That Day

6:30

Monday morning last week I awoke, fresh and ready to conquer the day. Since Dinah was in South Africa to renew her visa, I have the day off from language classes. I have a daunting 'To Do' list to begin hacking away at. Some of these, such as emails and taxes, had been put off for far too long. Optimistic that I could check off a fair amount, I go about getting ready for the day and then heading out to the SIL office.

8:10

Settling down into my chair I let out a sigh, "Ahhhh, finally. Aircon and some quite all to myself." Just perfect. Well, First things first. My desktop had taken the appearance of a delicious steak covered in flies and I can hardly even tell what picture lays underneath. Much better.

Next, taxes or email? Email wins out. Besides, I have been procrastinating on getting taxes together for so long that I might as well continue.  

8:55

And thus proceeds the morning…until I receive a call from Carmen that she is planning on going grocery shopping. This is not that big a deal except for a minor detail - Dinah is gone. And if I want Carmen to survive the onslaught of four children while shopping I must go along. Shoppers is the easiest place to go and has most of what we will need.

9:20
So there I was, sticky holding two little heaters (the twins) while trying to keep an eye on the boys as they play. I adjust the girls in my arms and, Jason, spotting his opportunity, darts off across the parking lot and runs into the grocery store. In the haste of my pursuit, I accidentally leave one of the girl's blankets where I was sitting. (gratefully returned to us a few days later by a store staff who had seen me with it!)

10:05
Next stop, the butcher. Before long, I find myself standing there, trying to explain to a girl that I want a whole piece of meat. You see, the meat here is very tough and if I cut up the meat, taking care to remove all the tendons, chewing is significantly simplified. No, I do not want it cubed or sliced. She did not know any English and I know just as much Swahili. How many gestures can you make trying to explain you want your two kilos in one whole piece? I try some Swahili, "Hapana katikati" or No cut. I can remember the word for half - nusu. But that is no help as she just thought I wanted it in 'half'. Finally, after it seems like five minutes of going back and forth she says the magic word, "Zima". Now I remember, Zima means whole, and in a minute I am walking out with my meat in one whole piece!

10:38

On our way back, I receive a message from our language helper. Apparently, it actually had not been communicated that we were not meeting on Monday. So he had come all the way from his place and was patiently waiting for us at the office. He strikes up a compromise and asks if he can come to our place to visit for a while. 

11:15

Back at our house I pull Jason out of the car and notice that his skin is very hot. For the past 10 days his fever has been coming and going. Warioba, our language helper, is at the gate so I let him in and get some chai brewing on the stove. Tanzanians are wonderful people and they highly value relationships. 

In the middle of trying to visit, Carmen goes to the back room and checks on Jason's fever. 104 - it is going up quickly. We give him some fever reducer and cover the first base by poking his finger for a malaria test. Unfortunately, our guest is momentarily left in the living area, likely wondering why our child is screaming bloody murder in the room next door. 

12:35
Warioba is meeting someone at the office, which is just a few minutes walk down the road, and I agree to join him as I need to gather my computer and things which I had brought earlier that morning. On my way back to our place from the office, I ask some friends for recommendations for a clinic to take Jason to.

Our neighbours agreed to take Silas and Tivoli while we run Jason to the clinic. Arriving at the clinic, we are notified that the paediatrician was already booked for the whole day. Fortunately, we had some connections and were able to get in at the end of the day.

The ironic part is that I had actually brought the computer thinking I could get some work done while we waited for the doctor. It quickly became obvious to me that my head was still back in the States, where this would have been completely reasonable. However, in a crowded room full of parents and sick Tanzanian kids, it became obvious that pulling out the computer was not an option. 

2:35

For those of you who have two-year-olds, you are probably familiar with the pee pee dance. This dance has a particular rhythm, which God has designed as a warning mechanism for parents. When the intensity increases to a point, the grand finale is near; too near. We were pretty close this grand finale with Jason, and so, with matched intensity, I pick him up and quickly walk outside. No bathroom in sight. Like most men, I do not usually revert to asking for directions, but past experience has taught me hard lessons. I go up the first lady and say, "Habari yako? Choo iko wapi?" Which essentially means, "How are you? Where is the toilet?" She responds, with a lot of unknown Swahili, and ends with -pili. Perfect, I now know that the bathroom is on the third floor. 

Who knew that going pee could be such an ordeal? We finally make it to the bathroom, and I must say, the people here are so great to children. The man in front of us gave up his place in line when he saw that Jason needed to go.

3:55

We finally get to see the doctor.

4:10
Sent upstairs to get Malaria bloodwork done. It came back negative which was a relief.

4:25
We have a 30-minute wait for blood work and decide to run off to the police station to get a sticker. You see, all the vehicles here are required to have a lot of stickers which regularly expire. If you do not have all your stickers you may have to pay a fine of 30,000 tzs ($13.50) for a 3,000 tzs ($1.50) sticker. This happened to me a few day earlier, as I did not actually have the bottom sticker.

After running around trying to find out which building had the sticker I find out they are out. I am then kindly directed to another police station... this could take a while. We decide to backtrack to the hospital to get the lab results.

5:05
I have discovered that in Dar Es Salaam there are many reasons for bad traffic. One of the more common ones is a car is broken down in the middle of the road. Sitting in traffic for long periods gives one time to think. And when you finally reach the end of traffic it's just another broken down vehicle in the middle of the road.

As Dinah was arriving at 6:00, we decided to go straight to the airport from the hospital as we do not have time to go back home to drop Carmen and Jason off at the house. 

8:10
The short end of the story is that it took us over three hours to go the 22km (14 miles) to the airport. That's just over 4 mph - except it was a lot of sitting in traffic with the car turned off.

Dinah, who had arrived two hours before waited patiently wondering if we had forgotten her as her cell phone had died and she was unable to contact us.

9:40
Finally, back home. 

It is incredible how much can happen in one day. However, it would seem when I look back I can't figure out what I actually accomplished...I guess that is what it is like to figure out how to live in another country.

So I thought I would make a blog post out of it. At least then I can feel like I accomplished something that day. And so I sat down to write it. Then the computer died…

So here I am again, a WHOLE week later getting around to writing about a crazy day that seems to repeat itself in various forms at least once or twice a week!