Karibu - from Shirati
Karibu. Karibu tena.
Welcome. Welcome again to Shirati on the shores of Lake Victoria…a land of welcoming people, happy smiling children, warm breezes, spectacular sunsets and delicious tilapia and fresh pineapple… and yes a land of great poverty, meager incomes, a lack of a constant source of clean water and electricity, poor healthcare and education.
Welcome to a place that tugs at your heart strings, a place where you want to share a bit of your time, your talents, your wealth, your knowledge and a place where you will be blessed, humbled and grateful for the opportunity of having experienced it.
Want to step outside of your box, explore new horizons, live in “another world” for a short time. You can do this by going to Shirati, Tanzania as part of CACHA’s medical or infrastructure teams.
A medical team goes for 2 weeks. The team visits a new village every day and sees from 300-600 patients a day. The team is composed of doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians and logistics people, a combination of Canadians, local staff from Shirati Hospital and local CACHA staff who work together to provide free healthcare to the patients who arrive at the clinic every day.
A typical day
We get up early, have breakfast at 7:00, ( chapattis or eggs and bread, sometimes fruit-mango, papaya, watermelon or bananas) load all our bins of supplies and chairs on top of the vehicles , load our packed lunches and filtered water and then pile into 3 vehicles like sardines (seriously), ready to travel up to an hour on narrow and incredibly bumpy roads to remote villages, sharing the road with people on foot, on bikes or motorcycles and with goats, cattle and donkeys. Now that’s an experience you won’t want to miss!! You have the rare opportunity of watching daily life unfolding in this quaint setting as you pass by. The scenery is spectacular and it's always a great adventure with lots of laughing and sharing of stories. When we arrive at a school or outpatient clinic, we set up triage and rooms with chairs and tables for medical, gynae, testing and pharmacy. We give out numbers to the hundreds of waiting patients in a variety of ways, some less chaotic than others, depending on the crowds, and try to line them up according to numbers. Our locals do the registration and triage, since they speak Swahili more fluently and we pair local doctors and nurses with Canadian staff so they learn from each other and can translate for us as well. The logistics team weighs the patients, directs them to the proper rooms until they have seen doctors, been tested and received free medication. You can see up to 5,000 patients in a 2 week period depending on the size of your team and its resources. Some patients are sent to Shirati Hospital where a Canadian doctor works with local surgeons to do surgery every day.
At the end of the day, we pack up and load the bins, and again squeeze into the vehicles, sometimes bringing patients back with us to the hospital. We drive back with mixed emotions- exhausted, yet energized by the satisfaction of the work we accomplished, but then again saddened by the overwhelming need and poverty we couldn’t address. On arrival back at the hospital, we unpack and head for the showers. After supper (a variety of food- rice, potatoes, beans, sukuma wiki ( cooked greens- a staple, ) fresh fish (tilapia), beef, chicken, cooked plantain, spaghetti, fruit and buns- we are well fed) we debrief the events of the day to fix problems for the next day, and then count and package pills for the next day-which is actually kind of a fun time as we share stories of the day and sometimes even have music playing in the background. All patients get Tylenol and worm medicine so we can package those ahead of time and have them ready to be given out.
So it’s an amazing experience and at the end of the 2 weeks you feel fortunate to have been able to be a part of it all. Our next medical mission to Shirati will be October 28 - November 13, 2011.
Our infrastructure team of 4-7 people usually runs for 3 or more weeks and it’s also a very rewarding experience!! We have a variety of projects- installing solar lights in the hospital, doing electrical and maintenance work, including installing energy saving light bulbs which has saved the hospital around $3,000.00 in a year, fixing computers and teaching computer classes which is an ongoing need, teaching English to hospital and church staff, secondary students and teachers, offering training in the finance department, doing administrative work such as doing a strategic plan, writing proposals and trying to find a solution to their water problems. Solar has been put into the operating room, outpatients, lab, pharmacy, front entrance, outside walkways in addition to all the wards that got solar lights last year...so it's been an incredible gift to the hospital and it makes such a difference with all the electricity outages they have. One night we walked over to the hospital when the power was off and they were doing some minor surgery by solar light!! Another night they were delivering a baby!! Teaching English to students and adults who are very keen to learn English is also very rewarding. I had adults who biked 2 hours to come to my English class- now that’s dedication. As you teach your students, you also learn more about them and sometimes it can be overwhelming to realize how much poverty affects their lives. They would love to have a teacher come for an entire year. Since we take a small team, we become a close knit group, sharing many happy times together in our work and play. Electricians, plumbers, planners, teachers, carpenters, nurses, computer and finance specialists, and handymen are all welcome. Our next infrastructure team will go to Shirati in October, 2011.
On the week-ends, you can hike up Oboke Hill with the local children, walk to Lake Victoria, visit Sota, an interesting fishing village and even go out on a fishing boat, wander around a lively market, take in a church service with the lively choirs, even take a week-end safari to the Serengeti or just relax with fellow volunteers and local friends. The weather is very pleasant in the fall and there is little rain since it is not the rainy season.
After the mission, you can take an incredible safari in the Serengeti, climb the breathtaking Mt. Kilimanjaro, visit quaint Zanzibar or go home as time and resources permit.
We would love to have you join either of our teams and have an experience of a lifetime. If you are interested in joining one of our teams or becoming a medical team lead, please contact CACHA and let us know as well.
You can't help the whole world, but you can help one child, one family, one school, one hospital, one village and that makes it all worthwhile. Thank you CACHA for making this experience possible.
Lloyd and Erla Koch
- Array