August return to Moshi

Seems impossible to believe that we are back in Moshi again. Somehow being in North Carolna seemed less real on this past trip than being back. Perhaps it was the boiling weather and the hurried plans to return. But, here we are back. The weather is a little warmer, and a little dryer—there has been literally no rain since the end of May and that was just a little bit as the long rains were short. The dry weather is forcing trees to bloom that is beautiful even though you know that they are stressed.
Beautiful Flowering trees at the entrance to our compound
We’ve managed to set a hash at the sugar plantation, try to deal with the birds eating all our lettuce and other vegetables (it is so dry they are descending in droves!)
Entrance to the sugar plantation -- TPC
Gates Malaria entrance
Gates Malaria Research Buildings
Weather vane noting when wet weather and more mosquitoes coming
Boys getting water at Aquaduct around TPC, the sugar plantation
Goats also getting water
We scouted the hash the day before we set it, and got totally lost. We thought that this Baobaob set of trees would keep us in line, and I took many pictures none of which were helpful as we wandered farther and farther from our site. We asked very clear (I thought) questions to help us get back to no avail. After wandering through beautiful baobaob trees for about an hour, with John becoming more and more short tempered, we finally found ourselves at the exit gate to TPC which meant that we had at least 4 Kilometers to walk along the hot dusty road back to the entry site of the Gates Malaria center. What a day that was.
John miserable by tree
John annoyed, hot and lost
Crazy driving on road back to Gates Center
We felt like we needed that wheelchair, but neither one of us felt like we had the energy to turn the wheels
Finally, we return to set the hash
At the beginning of the hash, there was a special tree that produces anti nausea fruit. Comes in handy sometimes! We set the hash the next day and used our experience of the previous day to guide us in our plan for the hash. We kept it pretty, simple but with plenty of checks so that people would have to look. The great thing was that the walkers and runners ended about the same time. That means that the checks held and is a sign of a good hash.
John sets the first check


Pretty Rice paddy
All along we had planned to have the majority of the hash in the rice paddy, but when we couldn't even find the rice paddy the day before, we had no idea if we could do it. What was great was to actually get across a very rikkety bridge and get into the paddies where we had a wonderful time wandering up and down the field. We had an opportunity to talk to tons of people about what we were doing so that they wouldn't erase our flour. As soon as one of them said..."Oh" like the Kilimanjaro Marathon" we knew we had struck it rich! And that made explaining easy from then on.
heading back on the hash, goats don't care how many people are around them. They go where they will go.
People live here-and there were probably 15 or 20 houses on the hash that looked exactly the same.These are not the homeless!
Back at home base, time for Kilimanjaro and bites
Elsa Ruth Jellie & Terre
Our hysterical garden at A-5
Can Pauli save the garden?
Both of us have been busy with work, lots of writing to do, CAB assistance, attending the Moshi CAB, and listening to the amazing stories of the saga’s of the effect of power cuts on the labs, and on the materials being sent to the various regulatory agencies. We certainly need this to all come to an end soon!

Dinner at the Crumps
Dr. Mtalo at work at KIWAKKUKI Peter and Steve having a working lunch Steve and Verynice edit another report Theresia on her way to another horrible school event
As we follow the news of Hurricane Irene (thank heavens it seems to be breaking down) we plan with some trepidation a dinner party and movie tonight. The stated power cuts were to be last night and today and then have power return until late tonight, but we had power nearly all night and have had it today. This feels ominous for tonight with the movie. Hope for the best is all I can say!

I have to say that it was wonderful to have two days with Kili out. Though there is a new break in the Glacier, it is still such an amazing site, and reminds me of how much I love being here, and how much I just enjoy the simplicity of the life that we leave.

Friends and Family Back Home

We found ourselves quickly back home in Durham when a family tragedy sent us flying from Kilimanjaro urgently. Somehow, the trip wasn’t as bad as they usually are. Thank heavens. We were touched by the Tanzanian friendliness and kindness as they wished us well, at our home, at KCMC and at the airport. Back home, all seemed to be a whirlwind. We had work waiting. Strange how we weren’t supposed to be home, yet when we were, there was much to do. But, we also had some special times with family and friends.

It was great to hear about Katrina’s successes, both in Rent and Grease (how can two musicals be soooo different—Mimi (wonderful) Rizzo (um well) ) getting a new apartment, starting a new life, and now in Maine. Chrissy, oops Elizabeth….also finding new avenues and excitement. And her amazing work on the new art web site Company..It is all her work. That is what thrills me. I hardly understand any of it. Now audio books. Here we are Harlequin Romances. These were defining times of her early life reading them over and over, cataloging them. Ha..high moments of fiction.

We discovered that we have a new “great nephew” , Welcome to the most unusual family Ryan. And of course lovely times in Boone.

We had a great visit with Beav and Quail,

and finally, Ella’s first Baseball game with Julia and Charles, Lexton, Michelle and Ella.
snow cones are a slippery slope, but, hey, it's baseball!

President Broadhead visits Kilimanjaro

John Lucy and Harriet, MEPI Partners
Executive Director Moshi Ntebaye, Provost Kessy, Vice Provost Ahazi Kukulanga and JB

Our lives have been consumed for the past two weeks by the impending visit of our Duke President and his wife, our Chair of the Board of Trustees of Duke Hospital and Global Health and his wife, Our Global Health Institute Director and his wife and several members of the staff. The planning involved meetings with our Executive Director of KCMC College, the Provost, Vice-Provost, the Duke Student sites, the caterer for our last night dinner and many incidentals as we led up to the date.
We had the challenges that we knew we would have: There are rolling power cuts here and we knew that we would have no electricity on Friday night, the night of our own dinner party. How do you handle this? We have no generator and we have an old electric stove. Should we buy a generator? A gas stove? We went to several hardware stores with our friend Greg to look at generators and nearly purchased the most expensive one that they had, but just thinking about it even made Greg look at us and state, “for one night—and when you aren’t here year round…I don’t think you should do it”. My favorite hardware store man told us the same thing and he was SELLING GENERATORS! He even promised that we could heat the food for the party at his house if we needed to in an emergency. So, we came away without a generator. We leaned closer to the gas stove and I still feel a little sad about that decision, but at the end of the day, we decided with the help of Melinda the caterer, that our gas cook top, her sterno and lots of lanterns, candles and flashlights would make for an interesting evening.
We made last minute “clean-ups” of the house. Our house keeper and gardener cleaned, shined, weeded and turned the house and yard into s beautiful home. Even with Rose’s brother-in-law dying and her holding the wake in our back yard (talk about timing) the night before the party, she was right back on Friday to make sure that everything looked perfect for the day.
Carol, the project driver, was perhaps more excited than anyone else about the prospect of driving President Broadhead around, and I am sure that he was surprised to find that he was humble, kind and thoughtful.

Carol and Lucy

The KCMC leadership sacrificed their Wednesday evening and the following day, their holiday, “Saba Saba Day” for the visit. For those of us who were anxiously hoping that the visit would be good, we had no idea how close to perfect it was.
The plane might have been an hour late, but the lateness did not dampen the greeting with the MEPI ladies presenting beautiful bouquets to each of the women on the trip.

The "Girls/Women of MEPI" with beautiful flowers for the visiting women from Duke
John Greets Dick Broadhead at the airport

The EDR, Provost greet President Broadhead and wife Cindy


Toasts given to the arrival of the anticipated visitors

Presentations from the Duke Collaboration were brilliant.
Dr. "Annie" leads the discussion of the Duke/KCMC Research Projects
Dr. "Eliza" co-site director with Annie discusses testing and community based research
Charles "Piki Piki" talks about the AIDS Training Grant
John introduces Shanette and describes the challenges of running an NIH approved laboratory in East Africa
Charles and Shanette
President Broadhead holds his letter of support for MEPI and highlights the points that he felt made the application and MEPI important
Lucy demonstrates new technology to improve teaching in MEPI
Group shots abounded.
Team outside Medical Education Building

Team outside KCMC

Camaraderie grew as we all walked from the Child Centered Family Care Center to the Biotech laboratory, to the Medical Education Building and then to lunch. The walk cemented friendships, the sites displayed the ongoing work with Duke at KCMC.

After lunch we drove to Marangu Hospital and met with students and staff there. It was a beautiful afternoon, crisp and clean. The students and staff excited to show their work and hospital to the visitors.
Group shot outside Marangu Hospital
Duke Students with Provost Kessy and President Broadhead at Marangu Hospital

The only dampening moment came when a woman outside the hospital grounds screamed and screamed. Some staff raced to her and discovered that a motorcycle (piki piki ) accident had occurred and someone injured. The staff raced back, grabbed a stretcher, and as if in a war, raced back to load the person and the stretcher and bring him quickly back to the hospital. As one of the presentations in the morning had been about the epidemic of road traffic accidents, especially motorcycles, we watched this drama with a new understanding of the reality of that morning presentation.
From Marangu Hospital, we drove on to Mwika Uuo School and saw our two students in action with children in their class.
Neha and Katya teaching
Neha Katya Provost Kessy and President Broadhead

After class, we walked back to the dispensary, had a tour and watched as the President and his wife chatted with the students.


Mwika Uuo doctor greets Meg and Tom Gorri

There are no words to express how thrilled these students were to have the President come to see their work.
Our EDR hosted a wonderful dinner that night, and the next day the crew went to an orphanage, home visits and more presentations downtown. When they arrived at our house exhausted but filled with a full sense of what the KCMC/Duke project really is, we toured them around the house with no power, the gardens that John and Pauli built, and drew together with a remarkable sense of single purpose and joy as two cultures came together across continents to celebrate all that we have accomplished and all that we remain here to do.

For me, I think the most gratifying thing was to sing the Duke alma mater at the end of the day, and Tanzania Tanzania in Kiswahili, and to know that we all can be friends and colleagues. Now, let the work continue!