wait a second. I didn't get a chance to post about the "big event" aka i got run over by a pikipiki/motorcycle a few hours before I was supposed to leave Dar Es Salaam.

long story short: I was wandering about the city pretending not to be lost but actually totally and completely lost in a very busy market-y part of town. I was quite proud of myself for having wandering into the real Dar Es Salaam where there were no signs in English, no wazungu, no fancy restaurants... just plain ole Tanzanian culture. Lots of dukas, loads of fabric shops and electronic/houseware/misc stores. My goal of the afternoon was finding more birth control (it's just $.13 a pack), trying to fiddle my way into buying strong pain killers, finding herbal medicines for no specific ailment, purchasing a rather large and sharp knife for my father, possibly finding more fabric and of course, dried dates.

wait this was supposed to be the short version.

I see a pharmacy across the street, watch traffic, make my move. stop in the middle (where my side was stand still), checked the other side, made my next move (the near death one).
motorcycle/pikipiki comes up behind the car I am in front of with far too much acceleration, knocks me to the ground and runs me over.
being me, I get up in complete confusion and sit down on the curb with one three lettered thought, "WTF".
An extremely nice gentleman takes me into the pharmacy that I was planning on going to anyway (just not in the same fashion) and gets the clerks to clean me up and bandage me well enough to get on my way. that was quite the experience. not only was I stared at blantantly because I was the only white person in a considerably large mile radius, i was also stupid enough to get hit by a moving vehicle and have massive wounds all over my body.

short short.

Basically, I thought i had broken my jaw and thumb, but the only real damage was done to my knees, calf, left foot (I thought the gash was deep enough to see my bone... im still not entirely sure), left hip, chin, cheek and palm. Here is a photo about 36-48 after it happened:



(i'm not sure of the time because I was in flight for 32 hours yet I arrived at my destination 10 hours after I left the departure point).

I'm afraid to touch the wounds because the bruises are massive. So massive my knee cap is actually numb in a few places.


so much for looking nice on the first day of class. Also, i was half hoping to be covering from malaria on the first day of class since I have two courses concerning "emerging diseases" and "microbiological transmission of infectious diseases". instead I just get run over.