There is a group of undergraduate and graduate engineering students here in Tanzania with us doing a program through Duke University. They learn about medical devices in the developing world, and on Fridays they go to hospitals and help fix broken hospital devices. It is really an amazing idea, as they also train the locals about fixing and maintaining devices, and when possible, they try to engineer ways to adapt first world devices for the third world. For example, some devices require expensive disposable pads or gels, unavailable here. However, one student discovered that aloe vera has the correct conductivity to be a perfect replacement for a particular gel, and is widely and cheaply available, transforming the adaptability of this machine. Anyway, so the program is great, and they are taking basic Swahili, but they don't know much, so we got to be their translators today!
This was my first opportunity to be a translator, and I really enjoyed it, and I think we were actually helpful. Most of the doctors spoke very good English, but when communicating with the engineer at the hospital and some of the nurses we were put to good use. "What were you doing when this broke" and such questions were aplenty.
Outside of the hospital the engineers set to work, screws and tubes everyone and calls for needle nose players or transformers or multimeters filled the air. For the other Swahili students, I think this scene of taken apart machinery all over the place was quite the sight, but as the smell of solder filled the air and talk of volts and switches and circuit boards and rewiring filled my ears I felt a familiar sense of home.
I "helped" work on a suction pump and a head loop lamp.
:) This pictures are for you, my engineering bro! I thought about you a lot today. You would have really liked it, and you would have fixed tons of stuff!
-Laura
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