“What the hell, Milo.” After spending the past year on campus at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, I had forgotten the golden rule while living in the Wendt residence: always shut the door behind you. My once packed suitcase now lies in a pile of its own   newly wrinkled guts after Milo, the family English Springer Spaniel, decided to retrieve the sneakers nestled at the bottom of hours of meticulous organization. With only two days before I leave for Ecuador I am back to square one, and, to make [...]

Next to our school there is an orphanage called the Cradle of Love that we pass every day on the way to school. Yesterday after class we stopped in to see if they needed any help and to check it out. Everyone was very welcoming so we went in the back and hung out with the babies for a few hours. All of the babies were under 2 years old or so and there was at least 40 of them. I only saw about 4 staff members so that were [...]

This weekend was my first weekend with the family. It was interesting to say the least. Friday night we were exhausted so we just played with the boys and had dinner. They eat dinner a lot later here. Normal time for dinner is around 8:30 PM. Lunch is normally around 1 PM and breakfast is around 8 AM. There is never any snacking in between meals. I think I am finally used to the eating schedule, although at first I was ALWAYS hungry. The food is really good but I [...]

Today we visited St. Thomas Health Center in Arusha town. It is a private health center so it is a little bit nicer than public health centers. There is no insurance in Tanzania, so for health you just pay after you receive a service. The center that we were at specialized in gynecology. We got a tour of the center and than observed some some nurses giving vaccines to newborns and some laboratory work.The owner of this health center, Dr. Msuya is our instructor for the medicine portion of our [...]

Yesterday (Wednesday) our group went to Arusha National Park. It was a lot of fun but the roads were very very bumpy. We were gone all day. We saw many animals—zebras, giraffes, cape buffalo, baboon, columbus monkeys, water bucks, water buffalo, warthog, dig-digs, flamingos, and bush bucks. We did not see any lions or elephants on this trip but we will when we go to the Serengeti. Our driver was very knowledgeable about the area as he use to be a tour guide. When we returned from the National Park [...]

Today we had our visit to St. Thomas hospital to visit our instructor Dr. Msuya and to see where he practices. St. Thomas hospital is a privately owned hospital in Arusha and they see approximately 80-100 patients a day. When we arrived to the hospital at 10:00 am, the waiting room was already packed full of patients waiting to see Dr. Msuya. He is an OB/GYN and serves a good majority of the pregnant women in Arusha. We were given a tour of the facilites by one of the workers [...]

Last night was our first night of home stays after spending three nights in TCDC. We were very nervous about meeting our host families at the college for tea and coffee before moving to the houses. My Baba (father) is James Tikai and he is the head of security at the college. He speaks English very well and is so nice and happy to have us here. My Mama is Evelyn but we can call her Mama Victor or Mama Eve. She does not speak much English but we seem [...]

After over 16 hours of airtime, I have finally made it to Tanzania!  I am so excited to spend the next 6 weeks here. For the next 3 nights we will be staying at our school, MS-TCDC for orientation. When we arrived in Tanzania we boarded off of the plane down stairs right onto the runway (like you see in the movies). We then drove 30 minutes to MS-TCDC.  I didn’t get to see much of the school tonight because it was dark by the time we got here. We had [...]

So I’ve finally been able to write in my blog (Google cancelled my account because apparently trying to access my account in Tanzania is suspicious). Today is my second full day at MS-TCDC that is the college where we will be taking classes. The flights to Tanzania were pretty brutal, but they went by faster than I thought. We arrived in Tanzania at 8:30 p.m. their time and were driven to the college by our coordinator Steven Ndosi. On Monday we had our first day of orientation where we heard [...]

I can’t believe it’s less than 24 hours and I will be on a plane to Amsterdam. After a four hour layover in Amsterdam I will be on my way to Tanzania. People keep asking me if I am nervous about going, but to be honest I don’t even know what to expect. I’ve never even left the country, so I can’t imagine what it will be like to live in Tanzania. Thankfully I’ve gotten a lot of help from my coworkers that have either lived in or traveled to [...]

Asalaam Maleekum! I know I promised to post about ataaya in greater detail, but Guediawaye is on my mind and perhaps a little more important, so here we go. Last week I went on a field trip with my Environment and Agriculture class to Guediawaye, a suburb northeast of Dakar. Suburb here does not have the same connotation as it does in the Twin Cities. In general, the suburbs are the less well-developed areas where too many people live in less-than-sufficient conditions; Guediawaye, unfortunately, is a strong example of this. The focus [...]

I figured I would update everyone on whats going on in life right now, it seems like its been awhile! I am still at my internship in Otavalo in the Hospital, I have been observing doctors and nurses in Emergency, Surgery, Gynecology, and the Birthing Center and I will be going to Internal Medicine and Pediatrics in the next 2 weeks then I head back to Quito for a week then off to Bolivia! Time is sure flying by! This week was crazy, a friend and I did tons of [...]

So as I type this I’m literally surrounded by cute but screaming watoto (children) at the school I’m interning at for the next 5 weeks. They’ve never seen a computer before, they’re fascinated. I’ve actually been here for about 1.5 weeks, and a lot has happened, so I’ll try to make this brief (and organized!) Sunday: Arrived at hut compound, met family, and realized I don’t have a pillow or a door.  Monday: Host sister (also boss), took me all over town to her school, the clinic I work at on [...]

So I just finished my first week at my internship at el Hospital San Luis de Otavalo, which is like 2 hours north of Quito. I live with a different family here, they are really cool though and have had tons of international students so they know the drill. I have a host mom (Alba), a host brother who’s 9 (Andres), and a host sister who’s 12 (Domenica), and my host dad works during the week so I haven’t met him quite yet, but from what I have heard he [...]

This past weekend I went to Banos! It was so much fun, and everyone has been asking me what we did in Banos… the answer EVERYTHING! We got there on Friday night and ate some great Filet Mignon and then on Saturday we walked around the city, took a tour of the waterfalls in an open-aired party bus then hiked up and down a mountain to see the waterfalls, had a 2 hour massage and facial for only $35!, rented a go-cart, drove that to the hot springs, then had [...]