N 64 degrees 01'08.1" E 011 degrees 29'47.8"

That is Brad and I's new coordinates. We arrived safely and without drama. It is very odd going from Tanzania to Norway, definately a little culture shock. My brain is still in Swahili mode, but everyone is speaking Norweign so I can't understand or communicate, but we have our friend Eva (thank goodness). I saw a moose on the way to Eva's place, very exciting. Tomorrow we are heading to Trondheim via train (Brad is very excited) and then to Eva's parents house in some tiny rural town. We'll be back in touch when we return from the Norweign "bush". På gjensyn (see you later in Norweign).
PS Brad says to tell you all we are 3,887 miles from our home in MN.

Next stop....Norway

Hi everyone,
Just a quick hello. Brad and I leave tomorrow night and head to Norway for 5 days :) We don't have power tomorrow so we just wanted to say kwa heri kwa sasa (goodbye for now) before heading to bed. Brad is doing great, he has finished his full course of medication and in between me working to get our SF field teams ready to go back into the field, Brad and I were able to sneak away to Tarangire National Park for a day. We went with three of Allen's kids (the ones I lived with last time I was here), a driver, and his kid. We were lucky enough to get a free room for the evening at Allen's new luxury tented camp :)

Typical Africa (says Brad)

Jen and Brad here...with an update
We are back in Arusha, got back yesterday (two days early) because of a little (well not really that little) shida (problem). But let me preface the story with BRAD IS FINE NOW, so don't get too freaked out.....
Brad went out Tuesday morning with Ingela in the lion research car, which meant he got to go off road and get up close and personal with the wildlife.
When Brad got back he was dehydrated and hot (which wasn't that unusual for being off road for 8 hrs). In retrospect, this was likely the beginning of his fever. We went out for an afternoon game drive and Brad was exhausted. He ate a little dinner and went to bed. At about midnight that night I woke up and Brad was really warm so I used a head thermometer (this dinky little thing I got at some health fair that works like a mood ring and give you a rough idea of temperature). It showed around 101 or 102. I gave Brad two tylenol, which broke his fever (and he later told me he was then able to sleep soundly). Previous to the tylenol Brad was dreaming/hallucinating about stacking boxes and they wouldn't stack...after the tylenol they all stacked. The next morning we went on a 6:30 am game drive. I didn't know if Brad would be up for it after the fever that night, but he felt better and we went out. It was a great drive, but another long day.
When we got back at about 2 pm Brad went right to sleep. A little later I gave him some more tylenol because had a little fever, about 102, (we now had a real thermometer we got from a friend). He woke up and ate a little dinner, had some more tylenol because his temp was still over 101, and went to bed early again. Now here comes the scary stuff... At midnight I woke up and Brad was an oven! I took his temperature and it was 104.1!!! I promptly woke him up and gave him advil (we had run out of tylenol). He was breathing quickly and I tried to coach him to slow down his breathing and massaged his leg that had cramped up while shivering. I took his temp at 15 and then 30 minutes. When I was convinced it was going back down I set my alarm for each hour afterwards and took his temp. It got as low as 101, but then at about 4:30 he started freezing and by 5 am his temp was back at 104.6!!!!! It shot up too quickly for me to catch it on the way up. I gave him more drugs and again tried to calm his breathing down. Once he seemed to be slowing his breathing and his temp was again on the decline I got out of bed, called a called a friend at lion house (who has lived out in TZ for over 5 years) and I started bawling. Truthfully I was terrified and was ready to call flying doctors (a medical airplane service that will fly you to Nairobi for medical care - a service we had gotten Brad just before our trip). My friend told me flying doctors wouldn't come out for just a fever and we were leaving for what was to be a game drive at 6:30 am anyway with our driver. However, keep in mind we are in the middle of the Serengeti - a 6 hour drive back to Arusha. So I wasn't sure if I should call flying doctors anyway, wait and go strait to Arusha with our driver, buy a plane ticket on a commercial flight or what. My friend looked in her "Where there is no doctor book", which mentioned that fevers over 40C (104F) need to be brought down immediately. I made Brad strip down, took away all his blankets (he wasn't thrilled), got a cool cross breeze going in our room, and started packing to leave. When the driver came we packed up and headed back to Arusha (instead of going to the NCA, staying in Karatu for the night, then heading back to Arusha today (Friday), via Lake Manyara National Park). I had borrowed the real thermometer from my friend, which was critical b/c I was still hourly or more monitoring Brad's temperature and at 9 (four hours after his last dose of advil) his temp was back at 104.5!!! I of course gave him more drugs and wetted an extra shirt to put on his forehead. I would hold the wet shirt out the window, cool it with the wind (thank goodness it was cool outside) and make him hold it to his forehead until it warmed up again. I did this on and off for most of the ride, and preempted what I was worried would be his fourth 104 plus temp by giving him more drugs and using the cooling cloth when his temp got back to 103.5 about 3.5 hours later.
Keep in mind for the first half of this 6 hour trip we were on dusty, bumpy, awful roads, Brad couldn't wait until we reached pavement (at which point he was able to nap a little, I had napped for about 30 minutes on the bumpy road, I was just exhausted with worry and lightly sleeping for two nights while monitoring Brad). I was trying all along to be calm cool and collective around Brad, but I was only barely holding it together. If it would have been me I would have been fine, but Brad....well we could not get to Arusha fast enough. When we got to Arusha we went straight to the doctor and luckily (After a blood, stool and urine test) we had a diagnosis. A stomach bacterial infection and possible amoebas. We got drugs for both, more advil and got back to the Arusha house.
After forcing some oatmeal down Brad took his first dose of Cipro and amoeba medicine. After a shower, a nap, and a few hours Brad's fever was below 101 for the first time in almost 2 days. I don't think I've ever been so happy and relieved. I've monitored his temperature since and it hasn't gotten above 99.5! :) His energy is still a little low, and his stomach and intestines aren't perfect yet, but he is well on the way to recovery!
Brad here...I really am fine now :)

On Safari

Brad made it to Tanzania and after some boring days in Arusha while I did work, we left yesterday on safari. We hired a safari driver and car through Allen (my host father) and had a good drive out to Serengeti yesterday. As we passed the Ngorongoro crater there were few clouds, making for a nice view of the crater floor (often there are clouds that sink down into the crater making it impossible to see the floor).
Once we made it to the Serengeti gate we slowed down, opened up the top and enjoyed the view.
It was quite dusty, but other than that we had a good time.
Brad got this nice picture of some elephants.
Our driver radioed to others asking about cheetah so we took a short detour to go see three cheetah in the tall grass. They were eating something, but all we could see were bloody cheetah faces when they sat up (through binoculars so no pictures). It was cool. We will be in Serengeti until Thursday morning at which time we'll go to Karatu (stopping at the crater on our way). Then on Friday we'll leave from Karatu, go through Lake Manyara National Park and make our way back to Arusha.

Back from the field

I got back from our two week pilot study after spending the last 5 days in the district of Simanjiro. I spent my first night in Simanjiro sharing a bed with the ward executive officer (Yenie) of Loiborserit, who turned out to be the sister of someone on the field team (he knew she was in Simanjiro, but was surprised when we ran into her randomly in Loiborserit). She was nice and put up a bug net because I asked our driver (who is from Loiborserit and had an empty house (really two concrete rooms) for us to stay in), if he had a bug net. He said there are no mosquitoes, to which I replied "I don't care about Malaria, it is the spiders I'm worried about". That became the joke of the week, they all think that it is hilarious that I sleep more peacefully with a bug net because of spiders, but whatever, I do. Anyway, so when we were offered a place to stay with Yenie she kindly put up a bug net which turned out to be even more important b/c as soon as she blew out the lantern and settled in the mice came out to play. All night I heard scurrying, squeaking, knawing. I woke up three times convinced that they were by my head so I shot up into the sitting position and would hit at my pillow. Yenie would wake up, pat my leg and say it was okay. The next morning I saw no signs the mice had come through the net...but it was not the most restful night and now of course everyone was laughing even harder b/c the mzungu is afraid of spiders and mice (which I'm not, unless I think they are crawling on me when I sleep). Anyway, we did our work in the first village (Terrat), returned to Loiborsiret and were told that they weren't ready for us so we ran off to Orkesmut where we stayed at the guest house pictured below. I bought a bug net and had it put up (I didn't sleep with one in Terrat for two nights and we'll this place was sketchy enough I wanted one, although it turned out to be a relatively nice place).

My room in Orkesmut
Outside my room and across the way the "bathroom"

On our way out of Orkesmut we saw what was to me at the time hilarious...the gas station was powered by a gas driven generator. Dennis and I just cracked up...just so typical.
Below is a picture along our 5 hours drive back to Arusha....it wasn't a mountain range like in CO just a solitary mountain here and there, but very cool.
Finally, here is the poor chicken that one of our field memebers bought on the way home. After what I'm sure wasn't the best ride in the back of our car he became their dinner within an hour.