Coming home

I'm coming home.

Yesterday I cut my hair, that might seem like an odd thing to remark on, but at the time, it seemed a tangible representation of the time that has passed. I left home 53 days ago to find myself and to try to make a small impact on this world.

It is hard for me to reflect on what has changed in me, maybe after I return and the culture shock has worn off, I will find myself much the same as I left, only time will tell.

Tonight I am headed back into Karatu to spend my last couple nights before coming home.

I will be getting home tuesday afternoon. 

Joanne and I 

Ema and I 

dirty

1/2 of our present, all of our future

There is a saying that children are one third of our present and all of our future. In sub-Saharan Africa 50% of the population is below the age of 15.

Rift Valley Children's Village is, at first glance, a beautiful orphanage nestled in the hills between Oldeani and Karatu, but there are a few very special things that set RVCV apart. Once a child comes to live here, this is their home. No children are adopted, that's right, an "orphanage" that does not have any children up for adoption. This means that while volunteers come and go, once a child moves here, they can develop relationships with the staff and the other children without reservations. Once the children finish primary school they go off to a boarding school in the area, but their needs are still taken care of, they come home during semester breaks, and they remain members of this community.

A question that is hard to avoid when working in a developing country is, "what is the long term impact of what is being done?" It is easy when you are at home in the states to say, "well I saved a life, that is worth something," and I would not argue against this feeling. But overall in the past 50 years over $1 trillion dollars of aid has poured into this continent and in many respects the standard of living has gone down. The issue of foreign aid is very complicated and not a topic I will even attempt to tackle here, but I did read an interesting take on the effects of foreign aid. The book is Dead Aid by Dambisa Moyo, for those interested in a great overview of aid in Africa and elsewhere. Where was I...?? Oh ya, long term impact. What is missing in many of the programs here is staying power. What I find very cool about Rift Valley, is that even though the organization is dependent on donations for its survival the "end product," the long term impact of this program, is that Tanzania will have more educated, compassionate young people tomorrow than it would have had if this place did not exist.

Sadly, there are more children on this earth than there are parents capable and willing to take care of them. Adoption is awesome for those who are willing to take it on, and there are many kids that would benefit from a loving home. ( and you don't need to travel to Africa or Asia to find them) What is so unique about Rift Valley, is that instead of transplanting these children from their place of origin to some foreign land (e.g. America) so that they can have a "better" life, a loving, safe and stable environment has been created here, an environment with structure, support and opportunity. RVCV is giving these children and their country a brighter future.

I am currently reading Harry Potter to the standard 2 kids.

Hope everyone is doing well, Ill be home in two weeks!!!!

Someone better go see the new harry potter with when I get back!

best,

Dave

Leaving FAME

My time at FAME has been so memorable. I have learned so much about what it takes to pursue medicine in the developing world, and the personal sacrifices that must be made to do so. I am so grateful to Frank and Suzan for having me, and for the acceptance and guidance that I have received from the staff and other volunteers here at FAME. You will all be missed.

In the United States it sometimes feels like we are harassed by charities. At the checkout counter, in supermarkets, on television, on the internet, every organization seems to want money. I understand that this can be overwhelming, especially when you are a young, somewhat broke student, but however cliché it sounds even a little does make a difference.
FAME still needs funding to expand the existing Outpatient Clinic into an inpatient facility and dental service, to cover their ongoing operating expenses, and to help their medical student complete his education.
If you are interested in donating to FAME or just want to learn more about the organization check out their webpage http://www.fameafrica.org/help.html
Tomorrow I am headed up to the Rift Valley Children’s Village to volunteer for three weeks. I’ll update as soon as I can.
I hope everyone is doing well!
Best wishes,

Dave

Mobile Clinic and Hunting with the Hadza

(Here is the link to the National Geographic article featuring  The Hadza, enjoy!)
7/29/11

                  Last Monday we left the Clinic in Karatu and drove four and a half hours over dirt roads to Gidamilanga, a small government dispensary that is virtually abandoned except for the one week each month that the staff and volunteers of FAME call it home.  When we arrived we noticed that there was a big to-do in a small Detoga encampment down the road. Grant and I decided to go down the road and check it out. In Karatu, two white men walking down the street stand out, here the contrast was even more extreme. As we approached we began to draw stares from the group surrounding the barricades set up to keep lions out. We decided that we would just continue to walk past and act normal. Grant thought that maybe someone would invite us in, I though this unlikely, but as we had just about passed, a man came walking briskly out from the interior of the encampment gesturing to us. I was a little worried, but the stranger came up and after greeting us in Detoga continued the conversation in pretty good english. He invited us in and said that it was fine to look around but, eyeing my DSLR, advised that it was better if I did not take pictures. We assured him we wouldn’t and proceeded to follow him past the guards. The “party” was the end of a 10 day celebration of the coming of age(13) of the young men and women of the tribe. The celebration was culminated by singing, dancing, drinking and circumcision of the young men and women. Observing the armed men surrounding us I figured that this may not be the best time to take a stand against female circumcision so I held my tongue. Our “guide” told us that he had family matters to attend but that we should feel at home and stop looking so tense. I tried to get some video of the women dancing and singing but I am not sure if it really turned out, after all I was shooting it while the camera was lung over my shoulder. After a while of standing there “acting natural” we decided it was our time to go and we headed back up to our room.

                  The rooms were hot, and the mosquito nets had holes in them, and I often awoke in the middle of the night covered both in bites and sweat. Since I have stopped taking my malaria medication, I am hoping that none of the mosquitos were carrying the parasite.

                  For the next two days we drove 45 minutes each morning, out to Endesh, where we set up in a small school building once ran by missionaries in a dry lakebed . When we arrived there were already about eighty people there and over the course of the two days in Endesh we treated about two hundred patients. I worked mostly in the lab, analyzing just about anything that comes out of the body that smells funky, and found, partly to my dismay, that I was kinda good at it.

On Thursday we set up in Gidamilanga and saw another hundred or so patients. It was a very rewarding experience and the people were so grateful!!

Grant and I traded Knives, and steel nails for sets of bows and arrows from the Hadza. We aquirred quite an arsenal haha. Later that evening one of the Hadza took us out into the bush to hunt. I am not sure if we were hunting for anything in particular b/c he seemed content to stalk and shoot at just about any living thing in the vicinity. He made an amazing shot and hit a very small bird with a wooden arrow. We stuck close to our new friend trusting his chances against a lion or hyena attack better than ours alone, though I might add that we have been practicing and are getting much better with our wooden bows. It was an experience hunting with one of the few remaining hunter gather tribes left in West Africa. His shirt was falling apart so grant gave him his shirt and sweatshirt. While he looked a little odd clad in a button-down Patagonia shirt and a hoody he was very grateful, and I hope that they serve him well.

We are back in Karatu and I have less than a week left at FAME to finish up my projects before I head up to Oldeani for the last three weeks of my stay in Africa.

I miss home, but am very grateful for the experiences that I am having here and the relationships that I have built with the amazing people who work tirelessly in the healthcare field in Tanzania.  

Best wishes,

Dave

7/18

Today was hard. In Africa we encounter situations in medicine that would not occur in the US. Suffering tolerated and tucked away because of shame or ignorance.  There are people who fall through the cracks everywhere, but here the cracks are a lot bigger. There is simply not the medical resources and personnel to handle to needs of this country. 

It makes you appreciate the US. I think that there is an almost idealistic view of the people of the developing world. Like they have something valuable that we have lost. Life may be simpler here and there is a joy and beauty to that simplicity, but I would not envy the developing world. Because along with this simplicity comes suffering and poverty. You may be able to miss it when you glance around but it is there.

On a brighter note there are dedicated people here both Tanzanians and foreign aid workers. Last weekend we went up to visit an orphanage that was set up by an American woman in 2003. The children's village houses around 70 children. Once a child is taken in, they have a home for life. Many have gone off to secondary school but they still come back on vacations. The place was so alive! I was covered with children from the moment we arrived until they were pried off at our departure. There are many college aged volunteers who live their but they are almost all women and I think that the kids were so excited to see some guys.

7/24

I have decided to leave FAME early and spend my last three weeks in Tanzania at the children’s village.  Apart from the daily responsibilities of a volunteer, I will be working with Erica Southern, a nursing student at U W and volunteer at FAME, on a  sexual health education curriculum to institute in the local school while we are there. Check out their website http://www.tanzanianchildrensfund.org/

We are now packing for “Mobile Clinic” we drive 4 hours out on dirt roads and treat patients for a week that do not have a medical facility available to them. This should be as exciting as it is eye-opening. I have heard some horror stories that include bat bites and being forced to sleep with chickens but I am excited just the same.

Many of the people that we will be treating are members of the Hadza tribe, one of the few remaining hunter gather societies in east Africa . The Hadza were featured in a National Geographic article  in 2009. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/12/hadza/finkel-text.html

Also I wish the Mountain Top team the best of luck at the Tahoe tournament! This is one event I am pretty bummed to be missing. LAX!

I wont have internet for about a week but ill try to update soon

Kwa Heri,

Dave

Out of the Crater

7/10/11

Today  I went on a safari in the Ngorongoro Crater with Grant and Russell, two other volunteers staying working here at FAME. The crater, which is the result of some ancient volcanic activity, is filled with grasslands that host some of the larges herds of mammals on earth.  The scenery was breathtaking; my pictures don’t come close to doing it justice.

7/11/11

            First full week of work began today : )  I am working on three projects at the moment.

1. Performing interviews of patients once they have been seen to evaluate their retention of important information. (e.g. ways to prevent spreading disease to family)  My translator Joseph is a nineteen year old Tanzanian who is currently awaiting the governments decision on which university he will attend. Joseph wants to study Environmental Science, a field that is in need of young progressive thinking people. I wish him the very best. Joseph speaks very good English, and we spent some time comparing our favorite music.

2.     2. I am developing cards that will be placed inside the medication packets that have information and pictures on them depicting important information about the medication. I am trying to come up with a symbol for food, this is what came up in Google search, however I was quickly informed that a knife and fork are not great ways of depicting food when a significant portion of our patients here don’t use utensils when they eat.  Well. Back to the drawing board. The hardest thing I find about education in Africa is not the language barrier, but the cultural differences. To teach someone something it is important to first understand who you are teaching. This being said the Tanzanian people are some of the nicest people on earth and I am shocked by how welcoming the staff and people in the surrounding village are.

3.       3. I am designing, building and implementing a composting system here that will hopefully be operational within a week so that there can be usable compost before I leave Karatu in September.  They have tilled several acres of land here and are growing vegetables to be used by the staff and volunteers.

 This is FAME from an afternoon hiker. The volunteer houses are found middle, the hospital is in the back right and you can just see the Outpatient clinic back middle partially obscured by trees

California to Tanzania

7/8/11 0400

From California to Karatu

I left my father's home in Pebble Beach at 8AM Tuesday morning, met a shuttle at 830AM that transported me from Monterey to SFO. From SFO I took a Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt departing at 2PM and arriving at 1015AM. At Frankfurt I bought some chocolate for a girl who is seen at the clinic once a month for  follow-ups on a heart surgery then at 1pm boarded another Lufthansa flight bound for Addis Ababa Ethiopia. It was raining in the highlands of Ethiopia when I landed  and we were quickly shuttled through security before boarding a smaller twin prop plan that would carry me to my final destination Kilimanjaro Airport (JRO). I arrived in Tanzania at 130AM the morning of Thursday July 7th. A taxi took me from the airport 45minutes to the Impala hotel in Arusha. The next morning at 11AM after a continental breakfast that featured the best mango I have ever eaten, and lots of it, I was picked up by Moody, the driver who took me the 140Km to Karatu. At 130PM I arrived at a small art gallery cafe in Karatu where I met up with Jessica (FAME volunteer coordinator), Caroline (FAME Staff) and Grant (volunteer and my roommate for my first four weeks here).

It is winter in Tanzania which means that the people here burn their trash at nigh to keep their homes warm, a practice that Grant told me about before I went to bed last night. I woke this morning to the bitter smell of smoke. I immediately remembered what Grant had said, assured myself halfheartedly that the building was not on fire, and went back to sleep. By 3:45 I had given up on sleep and sat down at my computer to write.

7/9/11 0500

Yesterday was my first day working in the clinic here at FAME. The clinic is almost entirely staffed by Tanzanian medical personnel and I got to shadow Dr. Ringo to start out my day. The doctors and staff speak Swahili and most speak a English a little bit, much better than my Swahili. We are in a region that has a large population of Masai, a traditional tribe in the area, and few of them speak Swahili which requires a translator for them to be seen by the staff here at FAME.

I spent the majority of my day reading reports on Tanzania health policy and education in a hope to better understand the people, culture and the country before I begin to formulate a curriculum. One problem that Jessica hopes to address is the issue with staff patient communication and in particular the patient's retention of critical information (e.g. how to take medication, how to prevent spreading disease, etc.). Starting on Monday I am going to be performing interviews of patients after they have been treated at FAME. The hope is to conduct 100 patient interviews which can later be repeated as an evaluation tool to determine the effectiveness of the new education and changes that we hope to implement. 

It is different here but I am settling in and am confident that I will come to love it here, maybe to much. I will try and update soon!

Kwa Heri,

Dave

Taking a leap College Graduation

This past Saturday I graduated from UCSB with a BS in Biology.

It is bittersweet 

There was a point in my time here where I felt that I could not wait for the day that I would be able to leave this place 

That has changed.

In my last year in Santa Barbara I have found so many reasons not to leave and I feel that even though my relationship with this place will never be the same as it has been this past 4 years I am confident that I will be back here someday.

I have never been satisfied with the status quo, and often find that I choose the unexpected over the safe. For better or worse this aspect of my nature is becoming more prominent. 

I have another 12 hours on my lease. I will be headed home tomorrow

Going to take my amazing aunt out to buy groceries and get some rest.

I may be headed up to the Gulf Islands in British Colombia for some salmon fishing at the end  of the week!!!

 

Hope you are all safe and happy,

Dave

Big Sur Sailing Trip

Reese Hodges and myself sailing Pazzo off Big Sur

So I was just finishing up my last couple weeks of school, studying for the approaching MCAT when I realized that I have not had an adventure in a while. The sun was out but the wind was howling and like most days that meet this description I thought to myself, I wish I were sailing. This time, I did something about it.

Sixteen hours later, fellow People of the Sea crewmen Reese Hodges and myself were piled in a car along with photographer Kellock Irvin, headed up to Monterey.

Fire in San Ardo that we stopped at on the drive

We had a lovely dinner at my family's house (the Nurcanyans) and shared some great stories before heading back to my house to prepare for the trip the next day.

We spent a few hours that night going over charts and familierizing ourselves with the GPS equipment that we would be using.

Reese and I going over the course

The next morning we went and purchased food water and extra fuel. 

We emailed out our float plan then left the harbor around 12:45 and headed south

 Reese at the helm

Kellock navigating 

As the day came to a close the wind decided to disobey the weather report as it often does and shut off. 

W/o the anticipated 25kt breeze our dreams of making it to SB in a reasonable time frame were dashed and we decided to turn around.

 We motored into the night and arrived at Stillwater cove at 0300
and after a tricky entry into the cove with reese on the bow with a dive light
I finally got to get some rest

Overall it was a great trip!

Special thanks to the Nurcanyans (Sima, Herman, Ara, Jackie, Nicholas and Natalie), George (Stillwater Harbor master) and  Darla Barsoain 

People of the Sea

Next October I will be leaving on a ~10 month sailing trip to make a documentary looking at coastal and island communities of the pacific and how they have changed because of the changing world and the changing status of the ocean. We will also be getting tons of awesome footage along the way of us surfing, spearfishing, fishing, sailing, diving, rock climbing etc.
I am doing the trip with three other recent university grads.
We have recently partnered with EENG (environmental education for the next generation), who has pledge to help us bring environmental education into elementary school classrooms along our journey.
Our web page is up and running, it has a few bugs but check it out!!!!!
www.peopleofthesea.org

FAME in Tanzania

I am leaving for Karatu, Tanzania on July 5th 2011 and will be in Tanzania and traveling in east Africa until september 9th.

I will be volunteering with FAME Africa http://www.fameafrica.org/

I will be volunteering as a medical intern and doing HIV/AIDS education for six weeks.

I have left three weeks at the end of my trip, in which I hope to travel and if everything works out summit Kilimanjaro! : )

I have gotten all my vaccinations, the typhoid pills gave me a little bit of trouble but I am through that now and all I need to do medically is get malaria medication and a few prescriptions for antibiotics just in case I get an infection.

People of th Sea

My roommates and I  are planning a sailing trip around the pacific to observe and document how a wide variety of communities are facing and interacting with today’s changing world. 
LIKE US on Facebook!!!!
http://www.facebook.com/pages/People-of-the-Sea/160188917371812