Dear Friends and Family,

 I've had another bad week here. Here goes the standard disclaimer -- regardless of what follows, I'm alive and doing fine, and in the end, things are turning out OK. I will say that the following story is not for the squeamish.

 I had an accident a couple of weeks ago. I was burning my trash last Friday, the 10th (no weekly garbage collection here). I had just lit the pile when I noticed a can of WD-40 on the edge of the pile. I normally do not throw any aerosol cans in the burnable garbage pile. In thinking about it after the fact, I don't remember finishing off the can, which means it had likely fallen off the shelf above and into the garbage pile. This also means it was still quite pressurized and had oil in it. But again, I wasn't thinking about this until afterwards.

 Panic set in quick. I should have probably just ran... but since I had just lit the fire, and since I had a meter-long fire-poking stick in my hand, and since the can was on the edge of the blaze, I thought I could push it out before things heated up.

 I was wrong. It exploded where it was poked, namely straight in my direction. The end result was that my face and right arm were coated with superhot oil. I ran inside, knowing I needed to get to water fast. I submerged my arm and face in my 200-L water tank. It's not easy to keep one's face submerged for long, especially when panicked, but I eventually had a system going where I was swishing my face in a big pot of water that I kept changing, and had my arm submerged in the tank.

 I remained that way for about an hour and a half, because when I took my face out for more than a few seconds, the pain was pretty bad. About fifteen minutes in to the whole thing, I ran out back and yelled to the neighbor's kids to go get help. A quick look in the mirror told me my problem was a little more than a singe -- I had a layer or two of skin coming off half my face and parts of my arm. I was not thrilled.

 While waiting for the school car to come and go, calling Peace Corps for Medical action, a doctor from the local dispensary and my headmaster (a veterinary doctor by trade) agreed that I needed to go to the hospital, but that the burns were only superficial. I, too, realized that the fact that I was in quite a bit of pain was actually a good sign -- I hadn't burned my skin down to the nerves. My eyes were also working, having escaped the blast by some providence.

 We went to the hospital in Arusha. I thought I might be going for a night or two, so I grabbed a book and a change of underwear. I ended up staying a week...

 They cleaned me up with an antiseptic and slathered on some white cream which was a standard burn remedy. My body was taking care of itself pretty well... you know that fluid that's in blisters? I guess it helps new skin form and heal when skin above it has been killed. Well, I was dripping with the stuff. Fortunately, the cream kept it in place. Sort of.

 The good news is, lots of progress every day. The first two days I looked pretty bad: About 2/3 of my face (all the right side and some of the left) was sort of scabbed over with the dried fluid (kind of pus-colored) as well as the top of my right arm. This is good, though, it protects the new skin -- it just looks gross. But after my first cleaning (they cleaned me every other day, daily cleaning apparently inhibits new skin growth) I looked much better. Most of the still-open burns had been isolated to certain specific places: My right hand, and big spot on my right arm, my right cheek, and lips and nose. The other places were burned, but the skin had stayed on and would stay on until the skin underneath was ready.

 By my Tuesday cleaning, I looked pretty good. The isolated spots were shrinking and the other skin had begun to come off revealing fresh and pink (but healed and relatively dry) skin. Those spots looked like I'd gotten a medium sunburn. It will likely peel off in a week or two.

 By Thursday, my face was completely... well, not healed, but with no more open wounds, and only two medium-sized spots on my arm and hand. Since I was going crazy doing nothing in my hospital room, and since the doctor wasn't really doing much, I lobbied to be released to continue caring for myself at home... so on Friday the 17th (a week later) I was released. So now, I'm doing fine, and it seems that in a month's time, you won't even be able to tell anything had ever happened. No permanent scarring, nothing.

 Those were the personal details -- now a few of the cultural details:  Since the Training Site is in Arusha, PC arranged to have the workers (guards and gardeners, etc.) bring me food three times a day from a very nice local hotel. They also brought me the most critical thing for my survival -- books. I plowed through about 5000 pages while I was there. Sadly, I had a bunch of books at home that I'd been wanting to read for a long time, but none of them were available. People from school & Monduli came by to visit me every couple of days or so and brought gifts and condolences from home.

 For the first 2/3rds of my stay, I had a roommate. When Tanzanians are sick, what they want most is to have lots of people around keeping them company. Or, even if it's not what they want, that's what happens. The room typically had one to four people in it besides myself and my roommate. Like most minor laws & regulations in Tz, visiting hours are posted and summarily ignored. Of course, not wanting to leave me out, they talked to me as much as they could. Many of you know that when I am infirmed, what I want most is to be left alone to sleep or read, or just to avoid anybody but my closest family/friends seeing me helpless. You can imagine how I felt about this whole situation...

 ...especially considering the subject matter. Let me say this -- most Tanzanians are a pretty religious bunch. My first night I spent listening to my roomate talk for about three hours about Jesus and how glad he was to be saved. I fell back on the standard stance that I use to avoid explaining Unitarian Universalism to people who have no basis for comparison in understanding it: My church is a Christian denomination (like Catholic or Lutheran, with which they're familiar) but we have no churches here in Tanzania. At its historical base, that statement is fundamentally true -- I just avoid mentioning that I myself am not Christian.

 Most people are pretty ready to accept that. My roommate, however, had all sorts of questions, like am I saved, have I been born again, etc. Remember that this conversation is largely taking place in Swahili, which I can normally speak fairly well -- but when half my face is burned off, it takes a little energy out of me.

 I was also subjected to a massive amount of prayer, even after that roommate moved out and was replaced by a less zealous but still quite religious Christian. I was prayed for about 2-3 times a day... Now, I certainly appreciated and respected the sentiment, and was honored that they took me into their consideration. However, I couldn't help feeling a little hypocritical bowing my head for words said on my behalf representing beliefs I didn't cater to. Since Christianity was introduced here by missionaries, prayer is no trivial thing here, either. A typical prayer lasts over two minutes, is said at normal-to-loud speaking voice, often standing with hands waving in the air, or upon the sick. For a guy to whom prayer is a very private and personal thing, it was a little uncomfortable. Sometimes I get the impression that, as it is here with political affiliation and adherence to the law, the appearance of believing or doing something is much more important than the actuality.

 Like at most hospitals across the world and in America, patients are treated more like broken machines or cattle than people. However, the people at this hospital took this to a new level. While nothing was done that directly jeopardized my health, the nurses thought nothing of giving me my nightly temperature and blood pressure readings and medication at 11:00 PM, and then coming to do it again at 5:30 AM. They would walk in at any time, without knocking; if I was sleeping they would turn the light on, and then leave it on and the door open when they left. Such actions need not have been to examine me, usually just to look at me. I don't mean for medical purposes -- just to stare at the burnt-up mzungu they'd heard about.

 The same applied for anybody who was hanging around the hospital. People coming to visit someone would not go to the main desk to ask where their friend was, they would just go room to room, opening each door until they found the right one (at all hours, remember.) Sometimes they would stop and stare at me, if they felt like it. No apology if it was the wrong room. Not wanting to be "rude", many would greet me and talk to me for a few minutes before mentioning why they had barged into my room, even if I'd obviously been sleeping.

 You may find it surprising that I was so eager to leave the place after a week of this.

 Anyway, again: I'm home, I'm safe, and I'm healing well and quickly. I just can't go out in the sun for a little while. But that's OK, folks are taking care of me. I'm in caring, if overbearing, hands.

Love to you all,
Ethan

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