After our first two weeks of induction, we headed south- final destination: Mtwara. Marije decided to leave her chicken pox in Dar and after a one hour flight we ended up at this tiny airportje. A driver from the hospital brought us to our beach house; opposite the Indian Ocean- our start could have been worse. Our beach house is part of some sort of beach house park and it has a living room and a bedroom and no glass windows but gauze, cute geckos (we love them because they eat mosquitos!), a bed with a thin mattress, no fridge, no stove or whatsoever and sometimes running water. Due to daily gorgeous sunsets this is like paradise! We will stay here until we've found permanent accommodation.

Mtwara is the largest town of the region with 90,000 citizens, but it looks like a stretched village. There's only one (sort of) tarmac road, no high buildings and the biggest supermarket is a like a cupboard/ inloopkast. For us, Mtwara looks beautiful, very charming and cute, but the reality is that there's almost nothing. While in Dar and in Morogoro fruit stalls could be seen on every street corner, in Mtwara there are barely any fruits to be found. The restaurant opposite the hospital serves rice with beans or chipsi-mayai (eggs and chips) and the beach houses' restaurant gives us choice between chipsi-prawn and chipsi-kuku (chicken); any vitamins are hard to find. The former president tried to connect Mtwara to Dar by starting the construction of a road between the two; however since the end of his term in 2005 this road remains unfinished.

During our first week at the hospital, a surgeon from Dar visited the hospital for two days which gave Marije this kick-start in assisting him in bloody operations (my first hydrocelectomy: bilateral and skippyball size). After this surgeon left, everything is back to its usual polepole (slowly) pace, and Marije is accompanying a collaegue doctor in doing ward rounds.

After the first week, Tim has got an office (with a/c!) and is trying to get some understanding about how the hospital is managed. Reading some documents, Tim was confronted with some of the hospital's challenges. The analysis seems there; actions and implementation seem absent. This first month, we're just getting ourselves introduced to everything before assessing and planning how we could contribute to the patients' health. So, to be continued...

As said, life in Mtwara is peaceful and the region is astonishing. In our first week we met Martin. He took us on a one hour drive to white sandy bounty palmy paradise beach for our first dive in the clear blue Indian Ocean! The day before, we went to Makonde Beach Club together with two doctors from the hospital to watch English football (which Tanzanians love) and to listen to Bongo Flava (Swahili music). Karibu sana (warm welcome) to visit us here!

See our new photo's on the ‘Foto'-page!