Picnic Essentials in Nairobi

"Rain? Today of all days?"
You can imagine the horror of waking up to the patter of rain on a day when you'd planned to host a surprise birthday picnic . My heart sunk and my mind raced, thinking of alternative activities that we're as easy going yet fun filled as picnics.

Lucky for us, the morning worry was drowned out by midday, as the sun rays peaked through, offering some joy after a gloomy morning. That said, pray for good weather for your picnics and have a backup place to go, but take it from me, don't let the rain dull the shine! Dance in it :)

My aunt and cousin grooving to good music

 

What makes a good picnic? Is it skirting around in sun dresses or the cheer over fun games? As a lover of picnics, here are a few tips I have for you.

1. Food:

The quintessential picnic spread is usually snacking kinda food: hotdogs, some kind of potato dish like fries, icecream etc. What if I told you that potluck would work as well?

I remember one time after our 5th year med school exams, my friends and I had a fantastic picnic menu spread. From a starter of apple and peanut butter dip, to potato casserole, coconut chicken, samosa and chipolatas just to name a few. Oh and it was crowned by dessert of a gorgeous cheese cake and a fruit platter! So delicious.

My tip? Have everyone send what they're planning on bringing and compile it into a list, so that you balance out the menu, making sure you have starch, protein, vegetables and some yummy sweet stuff too! Include drinks as well.

I dream of this cheesecake made by my homie, Mohammed

2. Games:

I'm usually the umpire at picnic games and let me tell you, having competitive people in the game will test your will! But be prepared with some fun games to lighten the mood. Here are a few game suggestions.

Creative games:

-Breakfast scramble- make a puzzle out of a cereal box and let them solve it in one minute
-Elephant march - let them wear a clean stocking on their head with a ball inside(as if it was an elephant trunk) , then they try to hit a target on the ground
-I have your back- get a member to draw an item on their teammate's back with their finger, while the team mate in turn tries to re-draw that on a piece of paper. 
-Balloon/peg and cup game
-ABC scavenger hunt/Photo scavenger hunt
-Pass the water game

Kenya @50 Supreme Court card

Board & Card games:

-Kenya @50 - I carry this game to every family /friend meetup. It's so much fun!
-Uno
-Poker

Kati is a full body workout!

Outdoorsy games:

-Football
-Kati
-Three legged race
-Potato/egg race
-Police and robber
-Hide and seek
-Stuck in the mud

3. Where to go?

Wondering where to have a picnic in Nairobi and its outskirts? I gotchu!

Stunning picture of my brother playing at Arboretum

-Arboretum in Westlands
-Karura forest in Parklands/Muthaiga
-Evergreen park along Kiambu Road
-Paradise lost in Kiambu
-Waterfall Inn in Tigoni
-Thayu Farm Hotel in Tigoni
-Oloolua Nature Trail in Karen
-Ngong Hills in Ngong
-Uhuru park
-Central park
-Uhuru Gardens
-Nairobi Botanical Gardens - Museum Hill
-Nairobi Safari Walk
-Langata Botanical gardens*
-Michuki Memorial Park Nairobi *
-City Park*

(I didn't realize I had been to this many places before until I listed them down. Plus I haven't been to the last 3* but I sure will consider them next time I plan on going picnicking.)

 

Evergreen Park along Kiambu Road

 

Oloolua Nature Trail, Karen- as captured by my bro, Michael

4. Picnic Starter Pack: What to carry?
As I conclude, here's a checklist for what to carry to your next picnic:

-Food and drinks

-Cups, plates and cutlery (you can reuse the plastic ones each time to be environmental savvy)

-What you need for games (board games, football, paper and pens)

-Maasai shuka/leso to lay on the grass for sitting on

-Comfortable wear + hats/sunglasses

-Camera to capture the memories

-Bluetooth speaker for some music

(On that note, say it with me:The bluetooth device is connektedaa successfuriiii. If you know, you know! Gosh, I joke too much! )


I'm already dreaming of my next picnic. I hope you get to enjoy the sunshine with some friends and family this weekend. Feel free to reach out to me for any more tips via my Instagram (@muenimuli) or if you have other hidden picnic gems, I'd love to explore some more!

Grace and Peace!


Culture shock in Tanzania?

Last but not least in the #WhileIwasaway series comes what I enjoyed the most. NEW CULTURE! AIESEC Global Volunteer is a cross-cultural experience for youth who want to gain personal development and leave an impact on the world. There's nothing quite like being in a brand new country, living and volunteering with people from all around. I can really attest to that.

Although Tanzania is just our next door neighbor, there are elements of new culture I experienced while there. Perhaps the different vocabulary; apparently the word ‘stima’ that Kenyans use to mean electricity doesn’t exist in Kiswahili. Its ‘umeme’ guys! But catch a Kenyan saying ‘Umeme umepotea.’  Haha! Rarely so.

Another thing that was new is the greeting culture. People greet each other courteously on the streets, whether or not they know each other. I’m told the same happens in Coastal Kenya but that was definitely new for the Nairobi-bred me. There’s one particular lady who lived a few houses away from us& sold chapati at her verandah every morning. I had no problem greeting her at first occurrence each day, but she insisted that we should greet her each time we passed by her home. Shikamoo more than 5 times a day? To the same person? That was new! But I finally got the hang of it with time since “When in Rome, do as the Romans do.”

AIESEC Mzumbe organized a Global Village event where we could all showcase our culture. It was an amazing experience!

Laura's holding bubble tea, a famous Taiwanese drink ( Tony made this for us to taste one day prior to Global Village)
Makini&I winnowing the maize and beans with an uteo. We were making Muthokoi, a Kamba meal similar to githeri. (Githeri uses whole maize while Muthokoi uses maize without husks)
Maggie and I singing Amenifanyia amani by Paul Clement
Makini shows them how Kenyan men dance
Our Muthokoi was a hit! #TeamKenya
Joy and laughter as we are taught how to dance to the TZ local song; Bertha, Nangi, Lightness and Gervas (in pic)

 

Maggie took this splendid photo of Jackie, the current AIESEC Mzumbe LC
Kenyan queen, Laura Adhiambo
Dancing to a Taiwanese traditional chant

Learning about Taiwan from Jason, Maggie and Tony was lovely too. First, the English names I have been using to refer to them are just nicknames. Can you imagine? They give themselves these names to avoid the trouble of having to make others pronounce their Chinese names; though I challenged myself to calling them by those names over time and finally got it! And yes, I say Chinese because the languages spoken in Taiwan are both Chinese and the native Taiwanese language (which is mostly spoken by the older generation.) In the hiking video here, Jason taught me the Chinese word for waterfall pu - 瀑 - pù...which was very funny because that word means something quite different in Kiswahili!

If you are wondering where Taiwan is, it is a small island right next to China. Its capital city is Taipei. And guys, I finally got to learn how to tell Asians apart! Haha, well, to a certain degree. They told me of the cultural differences between Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese and Koreans. Not only by their looks, but also by how they write out their language. Trust me, it’s similar but it’s not all the same!

Remember how I said here that we had taught them how to sing in Kiswahili? Well, I learnt how to sing a Taiwanese welcome song as well. Don’t laugh, it was among my first tries.

Closer home, Serge from Rwanda taught me some Kinyarwanda. I don’t know why I had always assumed that all of Rwanda is French speaking until he told me that they have Anglophone and Francophone regions. I also realized that Kinyarwanda is somewhat similar to Kiswahili; perhaps due to the similar Bantu roots.

So you now how in Kenya if someone calls you "Wee nani" it sounds so rude? Apparently, in Rwanda, it's the total opposite. Serge would call me "Wee Joy Muli" with good intentions, but up until he explained that it is a respectful way of referring to someone in his country, I thought he was being rude! Haha...

Mozambique! Did you know that they speak Portuguese? 'Te amor Senor'. That means 'I love you my Lord.' Sounds amazing huh? Leila was my partner when it came to composing songs as I had narrated here. We had lyrics in Chagana (one of the native Mozambican languages), English, Kiswahili and Portuguese. International music… don’ mess!

Let me tell you guys something random about me. I support Manchester United Football club. “Okay, Joy. How is that even related to what we’re talking about in Mozambique?" Well, remember Christiano Ronaldo? Hehe! I liked how he played (ahem) and that’s kinda how I became a ManU fan. So honestly, he’s the one person that comes to mind whenever I think of Portugal. Random huh? (shout out to the real football fans unlike myself; my brothers and close friends like KB. ) But let me challenge you since you’re probably out there judging me. How many former Portuguese colonies can you name? Mozambique…Angola…are you blank? Haha! At least I'm not alone. So don't judge me with my Mozambique-Portugal -football correlation. 

(Fun fact- there are only 10 countries in the world that have  Portuguese as their official language; Brazil, Mozambique, Angola, Portugal, Guinea-Bissau, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Macau, Cape Verde, and São Tomé and Príncipe.)

Anyway, another thing I admired about Tanzanians was their unity. Despite having so many tribes, they identify themselves by what region they come from. Each time I asked, “Where are you from?” I’d get answers like “I’m from Mwanza…From Moshi…From Iringa”. Rarely did they go by their tribes. Not that they don’t ascribe to a particular tribe, but it isn’t a huge point of differentiation, conflict or a matter to lord over others. This I admire, and hope for the same to happen back home one day. I also got to know tad bits about Ghana, Nigeria, Poland...there was such great cultural diversity within the AIESEC community!

(Photo credits to Maggie, Dennis Damian &Isaac)


There you have it. That’s it for the #WhileIwasaway series.  Hope you enjoyed it and learnt a thing or two from my narration about this journey that God purposely set out for me. 

Soli deo Gloria.

 

 


Making new, international friends

I’m one person who believes that I never meet new people by accident. Everyone who crosses my path, does so for a reason. Makini was the only friend I knew when I went to Mzumbe but he wasn’t the only one I left with. I loved the fact that we were all from different backgrounds, which made it so much more interesting. The house was always filled with energy of some sort; from teaching each other how to dance and sing cultural songs, to having deep conversations about life (apparently some day we were talking about marriage and I dozed off on the living room couch. They say {to be confirmed} that I was still contributing to the convo while asleep. Goodness me! I don’t even usually sleep talk….so it’s my word against theirs. Haha! )

As life has it, we had our share of ups and downs. But conflicts were resolved and happy moments celebrated. I’ve picked the most memorable of those to share. So here it goes.

  1. Cooking-

''Sharing food with another human being is an intimate act that should not be indulged in lightly! '' M.F.K.Fisher sure wasn’t wrong about that. The kitchen is where we all met to make mandazi, cake, bubble tea, muthokoi and Mozambican badjia together. Boy wasn’t it fun!Making Chinese stir fry for lunch

Did you notice our makeshift rolling pin? I bet you didn't, so watch it again and see the solution oriented people we were right there! Oh yeah! Lift your hands in the air! Like you don't care! (I just wanted to rhyme! Hehe!)

2. Milk thief scenario-

Speaking of food…I love milk. So for the first few days, I was sad because the only milk we could find was store-bought milk that was so expensive! Thank God we eventually were directed to a nearby homestead where they sold it quite cheaply. This was yet another task that we did together; each with his/her own bottle, walking the path together to go buy milk. One unfortunate day, we had bought milk and I offered to boil it for everyone, so that it wouldn't go bad quickly. I did so & poured the milk back into each person's designated and marked milk bottle. Lo and behold! A few hours later, Serge wanted to drink his milk but found most of it gone. In fact, he only found a quarter liter left! Yet he had bought 1 entire litre. Who had stolen the milk? Watch the video Maggie, our media correspondent on the ground made, to find out!

 

  1. Church-

It was so lovely going to church and experiencing the fellowship there. The service was filled with lovely song and dance!


  1. Entertainment :Dancing, singing, watching movies-

As I’ve said the house was constantly booming music. From Taiwanese songs (to which we sung along despite not knowing how to pronounce the words right) to learning how to move our waists gracefully in Mozambican dance. Moving to the beat together was definitely a favorite pastime. Leila and I actually bonded so much through composing songs with a guitar we'd borrowed (I know how to play only 5 chords, but those sufficed!). We were even able to teach Maggie, Jason and Tony a song in Kiswahili! They did a perfectly good job at it btw!

 

  1. Accident-

This was the lowlight of the entire trip. Jason was hit by a motorcycle on his way back home from lunch at the university. You can imagine the horror on my face as he was brought in unconscious&profusely bleeding, to the emergency room at the health centre. I hope I never have to see someone I know brought into the hospital I'm at in such a state. Especially because he lost his memory temporarily. It hit me most when he asked me what my name was as we rode with him in the ambulance. 

For an entire week, we stood by him until he got full recovery. Dr. Lillian was great help through this process. She cared for him even as he was admitted at the Regional hospital. And didn’t I also see great solidarity from the guys amongst us. Makini, Tony and Michael slept with Jason at the hospital and took great care of him. Serge then became Jason’s personal bodyguard anywhere they went together. As ladies, we ensured he ate well and took him for dressing too. Eventually, God did make it all work for good.

In the special ward where Jason slept
Jason skyping back home while at the hospital
The brave and kind men who stayed with Jason at the hospital
Goofing away with Maggie at the hospital while keeping Jason company

“Every new friend is a new adventure…the start of more memories.”

~ Patrick Lindsay

More sweet memories...

Here is what I was telling you guys about us dancing!

 

Plus these pictures are worth a thousand words!

Maggie, the ball of energy :)
Chacha (TZ) and our diva, Laura (fellow Kenyan)
Jason, Tony and I on Furahiday!
Ken CTA, Laura and I

Now that's enough photos lest this post becomes a photo album! See you tomorrow for some exciting things I learnt from my international friends! ;) 

 


I'm not going in cycles...

I had never been away from home for this long. More so, alone. Never been away on my birthday. Never travelled alone. So this trip was literally a jump of faith and I thank God for making every day worth it.

At the beginning of this year when everyone was declaring their resolutions, I somewhat resented it all. Wasn’t new years day a day like any other? Why the hype? Scrolling through people's Instagram posts one after another, each with a caption about new chances, new beginnings… Yet there I was, still waiting to hear from Him about so many things in my life. Waiting. All I knew is that I needed to surrender it all to Him. I’d have to leave my concerns & burdens at the foot of the cross and not come back, to pick them up again. I would need to mean it every time I sung ‘I surrender all’.

This was real sanctification guys. My goodness I’m such a perfectionist. I plan for everything. And I mean everything! And most times I’d present my plans to God, rather than asking Him what His plan for me was and following through with that. You see;

Perfectionism is just a high-end couture version of fear…just fear in fancy shoes and a mink coat, pretending to be elegant when actually it’s just terrified. ~Elizabeth Gilbert.

So letting it all go into His hands wasn’t so easy. Letting Him plan my holiday rather than strategize my way through the months. Choosing to be still (Exodus 14:14) in the midst of conflict rather than (in my younger brother's words), ‘finesse my way’ through arguments.  Cycles of anxiety over the unknown and worry over what is to come. Such cycles needed to be broken.

Did I see it coming in the way it did? No.

I’ve been asked countless times, “Why Mzumbe?” “Why Tanzania?” “6weeks! That’s so long!”

All I can say, God needed me there to break some cycles.

Cycles of worry.

Cycles of fear.

Of self-reliance.

Of perfectionism.

Of too much planning. (A huge struggle I'm overcoming)

Before I left, I knew among the things I was going to miss was the sermon series we were doing at my church based on the book ‘Unstuck’ by Mark Jobe;  ‘Out of the cave and into your purpose’. It’s based on 1 Kings 19, the story of Elijah. Seeing a great prophet like him get spiritually stuck immediately after such a magnificent feat against the prophets of Baal at Mt. Horeb is what most amazed me.  Had he not just witnessed fire come down from the heavens and consumed a soaking wet sacrifice? However, after a loss of perspective and depressive feelings engulfing him, we see a man who isolates himself in a cave, hoping to die. Stuck. Can you believe it? Among the greatest prophets having suicidal thoughts.

Before you judge Elijah, just remember that everyone gets stuck at one point or another. You too, whether you admit it or not. How often do we hide in the caves, unwilling to confront our sin because it seems to have such a tight grip over our lives?

We’ve stalled on the roadside of our faith and refused to call for a rescue car; we don’t want anyone to see us while we are such a wreck.

My heart cries out each time I see a case of substance abuse. I may be able to diagnose it clinically in the hospital but I know that most of the time, taking drugs is fueled by unresolved matters in one’s life. Feeling of lack of belonging. Family conflict. Stress. Whatever it is, each time the matter arises, we run to our drug and hope that it satisfies us. We are addicted to drugs of self-sustenance& temporary pleasure; making a home in the caves. On and on in the same cycle. We isolate ourselves, throw a pity party over our sorrows, replay all the negative things in our minds like a broken record.

Anyone who knows me knows I love Jonathan McReynold’s music. His most recent album has a song titled  ‘Cycles’ , that’s God-incidentally about the same matter of getting unstuck. Dr. Darwin Jason said (in the comment section of one of Jonathan’s IG posts about the song);

“But see, if God wanted us to face and fight the devil alone, He would have given us our islands of solitude. God expects us to listen and support each other so we can see glory together. However, we cannot accomplish this if we struggle alone and let the devil keep us in our cycles.”

Nikki Alexander, on the same forum, also said;

“Satan is in his own cycle- he always loses.”

Can I hear an Amen! Which cycle have you fallen into time and time again? Which cave have you isolated yourself in? Are you willing to get out of it and face the sin that so easily entangles you? Definitely not in your strength, but by the same power that raised Christ from the grave. As crazy as it can be, we still walk in victory, for we live by what we know and not how we feel.

“Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”

“Now then, stand still and see this great thing the Lord is about to do before your eyes.”

~ 1 Samuel 12:16 (NIV)

 

Now, Im’ma put this song out there. For those who have ears, listen! I personally have had it on replay as a favorite since the day I got it. All the guys I was with in TZ probably remember me practicing the voice runs for the #Cycleschallenge over and over again! 

 


There is power in the name of Jesus to break every cycle. Do you believe that?

See you tomorrow for more from this series. #WhileIwasAway #42daysinTanzania 

 

 


All work and no play...

All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. In my previous posts, I’ve pretty much narrated my professional experience while there but I wore the tourist cap too! We would work till around 2pm at the hospital, so we had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves, as well as the weekends.

What better ways to have fun than explore the outdoors. This trip helped me confirm my love for nature. I’d definitely prefer a date in the wild than wining and dining at restaurants. Though there’s a place for those too. Hehe! :)

Mzumbe University (remember I’d gone for an AIESEC student exchange so that was the university the project was affiliated to) is beautiful. Most students there don’t like the fact that it’s in the rural areas but I kept saying that they are so lucky to have the mountains as their backyard!

Just look at that! The view of Uluguru mountains from Kilimahewa

Kilimahewa is the picnic site within the university compounds that overlooks Uluguru mountains. It felt so surreal. Having a picnic over the sunset was our favorite past-time, as we shared stories and learnt about each other’s culture, especially food. Gervas, a caring friend from AIESEC Mzumbe, brought Sharifu for us. The only way I can describe it is that it looks like a giant samosa. We had some chips mayai that day as well. Delish!

The famous chips mayai (which I tried replicating once I came back home)
Gervas, Maggie, Jason and I at our first picnic at Kilimahewa
Jason learning how to traditionally cover himself with a Maasai blanket

At some point, Jason was describing how they cook and eat chicken testicles in Taiwan! I was half bewildered and half bursting out in laughter at the description! :) 

Picnics were for the dainty days though. Some days we went for the hard stuff. Hiking up Uluguru mountains wasn’t a joke. Here, I’ll let the photos by Maggie and the video that Po Yen (Jason) put together do the talking.  

Our diva Laura, paving the way'
Blanca, Maggie and I before the climb
Tony was always excited! Here he's eating a jackfruit (fenesi)
Waterfall moments with Michael Chacha
Jason challenged me to a rock piling competition!
Can you guess who won?

 

https://youtu.be/GtCQ-YUen6E


Can't wait for tomorrow's post as I'll be sharing some very personal lessons I learnt during this journey. Soli deo gloria! #WhileIwasAway #42daysinTanzania


On Matters Premarital Sex

Medicine is all about facts and what better proves our days at the hospital than photos! Haha…so here are a few more pictures of us at the hospital.

The amazing staff of Mzumbe health centre
Having breakfast at the students' IDM cafeteria before work. They had the best samosas I've ever tasted!
A selfie is always in order :)

While at the hospital, we were alarmed at the large number of cases of teen pregnancies. It was heart breaking to sit in and listen to a father filled with grief, as he explained what led him to bring his teenage daughter to the hospital. He had just come from reporting the case at the police station and needed us to fill in the P3 forms and carry out a pregnancy test. Somehow, along the way I figured that although the father had reported the case to the police as rape, it was actually a consentual act between her and her schoolmate at their boarding school. But to protect his daughter, he reported it as so. The doctor roped me into the conversation to give my advice, seeing as the young girl would have to drop out of school, following regulations that the Tanzanian government had just instated concerning pregnant girls in schools. We gave both the parents and the young girl counselling but it sure did leave me thinking about matters abstinence and sexual purity, even in the presence of pressures of peers and raging hormones.

This led us to then carry out a training at a local high school concerning SDG 3: Good Health& well-being(with a focus on Reproductive health), SDG 13: Climate action and SDG 15: Life on land. It was in partnership with the Environmental club at SUA University, Morogoro. Language barrier was quite interesting as Kiswahili is the national language. Our Taiwanese friends are the ones who had a hard time, though we translated a lot for them. Though I too was nervous at first because it has been a while since I translated some words, especially medical ones, to Kiswahili.

Jason actually learnt so much Kiswahili on this trip he could easily hold a brief conversation
Makini teaching on the reproductive system
Laura and Maggie teaching on premature sex and its consequences

 

Sensitization on environmental conservation

 

We ladies took the challenge of answering the students' questions

Michael Chacha captured the kids attention with his fluent Kiswahili and charisma

I’d like your input on something though. After the talk, a young man walked up to Chacha and I and shared his heartfelt desire to abstain despite pressures from his peers. In particular, he asked: "Sometimes I get the urge to engage in sex. What should I do at such moments?"

For the first few moments there was silence. I knew at his age, adolescence had just kicked in and hence, his vulnerability to open up was very admirable. We thought for a short while and gave him a few solutions on what he could do. Considering he knew the dangers of pre-marital sex (Tony and I had just done a skit about that, where I'd pretended to be pregnant etc), he needed action points.

Hence why I ask, do you think that the society has made it hard for young people to ask such vulnerable questions? What influence do our beliefs and culture have on the methods used to address this issue? What should we do to reach out to young people, especially concerning sexual purity? What’s the best approach? I have my two-cents but I definitely would love to hear your opinions in the comments.

There are so many more stories concerning medicine, but I’ll share just one more. This one touched me because the mother was a lady my age. It even led me to share on my Insta-stories later that day, especially because it taught me a thing or two about grace. #WhileIwasAway #42daysinTanzania

(Most photos were taken by our lovely photographers: Maggie, Tony and Makini)

PS-  I'll be sharing more about my trip tomorrow, not necessarily about hospital/medical related things.  So stay tuned.  :)


Doctor Duty in Tanzania

“Hujambo daktari!”

One particular lab technician liked greeting me that way. I kept saying that I was just a student but hey, if he wanted to call me daktari (doctor), no one’s complaining! I volunteered as an AIESEC intern at Mzumbe University Hospital at Morogoro, Tanzania. I was there for 6 weeks doing My Health project where I interned as a medical student and helped out where I could. The hospital serves both the university students and locals.

Makini, Maggie and I at the hospital sign board

 

Doctor's parking; I found this so funny, because back home this would probably be interpreted in a different way :)

It was a health centre, hence there weren’t as many serious medical cases as I see back at my university, but it was good exposure nonetheless. I mean, I did an Obstetric ultrasound on the first day. Can you imagine! I don’t mean watched… but performed one! I poured the gel onto the patient’s abdomen and all that jazz. (Insert happy dance! ) Though I had no clue of how to measure the fetal head circumference and other measurements needed for the antenatal checkup. But that’s why medicine is an apprenticeship journey. Each day we learn something new from each other.

My favorite part of our journey from the AIESEC house to the hospital each morning was the view of the Uluguru Mountain range in the morning sun. I was in awe each morning and I bet Maggie and Makini wondered how I never failed to marvel at them; “Look at the mountains!” I said, every single day. Also, there was a young girl who lived in a house along the road we used. We nicknamed her ‘Mzungu’ since she always, and I mean always, ran after us (mostly Maggie) shouting “Mzungu! Mzungu!”

 

Uluguru mountain range. Isn't it a beauty!

We had various duties at the hospital; we helped out at the laboratory, labour ward, inpatient wards, outpatient clinic and the dispensary. On that note, this is a message to all doctors (and my fellow doctors to be). Kindly write prescriptions in a GOOD handwriting. My goodness! God surely gives grace to all nurses& pharmacists who read prescriptions. I guess by now you can clearly tell that my days on duty at the dispensary weren’t particularly my favorite.

Besides that, talk about half-life of information! (Some medical slang there; half-life is a pharmacological term that is used as slang to mean ‘the time needed to forget something’. eg. Person 1: What was the name of that drug? Person 2: I don't remember. Hee...Halflife! ) Each drug prescribed had me flipping mental pages trying to remember what I had learnt about them…drug classification, adverse effects, indications…etc. Dr. Lilian, who was in charge of us as interns made sure we knew our stuff. She assigned topics to us and we’d give presentations of our research every alternate day. Read as ; sleepless nights of research, calling friends back home to help me with soft-copy notes on certain topics I didn’t have, understanding what a partogram is for maternal labour recording…all this while our fellow AIESEC interns at the house told us stories of their days teaching kindergarten children at a nearby school. (They were doing an Education project, quite different from ours I must say :) ).

Chen Po Yen (Jason) with one his students called Love, who really did love him. No pun intended! :)

Who were my partners in crime at the hospital?

Maggie. Yu Hsin is her Taiwanese name. She’s a ball of energy and talent! (That’s a story for another post…today were talking business!) She’s a third grade medical student, but because they have a different curriculum, her medical knowledge is equivalent to a first year medical student back home.

The gentleman is Makini, a fellow Kenyan and dear classmate of mine. Besides being a student, he doubles up as a photographer and business man. Don’t mess ya’ll!

To be honest, labour ward had the most memorable experiences. I’ll spare you the gory details as I know some have already cringed at the bare mention of ‘labour ward’. However, I’ll never forget the first delivery we helped out with. This first-time mother had no idea that she was bearing twins and was also severely anemic at the time of delivery. We ordinarily would have referred her to Morogoro Referral hospital, but she had come during second stage of labour and it was too risky to take her there.  It was 25kms away and who knows what would have happened in the ambulance? So baby number one comes out; healthy looking. The nurse proceeds to deliver the placenta as I weighed the baby, but he was shocked to feel another baby, who was in breech presentation. Don’t ask me how we didn’t find out about her multiple pregnancy earlier. To be honest, she didn’t have any ultrasound or clinic records and said she had travelled to our health centre to give birth (since her friend had recommended the place to her, compared to hospitals in her hometown.)

Anyway, baby number 2 came out but there was a lot of post-partum bleeding. From this point, it seemed more like a scene right out of a movie. All I remember is…

Dr. Lillian comes to check on the going and finds a relatively calm nurse handling an obstetric emergency. Being the doctor, the buck falls on her to handle the situation and she begins barking orders left, right and centre.

“Joy, rub her abdomen. It’ll help in uterine retraction to reduce the bleeding.”

“Nurse, we need oxytocin STAT.”

“Maggie, bring normal saline for resuscitation.”

The mother is in shock. Medical shock. Low blood pressure. Severe palor.

“Nurse, insert another IV line.”

“Maggie, squeeze the IV fluid bottles. We need as much fluid to get to her system as fast as possible.”

“Let’s lift her onto the wheelchair so that we take her to Morogoro Hospital.”

Mother faints.

A moment of sheer panic.

“Put her in shock position. No time to carry her back onto the delivery table.”

“Call an ambulance. Quick!”

“Place mother on stretcher.”

Filled in referral forms quickly and baam…Dr. Lillian, the patient, her twins and her friend sped off in the ambulance towards Morogoro Hospital. After that, we all just slipped into the doctor’s room and took a breather for an hour. That was too much to handle all at once.

For the next couple of days, that’s all Dr. Lillian made us read about! Shock, twin pregnancies, anemia in pregnancy, post-partum hemorrhage…all in a bid to try to  theoretically understand what we’d seen before our eyes.

Hospital life is really unpredictable! Seems I have so much to say about the hospital so... I'll continue in the next post which will be up tomorrow morning! #WhileIwasAway #42daysinTanzania