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Diary - Tuesday, January 13, 2004Jambo from Jambiani once again and on behalf of all of us here at the Center I hope all of you who take the time to read these updates are doing well and are having a wonderful entry into 2004. Things have been very busy over the last few days and we are happy to report that all is continuing to progress smoothly here. Of course we were all sorry to see Doctor Sheel leave and I'm certain he has made some pretty significant impacts in the lives of more than a few individuals here. Thanks so much Sheel for the great energy, the music and of course we can't forget the model aeroplane. :-) Hope your journey home went as smoothly as possible, that you had a wonderful reunion with your family and we look forward to welcoming you again one day.Of course the latest hot off the press news is that Dr. Jabeen (Beeny) Jussa and Alva Nola have arrived safe and sound after a very long journey from Canada. They have now been with us for three days and they are settling in with what seems to be great ease. Alva has already given a few Breema sessions and Jabeen was in charge in the clinic today and had a very busy first day. I must say the increased presence of female energy has been quite palpable and I feel we are in for a very dynamic couple of months here. Very fortunate those patients who will find their way to us while Jabeen and Alva are working. Tomorrow we are heading into town to meet with the Medical Superintendent at Mnazi Moja Hospital. We have arranged a tour through Dr. Omari Shauri, the Principle Secretary of Health and besides the four of us we will also be travelling with Dr. Pat Preece and his wife Janie. We have known Pat and Janie for over a year now. Pat is a retired General Practitioner from the UK and he, like us, has become acutely aware of the incredible need for improved Health Care here on Zanzibar. With that in mind, Pat and Janie have come here on a fact finding mission with the intent of hoping to facilitate the establishment of a medical treatment facility at the Jambiani Wellness Center. We feel this is a wonderful idea and are totally supportive of this possibility. Truly a Yin Yang opportunity here as we teach people how to prevent sickness and Pat and his team potentially save lives until people are well enough to heal themselves. Of course this will take a bit of time to implement but the end result could be incredible. Just recently one of our staff members had a sister die secondary to delivering a child. I'm sure had she access to better medical attention she would have survived. Pat and Janie are very enthusiastic about the potential to bring improved medical expertise here and we will do everything in our power to help them achieve this goal. We will definitely keep you posted as to developments in this area. It looks like we will be finally having our meeting with the Ministry of Health and the Regional Commissioner to discuss a number of issues regarding our work here. We have learned to be very patient with these sorts of things and to go with the flow so to speak. Everything seems to somehow get done in the end. This meeting is tentatively scheduled for sometime shortly after the 16th of this month. We'll keep you informed. We will be having a strategy meeting with our interpreter, Pandu Chinja shortly to see how best Alva's Breema work can be incorporated into the clinic routine. I'm sure her clients will love the experience and it should make Jabeen and my work much easier too. The weather now is predictably hot however we continue to be naturally air conditioned by the sea breezes so this heat is quite tolerable. In fact the other evening, Jabeen and Alva were wondering, as we were heading out to dinner at the Blue Oyster, whether it was going to get any cooler as they were thinking about bringing along long sleeve tops. Quite amazing considering how close we are to the equator. Another wonderful bit of news from here is that Kristi Falconer's project to send deaf and hard of hearing students to school in Stonetown to learn sign language has been started thanks to a lot of dedicated effort by Pat. From all reports, the children were delighted and they are really looking forward to continuing with their studies. Kristi raised the necessary funds back in Canada to implement this program so we'll also keep you up to date with how this is progressing. Truly wonderful though. Also, Pat has started teaching English two times per week. She presently has about 12 to 15 students so she is also very excited about the interest shown so far. We continue to get several inquiries per week from interested practitioners so we are absolutely thrilled by this. The Canadian Chiropractor Journal is doing a feature article on the project this month so we are expecting a lot of feedback from that as well so things are looking good!!!! Anyhow folks, I've got some other jobs at hand so it's time to finish off here now. In our next update, expect to hear from Alva and Jabeen about their initial experiences and we will also be filling you on on the results of our visit to the hospital and our expected meetings with government officials. Til then, we send our love to you all and we wish nothing but the best for you as you go about doing what you do best. Enjoy life and be well. Much love, Ali Baba, Pat, Jabeen and Alva  |