KCMC

6:15 came a lot earlier than I wanted it too. Agrey, our favorite taxi man, had agreed the night before to come pick me up and take me to the bus station. Half asleep the six mzungus, Juliet, Mama Lydia and Joseph, headed off on our little adventure. We pushed our way through the Tanzanian men yelling "Moshi, Dar, Moshi, Dar, where you going mama, where you going sista", and climbed on what looked like a safe bus and took a seat. Before the bus pulled out, I was fast asleep.

Two hours later we arrived in Moshi. Hopped off the bus, got on a dalla dalla and made it to KCMC, Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Center. KCMC is the closest thing to a western hospital that I have seen so far... And this is my third one in Tanzania. Still not sure if I would want to get treated there if something were to happen to me, so let's just hope nothing does. We found our way to urology and took a seat.

After waiting around for about an hour we finally approached a doctor to see what we should really be doing. They informed us that there were never clinics on Wednesdays and we'd have to come back on Friday. We went to the reception desk to confirm and they said no, clincis were only on Thursdays. After talking to three or four other people, we confirmed that the clinic was indeed on Friday and that we would not be able to be seen today.

In a last ditch attempt at making the trip worthwhile, I approached a doctor and asked if there was anyway that our little guy could be seen before we left. Apparently being white has more pull than I thought and before I knew it we were in an exam room with a doctor. Joseph was so good as we splayed him out on the table. The doctor pressed on his lower abdomen and looked around a bit before saying that he believed it was an inverted penis. By this time, I had been pushed to the back of the room and was getting frustrated that the doctor was not seeing what the nurses had previously pointed out to me. I piped up and told him to look at the scar tissue. With this comment, the sea of white overbearing people parted and I made my way to the kiddie. I pointed out the scar leading from his anus through his testicles. The doctor said "oh, I think you may be right". I think that's the moment where I lost most of my faith in the doctors here. He called two more doctors in and they all looked at my baby, then agreed that exploratory surgery was going to be necessary.

The new doctor introduced himself to us as Dr. Afrika and was the one to give us a cost estimate. He said that around 150,000 shillings should cover the bed and surgery costs, and that we should come back Friday to try and secure a bed for our little man. He gave us his cell phone number and asked us to text him if we had any questions. The only catch was we had to talk to him in French. Dr Afrika spoke was from Rwanda, and spoke mostly KiRwandan. After that his best language was French, then Swahili and his English was only good enough to be spoken face to face. Once again, I wish I'd payed a little more attention to Mme Aubin.

We left KCMC happy that at least a little had been accomplished. We loaded ourselves onto a dalla dalla, onto a bus, and fell asleep. Three or so hours later, I made it home! My body was definitely not used to getting up so early so I just crashed. The rest of the group had agreed that they would go to Moshi again on Friday with Joseph and hope for the best. I, on the other hand, was off to Zanzibar.