the result...

The result...!

Im pleased to say my malaria espodie is over! At the weekend I brought a (pricey) self testing kit which involves stabbing your finger many times till you get blood ozoning out- you then aim the stream of blood into a tiny little hole in this plastic thingy and wait. Pleased to say its come back negative for malaria. However I have brought more antibiotics etc ready for next time. On dads recomandation i’ve been forced to pour out my savings on the most expensive anti malaria drug- Marolone, whether it works or not (unlike doxycylonine) we shall wait and see!

To celebrate the end of the malaria episode, me and Neviel (mama Alison’s husband) went kayaking J,  a beautiful paddle of coco beach where we watched many Dows- local fishing boats (i think that the name) going out into the open sea, they were nothing but a few tree trunks stuck together by a few strings of rope, Neveil also did his window shopping deciding which motor “yatch” was going to be his next toy..

After kayaking I went for a swim (without the boat!), but swimming back in I reached the rocks where you had no option but to wade. You feel something very painful in your foot- yes you guessed it- sea urchin! These are not the beautiful spike-less shells many people decorate their bathrooms with, these are the evils of the reefs, the huge spikes would go through anything and break in half in your foot. Despite our efforts to lure the spikes out with pliers, sewing needles, tweezers, boiling water, flame torches it was time for another visit to the doctor. Local anaesthetic was injected, the actual injecting is quite painful! But gives you some relive as two nurses and a doctor are busy prodding your foot with needles and scalpels, 40mins later we got them all out. The deepest being a painful half 15mm below the skin, unfortunately the local anasetic didn’t reach this far deep, the sky certainly changed colour, I’m now on another course of antibiotics- a successful weekend.

Not everything i have done at Buguruni has involved me self harming myself. Being the only voulenteer means theres plenty to do. One of which was make an electronic regeister! Remember the school term has only just started, people have settleled in etc, forget about all that nonsense in the UK where the teachers come in before the term starts to make registers etc, Buguruni- we improvise- full stop. With no records of all the students names kept anywhere (forget the headmasters office) i go round class to class asking for names, the occasional teacher would have made a register (often last years!)- a blessing if it was 2012’s, but many don’t. So I now have to ask 240pupils their names, spelt out in the American signing alperbet, confusing enough. Some classes had no teachers, some teachers had two classes, so and so is sick typically this took forever. Then Mama Hamish told me via skype to go round again and check all the hearing aids- this took even longer!

The afternoons are my favourite part, each day I try to do a different sport session with the kids. Its hard to entertain all 120 boarders, so i either do football, netball touch rugby or just fun and games. The kids aboslutly love this, esp the boys who have now learnt how to play touch rugby (with every other pass been a forward pass- grr!) and they love their army style football fitness- it’s a joy to watch them sweat! 2-3 is way to hot for anyone to do anything, so an old classroom has been stolen and comverted into a playroom, its nothing much but i have managed to get my hands onto some board games, i’m despratly trying to find some plywood (so so rare) to make a table tennis table- watch this space....

Afraid thats all I can say, now I gotta get back to doing my spreadsheet for the hearing aids (took my 8hrs to check everyone rotten earmoulds)

Simon x