Just another Sunday in Arusha... hospital & markets!

Just another Sunday in Arusha… volunteers lazying around on the grass trying to lap up what rays of sunshine we can steal from mother nature. One of the girls really hasn’t been well and I felt like I was following suite too – we decided it’s long enough for her feeling like this and since she’s home to Ireland in a couple of days it’s more affordable to see a doctor here and get treated then if she leaves it until she gets home.

It was only my 2nd week in Arusha but I had heard that the process to go to hospital here was a painful one. In Australia we call them medical centre’s and here they are hospitals – there’s both private and the proper public hospital. One of the girls got “Arusha belly” and got to experience the public system first hand… join one queue to get a ticket, then sit in another queue and shuffle along in that order, see the doctor, then queue to get tests, queue to pay, queue to see the doctor again then queue for medicines – this process averages 4-5 hours! The smart thing I have been told is to get there as early in the morning as possible to get them when they are fresh and when most people haven’t made it out yet. Apparently they aren’t even qualified Doctor’s as such – it sounds like a diploma level – eek!

So off we drove to a private hospital and I braced myself for a long wait – strangely enough we were the only people there, luckily this volunteer is a Kiswahili teacher back home in Ireland so it’s a joy to watch her converse with the locals. She explains the symptoms to the receptionist then off she goes to the “Bleeding room” for blood tests and we wait for the doctor to give her the results (in that way it was more efficient than Australia waiting for a few days), she was given antibiotics and she paid less than $40 for everything! The “hospital” itself was really more a medical centre – it was a single storey house with beautiful gardens and one wing of the house had a few beds along with a security guard out the front. Still you clearly don’t come here for major aliments.

So not wanting to waste our Sunday sitting around completely, we decided its time to go to the crafts market in town. This was my first visit there. It’s a block of land packed with souvenir sellers for tourists. Under normal circumstances I would hyperventilate and go crazy shopping, but travelling for a year you learn restrain – but I really didn’t want too! Oh and of course there is the fact about your bag and if you are a follower of this blog you will know just how much I love my bag J

There are masaai women sitting on rugs making those beaded collars, beaded gift boxes and earrings; endless amounts of wood-carved animals, traditional batik paintings and every african souvenier you desire. I was purely price shopping to see what they would charge me when i come back. I did decide to buy kanga (african kind of sarong the women wear in 2 pieces. The highlight of the day came from one young shop owner who when i asked the price, he quoted me 35,000 - keeping in mind its about 5-6,000 for a pair!!! I instantly started to laugh and asked him if he was "kicha" meaning crazy in Kisawhili. He realised that I knew it was too much so i gave him a chance to drop his price - he went to 25,000 - I started to walk off still laughing and he grabbed me saying "ok ok how much you pay" I then took great delight in telling him that I had only just bought a pair of kanga the previous week for 6,000 and then he still tried to sell it to me for 15,000 saying he has "better quality" needless to say I kept walking and laughing and ended up buying a pair and a half from two different shops at the price I wanted. Then out of nowhere as I am ready to leave, he charges up saying that "ok madam you can take them for 6,000" I tell him "sorry friend you are too late i have spent all my money" all the stall holders were standing around to see what was going on so I raised my voice and said "next time dont try over-charge the muzungu with 35,000 for a kanga - you should have seen their faces - ha ha hilarious.

So that was that day - not exciting I know but I thought it was good to give an insight into "hospitals" and tourist trap markets in Arusha