Dar es Salaam Diary

Greetings from Amsterdam!* Or rather, the lovely Amsterdam Airport Schiphol. I am just stopping here for a few hours on my way to Mexico, but figured I had better update now or else I would fail to achieve my goal of at least one post per month**, thus signalling something of a death knell for this little blog. So, where have I been? Well, there is the obvious excuse that I have simply been too busy experiencing life to find time to chronicle it. Some truth to that, I suppose, but I’ve also just gotten a bit lazy. Fortunately, the experience of an airport layover is sufficiently less than thrilling, so I can finally take some to reconnect with you, my dear readers. (Or perhaps at this point, I’m just down to reader… Hi Mom!)

So, I find it rather amusing that I should be making my first trip to Mexico via Tanzania, rather than my considerably closer country of origin. But I’m not complaining. Especially since it’s all for free! I’m travelling to attend a conference sponsored by the International Budget Project, the international division of my former employer in D.C. A Tanzanian colleague and I will be representing HakiElimu at a workshop designed to hone advocacy and communication skills, and connect us with nine other organizations from around the world that IBP is also supporting to do similar work (budget analysis in the public interest).

Unfortunately, my trip has been cut short due to the fact that I became ill the day before I was supposed to travel. Nothing exotic like malaria or West Nile Virus or Rift Valley Fever, but enough of a bug to make travelling on Monday evening seem like a very bad idea. Fortunately, I was able to delay my flight until the next night (KLM has a standing red-eye from Dar to Amsterdam) and here I am.

This was the first time I’ve been sick enough here to take time off from work, and my colleagues were duly concerned. When I came into the office on Tuesday afternoon to finalize a few things before my departure, I received a Pole sana, Dada Ruth! (“Very sorry, Sister Ruth!”) from practically everyone who saw me, often followed by further exhortations of how grateful they were that I had returned and was doing better. My favorite reaction to my illness came from our director for Finance and Administration, who gave me his Pole sana and Nashukuru (I am grateful) but then followed it up with an explanation that as a man of faith, he had to say that suffering actually brings us closer to God, and so we should not complain in light of suffering, but actually be grateful for it. Well. Thank you, Lord, for my flu! OK, enough blasphemy. To be honest, it was really nice to experience such an outpouring of concern from my colleagues about my welfare.

I am still sort of wondering about the wisdom of my decision to make this trip, since while I’m feeling better, I’m still not feeling great. Two hours into my flight here, one of the stewardesses asked in slightly shaky voice if there were any doctors on board, as a passenger needed immediate medical attention. OK, she wasn’t referring to me, but still it seemed like some sort of a sign that an airplane is no place to be if you’re sick.

Fortunately, there was a doctor on board. In fact, he was seated in my row! He rushed to the front of the cabin and helped attend to the poor passenger (who was apparently having a seizure) and after about 30 minutes returned to his seat. Since everything was dark, it was unclear what had happened. I wanted to ask the doctor, and congratulate or thank him, but somehow these urges seemed inappropriate (too ‘American’) and so I just let him go back to sleep.

Not knowing what had happened to my fellow Sick Person on the Plane added to the general anxiety I’ve begun to experience recently when flying. (I know it’s much more likely to die in a car crash than a plane crash – certainly not hard to believe if you’ve been on the road in Tanzania – but flying still just feels like tempting fate a bit too much…) While I waited for a restroom that had been occupied for an inordinately long period of time, I managed to convince myself for a brief moment that the poor siezing passenger had expired and the flight crew had stuffed him or her in the loo for lack of a better option.

Happily, I was reassured when the door opened to allow its fully live occupant to exit. And upon landing a member of the flight crew came by to thank the doctor for his help, and present him with a token of gratitude, which presumably she would not have done had the passenger croaked. (Two mini-bottles of house wine and a ceramic figurine were his reward. One would think they could find something slightly nicer from the duty-free stock for a lifesaving feat, but perhaps this kind of thing happens all the time.)

This incident made me reflect on how doctors (at least those with some sense of moral responsibility) can never be entirely “off.” Having the social utility of one’s profession be so obvious must be gratifying, it must also be something of an annoyance at times. The chances of a passenger needing “immediate budget analysis” on my next flight are rather slim, which I must say is something of a relief!


*OK, I'm actually in Mexico now -- was too cheap to go online at the Amsterdam airport.
**It's still February in Mexico City!!