We just started Season 6 of Game of Thrones.  Our march through the epic drama somehow marks our time in Tanzania.  We started watching in earnest when we moved into our place here in Dar es Salaam. For those who are familiar, we have indeed co-opted the “Winter is coming” line from the show and adapted it for our context.  As inhabitants of the southern hemisphere, the heat of summer is actively upon us.

Some examples of how it manifests in our own lives:

• We’ve stopped feigning consideration as to whether or not we should turn on our bedroom AC unit at night when we sleep.
• We drank iced coffee for the first time this morning.
• I put a stick of deodorant in my work bag.
• All my dress shirts have now been converted from long-sleeved to short by the tailor.

In other news, classes have finally started. The university hospital is filled with students, lecture halls are hard to come by, and the days have lengthened. Falling asleep is a battle between exhaustion and a busy mind, with the former always winning out, eventually. I’ve started lecturing, mostly introductions and expectations, and I’ll give my first full length lecture on respiratory failure this week. The class is more than 200 students in size, a mass of mostly eager faces sitting in a room deeper than it is wide. The microphone cuts in and out and at times students must procure chairs from other floors to meet demand.

Clinical teaching is where I know I’ll find my niche. I go to a public hospital from 9-noon everyday and meet the 4th year internal medicine students on the wards.  The groups are far larger than I’m used to or would like, with 26-28 students per bedside teaching cohort. We talk outside under a tree which provides shade, where the breeze is unobstructed. At times a bajaji motor starting up in the parking lot or the birds above overpower the meek voices of students who are for the first time in the clinical setting, and are as nervous as I was the first time I crossed the threshold from classroom to patient room.

At times I do feel I’m searching for the silver lining.  The students outnumber patients sometimes two to one, which hinders independent learning and makes individual ownership difficult to instill. The staff are overstretched so students aren’t prioritized.  But mostly I wish I were multiplied.  These students deserve to be in groups of 4-5, each able to present every day, each free to ask their questions without feeling as if they’re wasting someone else’s time.  They deserve more feedback.

So I’ll try, I’ll certainly care, and I’ll bring plenty of filtered water.  Because summer is coming.