Our most social week yet and a whole new meaning to ants in your pants...

Sorry I’ve been slacking on the posting...I get a little computer lazy sometimes and then the internet breaks and there is no way to post. After I last posted, Melissa and I opened our Valentine’s Day packages which Mom had sent along with one of the Americans who had visited a few weeks ago. Not only did we have the giant bar of Cadbury we bought but we also had m&ms and Cheez-its (for me...and crushed but that didn’t matter...I just ate them with a spoon) and zebra cakes for Melissa. At work, we were mainly focused on our malaria project, which has been interesting, as there hasn’t been a lot to do with the outreach team. It’s been a little frustrating not having Walter Reed work to do, but hopefully that will change over the next week as we let our US contact know and she is going to help as much as she can from her end. We had more Americans (Walter Reed) people staying with us during the week which was nice...we are beginning to prefer having a full house to an empty one. Thursday night we were invited over to the Wabitsch’s house—they are a German couple, both doctors. The wife, Elizabeth, works for Walter Reed and it is her husband, Rudi who is helping us with the malaria project. It was nice to get out of the house for an evening and we had some amazing food: homemade pizza (with all sorts of fresh garden veggies), salad (they grow the lettuce in their garden), and for dessert, cooked bananas and honey and ice cream. Needless to say we were in heaven. Friday night there was a going away dinner for the Americans that we were invited to. It was at a restaurant that the Americans thought was called carnivore but is, in fact, called carnival. Although carnivore is an appropriate description as it is a bbq place where you basically have a drink and then there are plates of meat brought out and you eat whatever. The meat was all delicious even if we weren’t always sure what we were eating...the goat there was the best I have had to date (yes, I’ve eaten goat on a number of occasions).

Saturday we got up and went over to the CTC to see the pediatric clinic in session. It turned out to be far from exciting as the nurses run a tight ship and the nurse we usually work with was no where around. We spent the rest of the day lounging and enjoying the empty house (we were going to go into town but it stormed). Today we went hiking up the mountain behind the house with Rudi, Elizabeth, and one other German (Karen I think). On the way up there were some amazing views of Mbeya and large numbers of ants. The ants were of the biting variety and if you weren’t careful where you stepped they would end up in you pants in a matter of seconds where they would bite you until you squished them. Melissa had the first round of them and then at later points we all ended up with nasty biting ants in our pants. In addition to the smaller biting ants, Melissa was nibbled on by a massive one that refused to let go and took a chunk of skin when she finally got him off. When we got to the top of the mountain, Rudi decided to explore another route home which turned into quite the adventure. Our path down included a rickety bridge, some extreme rock climbing down, and a thunder storm which would catch up with us every so often. Despite the difficulty of the trip back down the mountain (we had to ask all sorts of people which way to go...luckily Elizabeth knows a good amount of Swahili) and the mud and the rain, it was a fun thing to do and it felt amazing getting exercise.

Sunday night two Germans arrived and from what we can tell they will be staying here for a few weeks...they seem nice enough. Not much to report from the work end this week except that we are currently without our little office as Edward, the country director, is here from Dar for the week. We celebrated fat Tuesday by going into town and buying an ice cream bar and a bar of chocolate. We tried to explain the idea of Mardi Gras to Jenny who didn’t understand and was sure to inform us that she would be checking to see if we were fatter today (she says we are the same). Tomorrow we are supposed to set up a play area in the CTC for the kids. Dr. Tambukwa also mentioned the possibility of having me teach an HIV prevention awareness course to people attending the CTC at some point so we will see where that leads. That’s all for now...hope everyone is doing well!!