Jibber Jabber

hello hello hello!

It’s been a while, to say the least. I’m not going to detail everything that’s happened in the preceding 5-6 weeks, rather I’m just going to focus on the immediate past. Bear with me, if you would like to.

Yesterday, our Central Medical Store partners conducted a meeting to discuss the future development of the Central Medical Store, and it couldn’t have went any better. The meeting itself was a byproduct of some concerns raised at the Annual Medical Joint Sector Review Meeting about the availability of medicines and supplies.

The session comprised of roughly 20 partners, and lasted for about 6 hours. Although it was a long meeting on a Saturday, coming out of the meeting, the Pharmacist-in-Charge at the CMS not only had the support from the leaders of the Ministry of Health, including the Principal Secretary, and vertical programs, but also consensus on the priorities for the coming months to ultimately transform the supply chain for health commodities in Zanzibar over the course of a few years.  The priorities ranged from addressing the lack of organizational structure that impedes the CMS from doing their work efficiently to the distribution system that’s been widely acknowledged as inadequate.

In the coming days, weeks, months, we’ll be working on gathering requirements and laying some more foundation to assure the stability of the project and growth of the CMS in the coming months and years.

MEDIA TIME! I haven’t taken many pictures recently, but I’ve included a few of the Fellow reunion in Zanzibar.

As part of our situational research, Jafari and I hopped on the distribution truck and helped get medicines and supplies out to the facilities. In total, we were able to see 46 of 78 facilities on the main island of Unguja. We used the opportunity to also do some surveying of data recording capacity. The map summarizes where we went; the dots in the markers denote facilities Jafari visited, other legend details:

Green – First Line Facility
Yellow – Second Line Facility
Red – Cottage Hospital

View Facilities in a larger map
(Update: map embedded! thanks to Mark H and Laura)

Angie (Bengtson) and Andrew (Peterson) came out to Zanzibar for Eid; we had a great time. This was the first night after the moon came out at the Old Fort in Stonetown.

The A-Team, courtesy of Angie B

Zanzibar sunset

Doors of Zanzibar

Andrew P, the legend, fitting in. Those girls got a kick out of him, good times.

Paje, Zanzibar, courtesy of Angie B