8:00 pm

I am having the best time; I could come home today and be so much more thankful for everything I have been given and blessed with. This morning we had an assignment where we were paired with a partner and we had to walk outside of our gates and do a scavenger hunt. Me and Jon had to go to (basically search for and find) the local market and buy avocados, bananas, and pineapple as well as find the local currency exchange and figure out the selling price from Dollars to Shillings. 1 dollar = 1,000 Shillings. So this morning when I bought a banana for 300 shillings I was basically paying 30 cents. CRAZY! Everything here seems incredibly cheap however you have to realize how much they get paid. A waitress makes around 48,000 Shillings a month which is one of the lowest paying jobs in Tanzania.

This afternoon we visited the hospital. We were first visited by a doctor who explained to us the prevalence of HIV/AIDS and Malaria in Africa. Afterwards he gave us a tour of the hospital which consisted of 4 wards (pediatrics, maternity, male, and female). Each ward is its own building but they are just big open rooms with about 20 beds each. It is unlike anything I have ever seen; very few resources, no sheets on the bed, no pumps to infuse drips, one nurse to each ward, and one bathroom for each ward. I will definitely know more about the illnesses they treat the most when I start volunteering. Tomorrow is my first day!