Hi again! Sorry for the slightly irregular intervals between entries, but just spent a very busy week with H, Mum and Granny out safariing on horseback around Kilimanjaro. It seems slightly pointless describing it in great detail seeing as I know you're the ones most likely to read this (!) but suffice to say, it was fantastic fun, lovely to see them, beautiful landscapes, amazing amimals (particularly the giraffes I thought) and I even managed to stay on the horse (just...). I'm just hoping I'll finally see an elephant or two on the safari me and a few other volunteers are planning in a couple of weeks as they were somewhat lacking from this trip!

Apart from that, I had yet another interesting week at the hospital, although slightly traumatic as I saw someone die (from HIV and a lung infection) for the first time on Wednesday, which wasn't nice. I didn't feel so bad for the patient, who was clearly very ill, as for her mother whose screams filled the whole ward for hours afterwards. However, I also saw two successful caesarean sections (and for one mother, her first successful pregnancy out of five) so in total I've seen two more lives begin than end which makes me feel better! I've met and been taken under the wing of a lovely Tanzanian medical student who is unbelievably helpful at keeping me in the loop on ward round (though my Swahili is getting there) and it's been interesting to see how often the doctors are really up to speed on their hygeine and are very westernised. The times when I particularly feel the differences between here and home are in the wards where patients with a whole variety of infectious diseases - TB, typhoid, pcp, pneumonia, etc - with about 2 feet between them and with their relatives moving between helping different patients, with not so much as a sink on the ward! The sheets are also washed by hand round the back and dried out on the grass in front and the amount of dust which accumulates in the whole place is phenominal!

Otherwise, we've had a few more volunteers staying with us the last two weeks which has been very nice, and I finally found an English church to go to! Was very strange singing all the normal hymns accompanied by just the piano, after spending the last few weeks listening to full on African choral music every time!

Only four weeks to go now!

Peggy x