Sunday, June 21, 2015

Daily Life in Usa River

I realized that I have not been clear WHAT I am doing in Tanzania. I am a part of Engineering World Health: Summer Institute in Tanzania. The goal of the program is to teach students about engineering for the medical community in low resource areas and give them a hands on experience through helping local hospitals. The first month is engineering and swahili classes while the second month sends pairs of students to hospitals around Tanzania to help fix equipment.

My schedule during the week is:
      6:45 : Wake up under my mosquito net  and get ready for the day. Honestly, I have not seen that many mosquitoes around here because I am not near water but it makes me kind of feel like a princess in a canopy bed!
    7:20: Eat a good breakfast made by our host mom and drink chai (which just means tea here). There are also two other little girls, ages 8 and 10 in our host family who are so cute! They like teaching us Swahili and showing off their english.
    7:40 Head out to out classes at TCDC- either walk (15 minutes) or take a dala dala which is the Tanzanian version of a bus. It is really a mini-bus that is usually VERY crowded but costs ~ 300 tsh = 15 cents.
    8:30 Start Swahili class in TCDC!
   10:30 Chai break- they have tea, coffee, and Masala chai! It is an awesome break where the whole TCDC comes together. Then back to classes after 30 min
    12:30 Eat lunch at TCDC.
    1:30 Start Engineering class- we have lecture for 1- 1.5 hours by an awesome engineering teacher who has a lot of experience working on medical equipment in low resource areas. Then we have a hands-on lab. In the most recent lab we learned how to solder through making our own extension cord! So cool- will have to try at home as well.

    4:00 SECOND chai break !!!!!
    5:00/5:30 End classes and walk/take dala dala to our host-family's home before it gets dark. We also have homework/reading everyday that keeps us busy at night as well as interacting with our host family.
The weekends are ours for adventures! (more stories following)
---Bye!


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