A culture with 1000 greetings

I finally feel comfortable here in Dar. I know the streets, the shortcuts, the bus routes. I know how much I should pay for a candy bar and where the locals buy the best fruit. I know where its safe to go on a run and how to politely tell people I don't want to purchase any of their products.
Sometimes in Dar I feel like an animal at the zoo. As we walk to work in the morning, the air is filled with people yelling "Mzungu" and asking in very high pitched english "how are you my baby?" "where are you going my baby" "can I take you to my house my baby"
People who I have passed every single day, twice a day, for five weeks still seemed shock to see me. But when I get the chance, I stop and answer their questions and take a few moments to get to know the people around me. A man on the corner sells oranges, he also owns rents a taxi everyday to pick up some more money. However, his three kids that sit with the large orange mound while he is driving the taxi, seem to wear the same clothes everyday and eat very little. The woman who works at the small shop closest to the hospital, she smiles and doesn't call out. I buy my phone minutes from her and she always calls me dr.mzungu (as I am usually wearing the white coat when I pass by).

Inside the hospital, I have met some of the nicest people in Dar. The nursing students are so excited to get to know us and so modest when we ask questions back. This week I spent my time in the woman's medical ward. I have come to feel almost at home in this ward, as the head nurse has started to assign me specific jobs everyday when I arrive. Shamim is a nursing student who was assigned investigations with me on Tuesday. She is nineteen years old and in her 2nd semester of her first year of nursing school. She is very sweet and was very excited to teach me the responsibilities of investigation. This entails drawing blood and urine samples and taking them to the lab. At first I was slightly scared to have this responsibility as I had yet to draw blood on my own. Shamim talked me through the whole process and with my first try I successfully drew blood!

This patient has severe malaria, hyperglycemia, and swelling in her legs due to a muscle infection. I got to see through out the week as her legs began to return to normal size, her blood glucose lower, and her parasite count go down below 100. It was very rewarding to check her vital signs everyday and see,slowly but surely, as she returned to good health.

I started off this blog with intentions to talk about the culture here in Dar, but I have such a hard time summarizing what it looks like here. The streets are filled with trash, the air is so thick with pollution, and the people are so full of life. The city is like the new york city of Africa. There are roughly 6 million people living in Dar, which is only 614 square miles. Skipped by most tourist, the attention that the color of my skin gets is something I like to call backwards racism. People push us to the front of lines. Taxi drivers see us and try to push us into their cars. When they see me opt to walk or ride a bus, they laugh and are confused.

I miss the comforts of home, the simplicity of getting into my own car and driving it wherever I want with very little traffic and other silly things. But I will miss the greetings, the handshakes, the warmth of the people here. I have perfected the Tanzanian handshake. Unlike american greetings that are usually stiff and last a few moments, Tanzanians shake hands and then continue to hold hands for the rest of the conversation. At first this felt awkward to me, now I love the closeness I feel just holding a simple conversation with one of the doctors. A culture with 1000 ways to say hello and no way to say goodbye.