It's hard to believe that almost a year has gone by since the last trip to Tanzania. Since then I've done short stints in Haiti and Nicaragua but it's really the African experience that keeps drawing me back. If you've followed this blog or care to review past entries you'll note that my relationship with Sumbawanga has been, to say the least, up and down. During the "off sesaon" I have repeatedly tried to contact the key players there but the only one I heard back from was Daniel Njoolay, the Rukwa regional commissioner and he was excited about my possible return. Trying to reach Dr. Kabuma, the medical kahuna for the region was fruitless. He just didn't answer my emails. This is particularly curious as I keep getting repeated requests from him to be friends on Facebook. So far I have declined. Our old friend Dr. Jasper Nduasinde has been equally non-responsive which leads me to believe that he may have been posted to a different location. The other possibility is that during my four previous yearly visits I managed to make enough waves and piss off enough people that they don't want me back. Read the last two summer's blog postings and you decide.
This year will be a diffferent experience. I am due to be accompanied by Dr. Grace Stewart for her first return trip and a second year medical student named Stacey who wants desperately to be a surgeon. We may cure her of that affliction straightaway or make the disease incurable. We shall see. One thing for sure is that she will experience things that would never happen in normal training.
We are going to a place called Tabora which is smack in the middle of the country. It's a fairly large town and there are satellite clinics around it that we expect to visit. The good news is that we can fly to within 50 miles of it so no more cross country bus trips. I have documented those pretty well in the past. What we can expect medically in Tabora and its environs I have no idea. The difference between this kind of a mission and those shorter commando team projects in western hemisphere is the unknown. With those big team short trips you know exactly what you'll be doing every minute. Going to Tabora is like Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. We have no idea what we'll get. We've been given a vague idea of our accommodations and itinerary but other than when we arrive and when we leave nothing is certain. Therin lies the advanture.