Jambo,Habari?

Hope everyone back home is ok and not too cold is England!!!It is very hot here (too hot) so I have some sun to spare if you need it sending home!

I arrived in Zanzibar on sunday after a two hour ferry ride and another hour in a taxi,we are staying in a small village in the south of zanzibar called Makunduchi.It is actually a fairly big place with lots of tiny villages in it,the hospital is a 5 minute walk away which is so nice compared to the 15 minute walk and hours dala dala ride in Dar! We are living with a lovely family which consists of a mother,father,22 year old daughter and 9 and 6 year old grandchildren,the oldest girl and father speak some english and with the small amount of swahili we have picked up we get on just fine!

So far in the hospital we have done a baby vaccination clinic where we jabbed new borns with measles,polio and the BCG vaccine,on the second day we did a hypertension clinic where we did ALOT of blood pressures and today we did the ward round of the hospital with the doctor which consisted of the post natel ward,peds ward,female and male ward.
The hospital itself is fairly big and smells alot cleaner than some we have worked in but the resources are so limited and there is no opportunity to carry out any tests to see if what the doctor thinks it might be is actually what it is so mostly the patients are just treated with a best guess medication or transferred to the big hospital in zanzibar.

Yesterday we went to the beach in the afternoon (the water is like having a hot bath!) the cows walking about on the beach made me giggle,especially when one tried to climb into a boat to drink water! Today we are off to another beach to swim with the dolphins,fingers crossed not to choppy a boat ride!

Village life is lovely to experince,they people dont have much but they are very happy and everyone knows everyone.The children think we are great and they run after us shouting jambo (hello) on our way to work,and they love us taking photos and showing them what they look like afterwards-I wonder if that comes from a lack of mirrors or not seeing a camera before!

Only a week left and we will be broading the plane once again for england!Have really enjoyed it out here but ready to come home to my home comforts (and a real toilet!)

bye for now