Ingonyama Nengw' Enamabala

It'll take alot to drag me awaaaay from youuuu,
There's more than a hundred men or more could ever dooo,
I'll bless the rains down in Zaaanzibar (I'lllllll bless the rain)
I'll bless the rains down in Zaanzibar (AAAAAH bless the rain)
etc....

Hey hey hey, various people who may or may not read this. Thought I'd write a blog entry from Zanzibar to fill everyone in on the exciting exploits of Drs Burnhill & Nugent. And by Dr Burnhill I mean, of course, my dad. Not really.

So where do we begin? Well I suppose we begin with the exams. I have only one thing to say about the exams and it is this

"STOP ASKING ME ABOUT THE SPLEEN, you f*cking gaylords"

Other than that I passed, woooo, so did various other people, double woooo. Other people didn't boooo.

We left Nottingham at 8am, a suitcase in hand and a dream in our hearts and arrived 5 hours later in Gatwick (after Dave managed to catch a connecting train just as the doors closed in my face, leaving me stranded in St Pancreas for some time) at which point I decided it'd be nice to have some celebratory Champagne. This was all going fine until Dave decided that we'd be better off buying wine of an equal value in order to get a better wine for our money. End result: several hours of perusing wine followed by zero hours of drinking anything. Thanks, Dave.

Fortunately for us there was unlimited free booze on the flight so we soon made up for it and we were pleased to discover that the in flight entertainment system was somehow hooked into Hywels media server and so had every film/tv series/porn movie ever made available for our consumption. Nuge watched 'Deathkill 5: Even manlier to watch than the last one' while I indulged in Disney's Tangled. Largly to get Helen Atkinson off my back but also cos I'm secretly a Disney Fanboy (yea I know, Tash, they're evil). Long story short the flight was pretty enjoyable. What wasn't was the TEN HOUR stop over in Dubai Airport. Now Dubai Terminal 3 was recently built and is, quite literally, the largest building in the world (check it on Wikipedia if you don't believe me). You'd therefore think there is quite a lot to do there and you'd be correct if, that is, you are a rich oil baron who can blow $4,500 on giant bottles of whiskey and/or are some terrible american tourist who wants to buy hideous snow globes of the Al Durka Durka hotel (SNOW GLOBES??!?!? It snows in Dubai WHEN?!). That being said Emirates used their evil earth-raping oil money to pay for free midnight snacks and free breakfast for all passengers in their terminal so we feasted on sandwiches and chicken sausages which were the reconstituted meat equivalent of an aero before trying to sleep on the recliner chairs that were cleverly designed to provide the most uncomfortable possible reclining position imaginab-

AHHHHHHHHHHGHGHGHFD DURKA DURKA JIHAAAAAD MOHAMMED DURKA DUUURRRKKAKAKAKAKAKA

Wondering what that random arabic interruption was? So were we when the call to prayer came blasting - at a volume equivalent to that experienced when sandwiched between a screaming child and a jet engine, in oceania, during an atomic detonation whilst suffering from Ramsey Hunt syndrome - at 4am. Of course it was actually considerably quieter than that, but when you're desperately trying to claw 5 minutes of sleep from the discomfort of sitting in some kind of contorted ball in the middle of an airport departure lounge the effect was around the same.

Fast forward 16 hours later and we find ourselves in Dar Es-Salaam, known locally as 'the brain' because, and I quote the travel book, 'that is what you need in order to survive there'. Dave and I agree that never before in our lives have we felt so likely to be imminently killed (and we live in NOTTINGHAM, gun capital of the world). Praying to Allah that the fierce sun would tan us to the point of being indistinguishable from the locals we ventured into town only to be immediately relieved of all our money by a ferry captain and some other random guy that demanded arbitrary amounts of money from us because we looked at him for too long or something. We subsequently returned to our hostel and cried ourselves to sleep whilst clutching all our belongings to us in the hope that that might prevent them from all being stolen/would at least provide some protection from the inevitable stabbing.

The next day we arrived in Zanzibar and walked all the way from the ferry terminus to the hospital, whilst being followed by some random guy that we, of course, had to pay for the privilege of being near for any period of time and got in touch with the guy who owns our accommodation. Everything about the accommodation is great; clean rooms, air con, internet, TV (until it broke), lion king DVD and is only $14 a night which is insanely cheap. Cheaper than West Bridgford anyway (but no Jacuzzi bath so fair game).

The hospital is, perhaps predictably, hell on earth. Remember BBC Newsround? Remember the hideous wards with bare metal beds and people lying on the floor oozing blood, pus and excrement all over the place? Well it's not really like that. But still, it's pretty rough. The facilities aren't all that bad (except there are no curtains so everything is done in front of the whole ward) but the doctors are TERRIBLE. I had expected really caring doctors who are trying their best but the god damned 3rd world debt imposed by us capitalist pigs just... won't.... let..... them.

Incorrect.

The doctors are more or less swimming in medications and equipment (Warning: MASSIVE OVEREXAGGERATION) but they have no idea how to use any of it (everyone gets diclofenac, especially renally impaired people, people with gastric ulcers and people with acute allergic reaction to diclofenac) and they don't really seem in any rush to do anything even when they do know what they're doing. We saw a women with a breast the size of my torso (usually a good thing but no so when compared to the other, considerably less gargantuan one) who CLEARLY had some kind of hideous disease but they didn't want to ultrasound her cos she was pregnant.

Newsflash: YOU USE ULTRASOUND ON THE VERY FOETUS ITSELF!! WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG???

Other horrors include the father of a child dying of meningitis being told that the squash he'd bought for the child to drink was really bad for him because it contained lots of chemicals and that he needed pure fruit juice only. The child later died and I'm pretty sure the father will think it's because of his administration of killer squash. At least the father was trying to give him some fluids UNLIKE THE HOSPITAL!

Sadly they don't take any of our advice on-board I mean it's not like we actually HAVE medical degrees unlike them who do some kind of basketweaving course for 3 years and they get to work as doctors because there aren't enough actual doctors. Dave did succeed in getting someone put on beta-blockers for his heart failure. Unfortunately for Dave the guy wasn't actually in heart failure and actually had a massive pneumothorax (that they weren't really fussed to do anything about....)

Anyway horrifying hospital stuff aside Zanzibar is, predictably, beautiful and full of amazing food and interesting sights. We've had several fantastic weekends with NJ O'Leary, Hobo, Liam and an assortment of girls from Oxford Uni (that's right they even spoke to us, despite our obvious and profound inferiority). Generally involving going out on beautiful wooden boats snorkeling in crystal clear turquoise water before returning to a white sand beach and being fed BBQ lobster and freshly picked local fruits. Terrible, really.

This weekend we went to the full moon party in Kendwa (hey Kendwa, I've been thinking, I wanna spend a little extra time with you) where we expected drugs, sex, drugs, sex, more drugs, sex, a few drugs, a bit of sex and some drugs (as is the case in Thailand). Fortunately, given my lack of desire for drugs and sex, it was generally just more of a massive piss up on the beach. We did end up swimming drunkenly in the sea and getting all our stuff stolen though, which was a bit of a downer. Especially as it resulted in me and Dave being locked out of the room we spent $50 on and having to sleep on the floor of Niall, Kat & Dr Nicks room (that's right there is a guy called Dr Nick here and he never EVER says 'Hi Everybody': crushing). It all came right in the end though because we were able to spend the following day feeling horribly hungover on the idyllic beach.

Gosh that was long and boring. Sorry.

Anyway there are only three weeks left to go and it includes such highlights as:

Maybe seeing Niall again this weekend even though he has to go to Mass most of the time and has been invited to some exclusive lunch that we can't go to.
My birthday next week: If you like Geoff & Dave sitting alone in a bar, blowing on party whistles with definite lacklustre then you'll LOVE my birthday this year. But hey at least noone can sleep ill advisedly with anyone else this year (no it wasn't me last time).
Trip to the south of the island to experience local culture and then to play drinking Blood Diamond (TIA, bru) with Niall & Dr Nick.
Best of all: Return flight massive piss up/disney film watching extravaganza.

See you on the flipside, dudemeisters.
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