Daily life in Ifakara

My past blog posts have mostly been about the work and daily business in the clinic. However, some of you may wonder what a typical day in Ifakara looks like from start to finish. So here we go:

A successful trip to the market. Fortunately the fridge fit into the bajaji!

7:00 am: Wake Up!

Usually I get up at 7:00 o’clock and I prepare tea or instant coffee at the house in our outdoor kitchen. On my second day in Ifakara, I went out with a bajaji (tuktuk) and bought and installed a big gas container for cooking. A fairly new addition to our kitchen is our fridge which my roommate and I bought in the city and creatively brought back home.

My favourite Chapati place

7:45 am: Make my way to work!

An absolute essential in Ifakara is a bike which I bought for 200’000 TSH (= 85 CHF, there are cheaper ones, of course) in the city. By bike it only takes me 5-7 minutes to the hospital where the morning meeting starts at 8:00.

An absolute must-have in the morning is fresh Chapati from the market where I quickly pass by every second day. My first Swahili sentence was: “Habari za azubuhi, Chapati nne!” (= Good morning, four Chapati please!). Chapati are a type of neutral tasting flatbread made of flour, water and oil. They are delicious with fresh avocado or if you have a sweet tooth: with Nutella.

At the hospital, the morning meeting is until approximately 9 o’clock. Afterwards, rounds in the wards or clinic duty take place until 2 o’clock in the afternoon.

14:00: Lunch Time!

For lunch, there are multiple possibilities: The hospital canteen where you can have a vegetarian meal for 2000 TSH (1 CHF), get some street food in town or sometimes I choose to go home and cook some beans with rice or pasta with homemade tomato sauce.

Grocery shop

The standard menu at the hospital canteen with my favourite drink: Tangawizi (= Ginger beer)

17:00-19:00: Swahili Lessons!

We finish working when all the patients have been seen by a doctor, that’s between 4 and 5 in the evening. If I manage to leave at 5 I will usually have a Swahili lesson with my private teacher, Jackie. She taught me the basics of grammar, vocabulary and we practice speaking skills or even go to the market or the tailor together.

Me and Jackie working on my speaking skills

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Some general things...

Food-wise, there is a small and a big market in Ifakara where you can find fresh fruit, vegetables and essentials like rice, salt, spices, coconut cream and beans.

If you’re looking to buy luxury products like milk, juice, bread, coffee or Nutella, you go to the “Mzungu”-shops (= Shops for Europeans). They resemble a supermarket; all the products are crammed on 3x6 square meters. The items are quite expensive for Tanzanian standards but a good investment in days I need to return to my culinary comfort zone.

By far my favourite purchase I made is the water filter. It is a big ceramic filter that transforms tap water into regular tasty drinking water thus reducing usage of plastic bottles and trips to the supermarket. The filter has a capacity of 9L and filters about 1L/hour. 100% recommended!

An important fact to consider in this day and age when living in Tanzania, is the lack of WiFi. Internet cafes or WiFi spots like the hospital are rare. Knowing this, I bought a prepaid Tanzanian Sim card the day I landed which can be re-charged with data packages at any “Wakala” (small shop). This quite a complicated process though and already requires some Swahili skills, I learned the hard way.

This week I will travel to the north of the country, taking a vacation and going on Safari. I will keep you posted - until then: Kwaheri, tutaonana baadae!