Birthday Shennadiggans!
Trip Start
Dec 27, 2007
1
6
11
Trip End
Feb 23, 2008
Stone Town and Paje,
Tanzania
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
After last monday's hit of third-world reality I managed to get away from it all this weekend for four days of pure, lazy bliss!
The rest of the working week was interesting in that I spent two days in surgery as well as being back on the medical wards. Needless to say, surgery is done a little differently here as well. The hospital has four operating theatres, three of which have working air-conditioning. Just my luck that the first operation I watched - removing a three year-old boy's kidney - was in the 'sauna theatre'. It was the classic image of a nurse standing close to the surgeon wiping his brow every few moments otherwise sweat would have been pretty much pouring into the carefully steralised operating field. the local doctors have a lot of help at the moment from a mix of Chinese and Swedish anaesthetists and surgeons and they are pretty much running the show, bar the standard local consultant surgeon who is always the centre of attention. The main difference is in the anaesthetic and I imagine it'll take quite a while to get used to the oxygen monitor beeping every few minutes to warn the anaesthetist to get of his phone and tilt the patient's chin back again. Successful operations all round though with some truly life-changing results.
As for the weekend, our friends Matt, Nina and Laura (also UCL elective medics) came over to Zanzibar from Dar Es Salaam to join Chloe and I for a nice weekend at the beach! East coast again and a small town called Paje, and yet again the beach took our breaths away. At low tide the sand stretches almost half a mile outwards and the beach is so quiet, bar the odd fisherman, that most of the time all you can hear is the waves crashing over the reef another mile or so from the shore. Here the plan was simply rest, recuperate, tan (/burn) and drink. All were acheived!
On the big day itself I woke early to catch an amazing sunrise before we headed to a local forest for a mini-trek which took us into the path of a family of Red Colobus Monkeys, only found on Zanzibar. Then in the afternoon two more scuba dives seeing a vast amount of tropical fish, particularly stingrays and trigger fish amongst huge coral beds. In the evening it was back to Stone Town for a delicious meal at a restaurant just over from our apartment, along with one of the greatest surprises I've ever had, the entire restaurant staff bringing out a cake singing local birthday songs, as well as the better-known traditional favourite we all know and love!
A brilliant day, a brilliant weekend!
Thanks for all your messages!
Lots of love,
Benx
