More Malaria Drama and the Woodcarvers Market

On Wednesday I went to the clinic to get tested for malaria once again just to make sure that the last medicine I had taken worked properly. After getting the test done, I went in to speak to the doctor and he said that now I had 3 malaria parasites (that's one more than I had before)! I obviously started berating him with questions about how that could be possible and why the medicine would have not worked AGAIN even though I feel completely fine. He wasn't answering my questions very thoroughly and I was starting to freak out a little, for good reason if you ask me. After literally a full five minutes of me throwing questions at him, the doctor said "Oh I'm just kidding, they didn't see any malaria parasites. You're fine, I just wanted to see how you'd react." I was completely dumbstruck. I mean I know that I am in Africa and the hotpitals here aren't great, but still... I don't think I've ever met a doctor who joked (and especially for that long) about a somehwat life threathening disease. It was ridiculous. I walked out of the office half relieved and half about to scream at him. Anyways, the good news is that I am finally clear and don't have malria anymore... I just wish the doctor hadn't tried to be funny about it.

The past two nights (Thursday and Friday) I have gone to the woodcarvers market at Mwenge to teach English and I'm really starting to like it a lot. The first few days of the week are usually lessons, and at the end of the week we do discussions. The past two days we did discussions on politics and corruption and Kikwete's goverment (the current president). Even though the woodecarvers' English is by no means perfect, it's really interesting to here what they have to say on topics like that (when you can understand the point they are making).

The other day I actually walked around the woodcarvers market for the first time during the day when it is open. By the time we get there to teach at night, around 7pm, the whole martket is shut down. It was pretty cool to walk around during the day since it is a lot bigger than I had expected, but I also ran into a little bit of trouble while I was there. While walking around the market, a bunch of the men there were calling me Mwalimu (teacher) and talking to me, so everyone there kind of knew I had taught there recently. A group of men on the far side of the market approached me and started begging me to come teach them instead of the other group because they have 30 students and no actual teachers. When I asked about why they couldn't just join our class, the men said they didn't feel comfortable working with the men we teach because they are from a different tribe. In the market there is one big sqaure with stores on all sides, but what I hadn't realized is that there are two very different tribes that work at the market. Apparently the tribes don't really get along with one another, which is unusual anywhere in Tanzania so I was even more surprised to hear of it in the middle of a city. I didn't really know what to tell them because I feel bad that they don't have teachers but I wouldn't ditch the other men to teach them either... I didn't really know what to do. Hopefully eventually we can get them to combine their classes, but who knows.

This weekend we aren't going anywhere, just hanging out around the university istead, which will be nice for a change. We will go to Zanzibar on our next trip in two weeks, but until then just lots more studying Kiswahili and relaxing on campus. I'll write again soon.

Love,
Lisa