Leaving for Arusha

The past two days have been quite eventful! Yesterday, we got our final hospital briefings, making me even more excited about heading out. It is really sad moving out of my host family’s house now that I’m comfortable and settled in but the good news is that I will be closer to my hospital. I’m now going to be living in a house with 7 other EWH members, where we are on our own to buy our own food and cook! I am lucky in that I will be about a 20 minute walk from my house to the hospital where others have to take shuttles or dala dala rides to get to theirs. It will definitely be a big change going from living with a Tanzanian family to living on our own with just EWH members. This will be a great resource though since we will all be able to discuss what problems and equipment we’re working on in each of our hospitals. I have to start brainstorming on what I’d like to do my secondary project on in the hospital. I’m hoping to do something with the pediatric ward just so I can be around the kids more :) Speaking of which, today I FINALLY made it over to Cradle of Love baby orphanage to take a tour and visit with the babies. I had been meaning to do so ever since I got here and, for once, we got out of lecture early today so Aubrey and I headed over there. I had looked at the Cradle of Love website prior to coming to Tanzania and knew that I had to go eventually (google it and check it out!). I have never been around that many little babies, it was crazy! They currently have 39 kids ranging from newborns to four years old. Aubrey and I were just expecting to get a tour around but ended up helping out with feeding the kids chakula cha jioni (dinner) which happened to be the porridge I’ve been missing that I used to eat in Kenya almost every morning! I will definitely be spending some of my free weekends there this month- that is for sure. Dinner tonight was bittersweet knowing it was our last one while living in the house, mama gave an extra long Kiswahili blessing on our food. After, Ash and I gave our presents from home which was lots of fun. I blindly had to choose what to bring since they didn’t tell us what our host family would be like, but it worked out perfectly! I brought 3 pairs of earrings, bracelets, a world map puzzle, crayons, a soccer jersey, tea, and of course… Mardi Gras beads (NOLA represent!). The family loved it all and I was so happy it worked out so well :D Tomorrow should be extra exciting as we get dropped off at our new house and introduce ourselves at the hospital.