Moshi-town: In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro

Moshi is a medium-sized town in Northern Tanzania, about a 6 hour drive from Nairobi, a 9 hour drive from Dar es Salaam (the capitol of TZ) and an hour away from Arusha, another well-known Tanzanian city. It's what you can call suburban I guess-- lacks the bustle and development of an urban environment but is certainly not rural. It's what they call a hub of education with one of the nation's best medical schools Kilimanjaro Christian Medical College (KCMC), where we've been taking our class.

Moshi (which means smoke in Swahili) sits under the shadow of Mt. Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa at some 19000 ft. Getting a glimpse of Kili while walking down the road to class is the most brilliant feeling. It's amusing to me how the view is still stunning to me after four weeks of being here...and it's simply part of the backdrop to those who live in Moshi.

KCMC is one of the best and largest med schools and referral hospitals in Tanzania and yet our classroom is the only one equipped with wireless and a router for internet. The router we use in our classroom, all the while complaining at the slow and laborious connection, was bought with joint funds from our ourselves and Tanzanian classmates. And my host sister was describing to me yesterday how she will be forced to travel to Arusha for an X-ray of the wisdom tooth that's bothering her. She told me KCMC doesn't have an X-ray machine and the one at Mawenzi hospital downtown isn't working.

In TZ, and I'd imagine in other African countries that follow the British educational system, students enter medical school straight out of secondary school. All of our Tanzanian classmates are fourth year medical students...they laugh and cringe as we describe the American system to them-- four years of undegrad and THEN medical school. For them, five years of med school is followed by a one or two year internship (parallels residency in the States) and specialization programs that range in length from 18 months (MPH) to 4 years. For example, one of my friends here plans to specialize in surgery after med school. General surgery is four years, plus some additonal time to learn a specific type. We compare and contrast our educations in our talks but it seems each has it's ups and downs.

Our classroom, a bit empty late on a Friday afternoon.