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Diary - Thursday, August 23, 2007It's a beautiful morning here in Jambiani and we are really appreciating the sun as we have had several days of wet and windy weather, not that usual for this time of the year. Of course the gardens are happy and the dust around the school work site has been subdued so we aren't complaining. First of all, I'd like to introduce Dr Michelle Dyrholm, a Chiropractor from the Calgary area and her partner, Dr Michael Chong, an Anesthesiologist who practises at Foothills Hospital. Michelle and Michael have been with us since the beginning of the month and we have really enjoyed their company, their enthusiasm and their cooking too! Michael has taken over Pat's wound care patients which is a good thing as she has been “over the top” busy with the school project and all that’s associated with that and Michelle has been taking great care of our patients in the Centre. For my part, I’ve been taking this time to catch up with some general maintenance that has been long overdue. Here are a few words from Michael and Michelle. Greetings from Jambiani!
We flew into Zanzibar at the beginning of August and have been well taken care of by Alastair and Pat since we arrived. They live on a beautiful stretch of beach, overlooking an unbelievably clear blue ocean. Truly a taste of paradise!! We got to work straight away in the centre, and we have had a great time sharing this clinical time together. The practice experience here has been very interesting as we have been fortunate to see so many individuals with complaints that we would never get to deal with back home. For example, we have worked with a man whose hip joint was completely destroyed by tuberculosis, a baby still awaiting bilateral club feet repair, lots of fractures and musculoskeletal injuries, a child with a temperature of 41 degrees, stingray wounds with infection, deep sea urchin wounds, and much more. One of the most interesting things we have encountered is the “local” way of dealing with bodily ailments. For example, some treatments include a sort of cutting or bloodletting over the area of pain. I have had several patients come in with numerous little scars over their SI or low back area subsequent to this form of treatment. Also, patient education related to health care is almost non-existent, and I have found that spending a little bit of time to give an explanation or give advice is very well received. It’s been wonderful working together as a team, being able to draw on each others expertise. I’ve really appreciated that Michael was able to deal with all the patients that had medical complications. I know it was quite a challenge for him to successfully remove a sea urchin spine that was embedded deep within a patient’s foot, and interesting to see a foot abscess that developed secondary to a stingray wound. We’ve had some other great opportunities while we have been here. One was to work with Habitat for Humanity for a day in association with the Rotary club of Zanzibar. We were truly out in an isolated part of this island, in a very remote village to help build quite simple homes out of cement blocks. It was great to see everyone come together to help out and also to see how indigenous people live here. The homes we worked on had two small bedrooms and a common area. There was no kitchen or furniture, simply a mat on the floor to lie on and a hole in the ground for the bathroom outside the home. It was wonderful to see people from all over the world volunteering there in order to help these people, all for the cause of humanitarian relief. We also, in conjunction with the Rotary Club, went into a school in Stonetown where they were donating gardening supplies. It was so interesting to see the facilities there and to watch a Swahili presentation of music and drama. The little boy’s voice was absolutely amazing! Michael had the privilege of going into the Stonetown hospital and got a small tour from the staff. He also was able to spend some time in the operating room to observe a few procedures. It was quite an eye opening experience for him and he certainly appreciated their need for additional medicines and equipment. Overall, we realize just how privileged we are to be able to obtain the quality of heath care that we have in Canada. On a closing note, it has been such a wonderful experience here to work alongside the only man we have ever met who has taught Eskimos how to assemble and use above ground swimming pools in northern Canada and to listen to the sound of his original guitar music! It truly is a wonderful experience to volunteer your time here and get to give back a fraction of what you receive from the people we work with. Pat and Alastair, we thank you both so much for your hospitality and for opening up your home to us! Asante Sana! That was very nice you two!!! Thanks!!! Pat and I as well would like to take this opportunity to thank you so much for taking this time in your life to help. We have really enjoyed getting to meet you and to share some time together. Your most positive and upbeat energy has affected us all and we can only look forward to the day when our paths cross again. Asante sana na keribu tena!!! Love from all of us in the “Jam”. We are still fully engaged with the finishing work in the school and the lessons in patience are arriving daily. We have had to hire new painters as our original tradesmen seemed to have great difficulty understanding the type of finish we are looking for. This has set back our schedule by a couple of weeks but I guess for Africa this isn’t too bad. We also had to completely remove a concrete surface on the second floor as the mix was not strong enough to secure joists for the wood floor we are installing. Life goes on but it can be a tad frustrating at times. I’m resigned to the fact that the work will get done at some point in the not too distant future. Pat has just cut off the applications for the school programs. In addition to the two year diploma course in Tourism training there will also be a series of short courses that will run for six weeks. Not surprisingly, we were overwhelmed with students wanting to enroll and Pat just informed me that she has had over 320 students apply! She can only take a maximum of 10 to 12 students for the two year program so I’m sure her selection process is going to be challenging. We will feature the inaugural class in another update and of course a new aspect of our regular updates will include the school activities as well. This will provide a nice addition for those of you who follow our projects and will be of particular interest to the teachers out there who might be interested in volunteering some time here at a future date. We have no volunteers scheduled for September as we will be taking this time to prepare for our move over to the school premises but beginning in October we have an incredible lineup of practitioners coming this way to offer a variety of health care disciplines to the good folks here on Zanzibar. We will keep you posted as usual. All is well here. We continue to feel positive and motivated and we are quite excited about the prospects of finally finishing the school building and introducing the Jambiani Tourism Training Institute (JTTI) to Zanzibar and indeed, the world. It’s all good!! Much love to you all and we are in touch!!
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It’s
amazing that we are almost through with our time here already!
It really has been a wonderful experience!
Here’s
Michael providing some much needed wound care to a young
boy who had an accident with a bicycle.
