Wow, I've been here for 4 weeks exactly -- part deux!

Please tell me you've all seen Hot Shots -- if I've seen it, it's pretty pitiful if you've not.

So, the epic entry continues...

Well, last week had some interesting adventures -- probably the best is my ongoing internet saga. Every week my newfound buddy at Vodacom kept telling me my wireless modem was coming 'next week.' Last week, we'd had enough of the runaround and Jeff and I went down to Voda to get the story. "100%," they said, "100% it will be here Monday." Of course, they thought I brought male reinforcement so the entire time we were discussing my modem woes, Jeff and the Voda guy were talking. Somehow, Jeff's gets DHL'ed to him within 2 days.... but Monday rolls around for me, and miracle of miracles, the modems arrive. 100% (our new joke, because nothing here is ever 100%!!!!) Five new modems, which they promptly sell to 5 other customers even though they were to save one for me. Of course, they texted me the news and offered to just save one for me next time, but I convinced them to drive one over from Arusha -- only 90 minutes away, but still! And, get this, they even gave me a 30,000 shilling discount!! (that's $20 off the original $80!) Buuuuut, it was too good to be true, and though I sit at this very moment longingly looking at my modem, it doesn't work. 100%, yeah right! So my adventure will continue with another visit to Vodacom this week. If I skype you, you'll know it's working :)

The only other event worth talking about was definitely not an adventure for any party involved. I watched a 20 year old girl suffer and die. She was pregnant, near term, and sick -- a chest x-ray showed what was likely to be TB, but because of varying opinions, she wasn't started on those medications right away. As she became sicker -- she stopped eating, was occasionally have seizures, had bloodwork showing worsening liver function -- her baby died, but she only continued to worsen. The morning I saw her, she was completely out of it, breathing very raspily and vomiting up her stomach contents. Her reflexes suggested her brain was severely malfunctioning. Probably the most disturbing sight was that her sclera (the whites of the eyes), which had turned yellow and were extruded out of her closed eyelids. None of the senior physicians, both American and Tanzanian, had ever heard or seen anything like that. So many things about this shocked and saddened me -- that the suction machine to prevent her from aspirating is a foot-cranked machine that exerts about a half of the vacuum pressure you exert when drinking from a straw, that an immediate ('stat') transfer to the ICU here takes about 30 minutes (at least), that there is only 1 ventilator for the entire ICU, so the patient who needs it most and has the greatest change to survive gets it, that the culture of medicine here isn't always to tell the family what is happening. In essence, we transferred her knowing she would die soon but hoping she would get better care. With so severe an illness despite being in a young patient, it's really hard to say whether it was fortunate or unfortunate she passed away.

Some milestones in the first month....

--I confidently use squatting toilets!! Even though I too did not think it possible, you don't fall in! And, if it's just a little more gross than I'd like, I've even developed the skill, and muscle, to be in my tippy-toes while squatting. Too much information, I know, but seriously, it's always an adventure!! Oh, and I think I'll buy stock in purell when I return :)

--I've watched more TV shows, movies, and Michael Jackson music videos here than I ever do in the U.S. -- Scrubs, How I Met Your Mother, Harry Potter, The Hangover, Notting Hill... How I Met Your Mother is hilarious -- I fell asleep this past weekend watching my computer, only to wake up at 3am with my face totally on my computer and a nice geometric square pattern on my cheek :)

--I save every last piece of plastic, paper, food possible. It seems so insignificant, and definitely I was not wasteful in the U.S.--but after having been here for even just one month, I know that I'll never use plastic silverware just once and toss it, that I'll re-use every single ziplock bag til it falls apart, and that I'll question how much I really 'neeeeeed' such-and-such. I told my dad today, a lifetime of lectures on need vs. want do nothing to impress a mind in comparison to living here, or surely any developing country. I do think there is a difference between living and visiting, though -- to live here, you have to want to learn how things work, be flexible, and try to get things done the Tanzania way. I want to integrate into the system and obviously I'm flexible, but still, it's frustrating when things don't happen the way you want them to.

--Thanks to Brandi, I can make pizzas, pasta sauce, eggplant parmesan, chili, even tortillas, not to mention dessert!! Life is good :)