crash boom bang happened.  Susan and I just stared at what was presented to us in our front yard.  My immediate thought was 'Where's Freddy (our guard)!'  He has to open the gate for the van to get in.  I saw him standing in shock over to the side, I could see Celly moving in the van so I knew everyone was fine.  Ok, NOW what do we do??!!

Celly gets out of the van and starts talking to Freddy.  Susan and I tell them they need to go back to APYN and get some of the other guys that work in the building to help them get the vehicle out.   They insist on trying to move the van themselves with some wood and Freddy pushing.  I was NOT going to help push knowing that this guy wasn't the best driver and the angle at which is the van was on to the concrete wall in front of it.   

Kate arrives home and her face mirrored what was on all of ours.  We finally managed to convince Celly to get some help and then one of the directors arrives from APYN.  She is also in shock.  

Kate then explains her morning to us: Celly nearly took out a tree at the side of the house while exiting in the morning!  Also, once they got to NIMR and unloaded the bottles, they couldn't get the van restarted because of the battery.  They called Celly's dad as he is a car fundi and he jumped the van.  Which is why Celly didn't want to turn the van off when it was stuck in the yard - just in case it wouldn't start again!  She was convinced he didn't know how to drive - turns out he didn't have his licence just yet - he was getting it the next day!

After a long time of trying to rock and roll the van out of it position (the only wheel not in dirt wasn't touching the ground), they realised that the trunks of the papaya tree (which are what made a lot of the noise, papayas flying across the lawn!) and impatient bush the van took out were keeping it from moving.

They sat around for a bit waiting for Celly's dad to arrive and there was talk of towing the van out.  They got tired of waiting and made another effort to remove the tree trunks.  Finally, after much hacking and crawling and rocking and pushing, it moved!  I had to make them open the gates again as I foresaw the van flying backwards through them - and that would have been an even bigger problem! 

So the van is free and instead of parking it right were it was, Celly tries to turn the corner into the front of the driveway - almost taking out the side of the house as he was at it!  We were all yelling at him to STOP! but he wasn't listening.  Thankfully he got it parked without any further damage!

ALMOST!

Add caption

FREEDOM!

Poor papaya tree never had a chance. 

Surprisingly little damage except for the trees.

Kate rifling through the carnage.  

So all's well that ends well. No one was hurt except a couple of trees and the cement curb.  Our landlady, Mama Mary, was awesome about the whole situation. She said to make sure that poor boy gets back in the car and gets driving again!  (As long as I'm not in the van, he can go for it!)  

Kate has since got back in the van with Celly and she says he is much better.  I, for the life of me, cannot figure out how he got the van in that position!  Granted our driveway is very crappy - fairly steep with a lip to enter from the road - but the one skid mark was only a few inches away from the post.  I'm pretty sure he scraped the van down the gate.  

Well, that's it for now.  This was supposed to be a short post!  I'll tackle safari and Dubai pics for a post later this week.

Usiku mwema,
Shannon

The Purpose of it All

So, why am I down here in Tanzania?  Well, I've been asking myself that question for over two months now! ha.

Megan Enos, a Master's student in the Reid lab, came to Mwanza in June 2012 to get this project up and running.  Her blog is here.  The idea for this project was submitted to the Gates Foundation and it was awarded funding.  Our lab is one of only three in Canada to ever be awarded funding from this foundation and the only one in London.  Yay us!

WARNING!!!  WARNNG!!!!  Science-geekery to follow!  WARNING!!! WARNING!!!

Here are the basics about this project:

The bacteria in our body out-number our own human cells 10 to 1.  What we don't know is how the composition and numbers of this 'microbiome' affects our bodily functions and disease.  Some recent studies have shown that the gut microbiome (all the bacteria that lives in our stomach, intestines, colon etc.) differs between an obese and a 'normal' individual.  In addition, these studies have suggested that an obese mother can pass on the characteristics of her gut microbiome to her infant which can pre-dispose them to obesity and problems related to obesity later in life.  Although it hasn't been studied as much, if the gut microbiome of an under-nourished mother differs from a nourished mother, the under-nourished mother could be pre-disposing her child to problems related to under-nutrition.  In fact, studies have suggested that children from under-mourished mothers are more likely to be under-nourished themselves and have decreased cognitive function later in life.  

In Africa, the number of maternal and infant deaths due to undernutrition is staggering.  And since we also wanted to investigate the effects of probiotic on the microbiome, Mwanza, Tanzania was the perfect place for our study.   Ten years ago Western Heads East started up a probiotic yogurt kitchen in Mwanza in response to the AIDS crisis in Africa.  Dr. Reid kindly donated the probiotic culture, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR-1 to this initiative, NIMR (National Institute for Medical Research in Tanzania) was brought on board to produce the probiotic for the kitchens and something unique was born.  Last year, the kitchens have expanded to 10 in Mwanza and there are some in Rwanda and Kenya as well.  Recently, APYN (African Probiotic Yogurt Network) has been set up in Mwanza to help facilitate the delivery of the probiotic and help the kitchens out amongst so many other things!  

Each kitchen is run by a woman's group and they learn how to become self-sufficient (microfinance) to buy the milk, pay rent, make the yogurt and sell it.  Each kitchen supplies 75-80 people living with HIV/AIDS that are called 'beneficiaries.'  A generous donation from an anonymous Canadian donor covers the costs for this yogurt for all the kitchens.  Some kitchens make more yogurt and sell it at market to the community.  Because of the proximity to these kitchens, several research projects have been conducted in Mwanza investigating it affects on various populations.  This study is another one of these.  

So after all that, the purpose of the study is to characterize the complete microbiome (gut, reproductive, oral and breast milk) of under-nourished pregnant mothers and their infants.  Healthy 'normal' and healthy 'over-nourished' mothers were also recruited.  A subset of the under-nourished and healthy mothers were given probiotic yogurt supplemented with Moringa to see if it will aid in changing the microbiome from a potentially adverse composition to a 'healthy' composition.

A cup of yogurt. It's really not all that bad!

So Megan came down here with NOTHING and set the whole thing up, I've merely stepped in to take over the last couple months of visits because she had to return to London to do course work.  
She had to:
- get ethics approval
- find a clinic willing to do the study and train them
- find the equipment needed and purchase if necessary
- get tables and such MADE for the clinic as there were none
- make up questionnaires and documents and get them translated into swahili
- find a translator to accompany her to clinic
- arrange transport
- arrange sample collation - buy all supplies necessary for this
- arrange with NIMR for lab space and technician time
- find a kitchen to make here yogurt - and train them how to do it PROPERLY
- find milk to make her probiotic culture and make it weekly to drop to kitchen
- find some way to get the yogurt to the mamas
- arrange payments for everything
- find suppliers here for things
- all this while trying to do it HERE, which is no easy feat!
- and a ZILLION other things!  I'm truly amazed by the work she has done down here!

Recruitment (this was all done before I got here essentially):
The pregnant women comes to the clinic for her normal assessment and the nurse/doctor can make a decision if they may be suitable for the study.  If they pass the eligibility questionnaire and consent, they are given an ID#.  They have their initial visit and another visit, usually in a month, is scheduled.  The mamas come from 2-10 visits depending on their gestational age.

Each visit, the women give stool, urine, saliva and vaginal swab samples.  Three times they also give blood.  Once the baby is born, they return twice and additional samples of breast milk, baby saliva and baby stool are taken.  They are also tested for malaria, syphilis, HIV and their hemoglobin levels.  The lab technician there also screens their stool for parasite larva and tests their urine.   We take weight and other measurements. 

The bathroom

The 'toilet'  Ugh!

When they arrive, they check in and our translator, Janeth, administers the dietary recall questionnaire to them (a record of what they ate for the last two days) and once they are finished that, they go to the lab for the samples to be taken and then to the doctor for the rest of the samples plus a check up.  Then they return to us for bites and compensation.  This can take anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours per woman depending on how busy the clinic is that day.  

So every day at the clinic is basically the same.  I walk to NIMR in the morning to meet Janeth (who has packed up the coolers for the sample collection) and we hop in the Land Rover with Abel, our driver, for the ~30min drive to Buswelu.  The main road is paved but the turn off to Buswelu is NOT and it is quite possibly the worst road ever.  And that is saying something for Mwanza!  

We wait for the woman to show up - sometimes having to gently remind them to come with a phone call.  Tracking woman down is the hardest part - they tend to leave with a month or two remaining in their pregnancy to go back to their 'family' and it could be hours or DAYS away.  And getting them to return is so hard. 

Megan buying bananas and nuts in the centre.

On Monday's, I head into the market area to buy bananas and nuts for the week.  I purchase sodas as needed and every day Mama Chapati drops by to bring us maandazi (fried dough) for the mamas.  Once they are done their visit, they get a banana, a small bag of peanuts, a soda and a maandazi.  

Some of Buswelu Centre

Once all the mamas have made it through and have had their snack and been scheduled for the next appointment, I head to the 'lab' at the clinic to spin the blood and aliquot the stool samples into the smaller vials for freezing.  If anyone had told me last year at this time I'd be scooping poop in Africa, I would have told them they were off their rocker! Yet, here I am.

Days with mamas and babies are fun and chaotic all at the same time.  It's like musical babies - everyone has one and it gets shuffled off to whomever has a free hand.  I've been peed on numerous times as disposable diapers aren't a thing down here!  An old piece of fabric pinned around is the most common, sometimes just the fabric they are wrapped in is all they have and rarely, they have a plastic covering they tie around the piece of fabric.  

The babies are also bundled up SO MUCH!  I can't believe the layers of clothing and blankets they are wrapped in.  Most have knitted hats and booties and two to three layers of fabrics wrapped around them.  They also are carried close to mama and once they are put on the table for the examination they are quite sweaty!  They are usually oblivious to anything that is happening - unless they are hungry!

One of my buddies. I managed not to make him cry to much and in return he didn't pee on me. 

Once, the lab stuff in completed, Janeth calls Abel and we return to NIMR with the samples.  The gentlemen in Room 4, 'beep' in the samples to their system and store them in the freezers.  I usually head to the lab to work on making the probiotic for the kitchen or prepping samples packages or head home for the day to repeat again in the morning.  

Sample pack prepping

I usually go to the clinic Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and then spend Thursday and Friday in the lab or at home scanning all the documents into the computer.  Super fun!

I'm slowly wrapping up the clinic visits. My last day out there will be next Wednesday. It will be sad but also exciting to get things finished off!

I volunteered to come here when asked. Moment of weakness? - maybe.  Do I regret it? - no.  Do I miss home? - YES.  And I anxious to come back to see everyone and return to 'normal'?- you betcha!  But I've had a great time with lots of new experiences I won't forget.

Well, this has been a lengthy post.  I wasn't going to put photos but for those of you bored to tears with the science junk, they are for you!

Asante sana!

Nyerere Dispensary - 'the clinic'

The room at the front is the lab and our 'office' is behind it on the back.

Megan in the 'office'

Funky plant outside the clinic.

Waiting for my ride

This is the log book for the pikipiki
driver who delivers the yogurt to the
 mamas.We need to watch him like a hawk!

Pikipiki driver Matayo, his friend paul and Adjida, one of the mamas on yogurt getting her daily delivery.

Ukerewe Island

On my second weekend in Tanzania (seems so long ago now!), Megan was going to check out Ukerewe Island with her friend, Catherine.  They invited me to tag along.

Mwanza, where I am located, is a port city on Lake Victoria.  The Wikipedia link here.  Fishing is a major industry here.  Ukerewe is only 45km away from Mwanza.

Side note: People have been asking me about the weather.  I found this on Wikipedia.  The temperature doesn't stray far from 30 during the day and 20 at night.  EVERY. DAY.  EVERY. SINGLE. DAY.  Some days it feels warmer than others but it depends on if there is a breeze or clouds or it rains.  But essentially, it's hot - not as hot as I expected - but hot. 

We got up VERY early - 6am - after both Megan and I had about 3hrs sleep.  Catherine picked us up at 7am and off we went to the ferry terminal - which we thought was a long way away. Turns out it was only a 10min drive and we probably could have walked it!  We ended up at the terminal extremely early for the 9am ferry.  Oh well...time for Megan to nap and me to people watch.

All Aboard!

Megan hogging three sea

We purchased our tickets and they turned out to be for the 'first class' section or the upper deck.  Fancy us!

The ferry ride seemed interminable.  It was 3 hours long and it was the longest and loudest three hours of my life!  Megan took up the three seats behind Catherine and I and slept off the night before.  ;-)  I dozed on and off but couldn't really get comfortable.  The main problem was the TV that was playing at the loudest possible volume and it was playing the most god-awful movie - complete with screaming child track.  And every time I woke up to look out the window, there was a guy staring down at Megan and I - it was extremely unnerving!

A bajaj.  Interesting is all I will say. 

We finally made it to the island and we took a bajaj to our hotel, La Bima.

The 'front' of the hotel that faces the 'main' road.  Essential a hopping bar in the evening. 

My room which cost 10000tsh = $7 CDN

The hotel was quite nice and clean.  We stopped in to drop our stuff off and we needed some lunch. 

View of outside my room.  :-)

The outside foyer area.  

A dish of note in Tanzania is chipsy mayai -essentially fries cooked in with eggs in oil.  Surprisingly, I like it! And when it is the only option, I like it a lot! Thus sated, we headed for the town 'Info Centre.' Turns out it was right next door to the hotel!  And the guy who rented our bikes was the guy who took our lunch order.  Multi-talented!

Chipsy mayai

Here we were told we could rent bikes to tour the island.  Definitely could rent bikes - curiously, they only had three - lucky us - but no map.  Only a crude postcard, with red lines that represented 'roads' on the island.  Oh, this was going to be fun. 

See the green 'i'? - Ya, we didn't either. 

After we waited out the rain, we set off!

Transportation

Three white girls on bikes.  I felt a bit like a side-show - stares, even more than usual, kids flocking to the side of the road to see, chants of 'mzungo, mzungo.'  The occasional sweet sound of 'Shikamoo' - which means 'greetings of respect to an elder' from a child on the side.

  

Megan and some rice paddies

Catherine and I and some of our admirers. 

It really was quite stunning.  Very rural here.  Rice paddies, corn fields, banana groves, palm trees, livestock and sparse housing.  Lots of cows here and there and all very different looking from each other.  Not like the ones at home at all. Goats and chickens running amok as well. 

This tree was, um, interesting!

A Fork in the Road - we chose to the left. 

More rice paddies.

Some very cool boats in progress.

Wild life - a cow, some egrets and a marabou stork. 

The goal was to get to the top of the hill to get a shot of the whole island.  Well, we did get to the top of the hill, but then, what was on the other side, so we kept going.  The 'road' got narrower and bumpier and rockier and I wasn't about to go off-roading in a strange place with no map!  We stopped to rest and then turned down a lane because we could see the shore line.  Turns out we were about to get a lesson in Tanzanian Aquaculture and it was quite interesting.  

Couple of my favourite photos I have taken on the trip so far. 

We were greeted by a couple of gentlemen, whose names I've long since forgotten, and asked if we wanted to see their fish farm.  We said, why not!  One was a Pastor, who kept asking us our religion, and the other was the manager.  They farm tilapia and recently, catfish - I don't know why!

One Fish Pond

Megan checking out the fishes while the workers do whatever they are doing. 

They were then dredging one of the ponds to remove some unwanted fish, I think.  There were several kinds of fish in this one pond and I'm still unsure as to what they were doing but it was fun to watch the two guys with the net trying to corral them all!  We got to help 'rescue' some and some others were collected as 'bad' fish but I suspect they were to become dinner for them!

Unrolling the net

All stretched out.

Almost there.

Removing it all from the water

The spoils - which didn't look like much to me!

Fishy kissy

All smiles!

I was getting a shot of the heron in the background and I caught an escapee!

After all this excitement, we headed back into town to pay for our rental (3000tsh for 3hrs = $2) and grab some much needed refreshment.  

Relaxing with some Balimis on the patio

Catherine and I opted for BBQ - we were not disappointed! 

Megan's dinner - tilapia she said was amazing!

We opted for the early ferry home as we all had some things to attend to.  After a fight with the cab driver over our fare, Megan WINS again, we purchase our tickets and loaded on.  This ferry was slightly smaller than the previous one and it filled up fast - no hogging seats!  I was then tapped on the shoulder by a very nasty man saying I was in 'his' seat!  Turns out the tickets had numbers written on them - well, EVERYONE was in the wrong seat! If I moved, everyone would have to move!  And we tried to say so.  He persisted and eventually got the guy in charge to come and move me.  He could see that everyone was not in the 'correct' seat and got a couple people to change so I could move to make this guy happy - and then he didn't even sit in that seat most of the time! argh!

After that, is was smooth sailing and I even got up the courage to go out and take some photos.  Here are some more photos of the ride with captions.  This is a photo heavy blog post but it was a weekend in pictures more than anything else!

Take me home!

Our ride

All aboard!  -->

Rocky outcrop as we near Mwanza

Island in the distance

Fishing!

Large fish market to the other side.

The Beach Boys were in port

We live in this general direction as you head into port.  

These are Marabou Storks and are quite frankly, the most disgusting and fascinating bird I've ever seen.  Commonly, known as 'The Garbage Bird' you can find them anywhere there is a garbage pile pillaging for spoils.  And they are MASSIVE, easily half my height.  And so nasty but people stay out of their way

All in all a short but fun weekend that probably cost less than $50CDN all in with food and travel. Sweet!

Well, this is a very long post and I hope I haven't bored you all!

Kwa heri,
Shannon

P.S. I apologise for the formatting.  Blogger makes me stabby!  And I'm too tired to fight with it any more tonight!