So now that I have some time, I have some updates for you. In a previous post I talked about the surprise visit I planned on the Arusha house. Since I was tipped off that some students had been sleeping in late and leaving work early, I had to put an end to that behavior and explain to them how serious the consequences were. Without hesitation, the students would be terminated from the program. If terminated the would need to pay for the airfare back home (roughly $1000) and pay back the financial aid they received for the program (and that adds up to multiple thousands with Duke Engage, around $6000, if I am not mistaken). Again, this is serious and I don't want to send anyone home.
Imagine how surprised I was to find ALL of the Arusha groups in the house at 9AM that morning. Busted. They all thought they did not have to go to work that day because it was a holiday (Nane Nane, a farm holiday). However, the day before I made it explicitly clear that they still had to go to work and the hospitals don't just "shut down" on holidays. Despite my warning, I still find them at the house at with some students still sleeping. I gave them a very stern lecture on their work commitment to EWH and emphasized that this behavior was not acceptable. I told everyone that it is expected that they work from 8AM-3PM (really should be 8 hours though) at a minimum.
Since I was heading to Karatu Hospital that morning (about 150km from Arusha), I left immediately after my speech and told everyone that I expected they go into work that day. I got some VERY apologetic texts from two of the four groups. I was glad that they took my warning seriously and I was happy with the apology because it was the first offense of those two groups anyway.
I'm very happy my talk with the students resonated and they took their work seriously from that point on. Some of the students that I knew were guilty of sleeping in came clean to me and admitted that they made a mistake. I really appreciated the honesty and there is no longer a need to pursue disiplinary action with them as long as they keep up the correct working hours.
So on Friday, ALL of the student groups went to work at 8AM...except one. He apparently went out the night before and got drunk. He was so hungover the next morning that he did not go to work until 10:30 AM on Friday. I couldn't believe it. After I made it so clear at how serious this situation is. I was furious. This student also tried so hard to hide the fact that he wasn't working that I had to resort to another surprise visit to catch him off work.
As punishment, I asked him to come in on Sunday and make up the day that he missed. He did not take that well at all. He accused me of targeting him and said how unfair it was to have to come in a whole extra day for just being 2.5 hours late...Well, to EWH, extreme tardiness has the same consequences as an absence. Unfortunately, I can't even confirm that we went into work after my surprise visit to the house on Thursday. Having him come in that extra day is very lenient compared to the other option of sending him home.
I'm writing this from a coffee shop in Arusha right now. Since today is his make up day at work I've been checking up on him to make sure he is there. It really saddens me that I can't trust him and need to check up on him like a mother would. But I've been given too many excuses and been lied to too many times to trust that he makes up his honestly.
NOW, the post that I would have written had this mess not happened:
I visited Karatu hospital and that really good visit with them. The students there are doing so well. When I came by they were working on their secondary project: installing a laundry room for the hospital. Before they put this washing machine back into working order, the hospital would wash everything by hand.
The hospital also had another washer (but not spinner) that they Karatu boys had fixed. The fix included just cleaning a very clogged pipe. I want to point out that the water for this machine is heated by burning wood. The amount of smoke in this room was almost blinding. It's amazing that this washing machine exists. Even still I'm learning so much about the third world.
Here are some views of Karatu hospital. The landscape is very different here. It is VERY dusty. Among our group it holds the nickname "The Red Planet" because the dust will turn your clothes and shoes red and Karatu hospital is so isolated from the other hospitals.
Another shot of the hospital.
I noticed so many animals around here, much more than in Arusha. Here are some puppies and their parents hanging around on the hospital grounds. They are cute but extremely unsanitary. The laundry unit used to put out their clothes and sheets out to dry on the ground, over the dog poop. The Karatu boys installed clothes lines so now the hospital can hang the things they just washed instead of putting them out to dry on the ground.
The Karatu boys found an owl the previous day at their hospital. They found it lying on the ground with a broken wing and most likely a concussion. They kindly took it back to their house and tried to nurse it back to health. Here they are trying to feed it an egg. It was not really receptive to the egg, but it drank the gatorade we gave it later.
It's a very cute owl. They named him Goodwin. In Tanzania owls however are a very bad omen that means death. When they showed the owl to the hospital staff, they were met with screams and the staff running away!
Unfortunately, Goodwin died the next morning :( It's okay because he was unlikely to ever fly again since his wing was broken at the joint. We looked up online how to treat him and we found that it was better to euthanize the owl because it would never get better from this kind of injury. Very sad because Goodwin was so beautiful and soft.
Going back to Arusha from Karatu I usually take a NOAH. It's a car that comfortably seats 7 passengers (but they try to get in 8) and makes the journey non-stop. With the NOAH I can make the trip in 3 hours while if I took a dala dala it would take 7 hours. The NOAH is a little more expensive, 7,000Tsh versus 4,000Tsh but the extra shillings are well worth it.
Here's just a picture I snapped while driving back to Arusha. You can see some of Lake Manyara National Park in the distance. Last year I did a 2-day Safari there and the Ngorongoro National Park.
This morning, on my way into Arusha I ran into a puppy. I stopped to pet it but then it started to follow me! I guess if you show an animal around here kindness, you instantly gain a friend. Wow, it was so cute. I wish I could take it with me but I slipped through a fence and closed it before the puppy could follow me further. I never saw such a look of disappointment before :( Poor little guy.
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