Tetanus Shots and a Brush with Wildlife in Manyara National Park

I wrote this story while sitting on a rock outside of the government hospital in Karatu, having just (unexpectedly) received a tetanus booster because I stepped on a rusty nail this weekend. 

Last Saturday, a few volunteers and I took a trip to Mto wa Mbu (translated to "mosquito village") and Manyara National Park. Mto wa Mbu is the town just outside of the park, and is replete with craft stalls and tourist goods. We hoped to shop for Masai wedding necklaces, woven baskets, gourds and other Tanzanian art to remember our experiences by. I brought a beautiful wood bowl and a gorgeous woven basket, for a fraction of the price that you'd find these items for in the States. 


After several hours of browsing the market, we'd finished shopping. As I moved forward to step into the Land Rover, my weight shifted and I instantly felt a surge of pain in my right foot. It was unlike any pain I've experienced before. I stood still, frozen by the sensation -  though my brain said the paid was in my foot, physically, the pain manifested itself as dozens of needles piercing my cheeks and forearms. In an instant, my eyes were wide and my face was as white as a ghost. 

My friends could clearly see that something was wrong. I blurted out, with unreasonable calm and "matter-of-factness" that something was in my foot. And then I just stood there, unable to say more. The faces in front of me were worried as they helped me into the car. Once I was seated, Tracie slowly moved my foot from my flip flop, revealing a rusty, bent nail that had gone through the flip flop plastic and about 1/2 inch into the ball of my right foot. Feeling the metal pulled from my flesh, I began to fall into mini-shock. Things moved slowly and the needle sensation in my arms and face was spreading. And then, the pain became so intense that I felt nearly nothing at all. Tracie rifled around in her bag for a medical kit and with the iodine we found she cleaned the puncture point. 


Several Tanzanians from the shop had crowded around the car to see what had happened, bringing a Coca Cola with them. (Isn't it incredible how Coca Cola has penetrated emerging markets and many essential medicines have not?) "Mbua kubwa," I said in Swahili. The Tanzanians looked at me, confused. "Big pain," I attempted to clarify, in English. (I later learned that mbua kubwa actually means 'big dog' and that foreign language ability quickly dissipates in the face of pain.) 


After a few minutes, I was doing better. Normal feeling returned to my cheeks and pain was localized to my foot where my body had turned its attention to fight potential infection. It's crazy how you can almost feel the antibodies working. The ordeal actually sounds far more dramatic than it should. In this type of situation, the most serious concern is tetanus, and my tetanus shots were up to date. However, my most recent tetanus shot had been 9 years prior so I would need to visit the government hospital for a booster. The government hospital was the only place where tetatus could legally be kept and was also closed on weekends, so we resolved to continue our trip and I'd make a visit first thing on Monday morning.



On Saturday, we drove to Lake Manyara National Park. We arranged the trip ourselves, through a local driver rather than through an established safari outfit, in an effort to keep business local and to economize. Likely as a result, within a few minutes of boarding the Land Rover on Saturday morning, the car was having trouble starting. In fact, most times that the car was turned off, it needed to be pushed or rolled in order to make the engine start again. Relatively deep in the park on Sunday, we were driving along a small river when my friend Kat spotted a Kingfisher, which she touted as one of the most interesting birds in East Africa. Always interested, our group snapped pictures of the bird while Kat recited facts about Kingfishers' unique fishing behaviors. The car was still running, which was making it difficult to to hear and threatened to spook the Kingfisher away. So in a fateful moment, I asked our driver, Freddy, to turn the car off. And predictably, a few minutes later when we were ready to continue on, the car wouldn't start.

Freddy rolled the Rover backwards several times, trying to pop the clutch. No luck the first, second, third times. Tracie, who was in the front seat, urged Freddy to take it easy on the engine. Seated in the far rear, a funny smell was beginning to reach me. Is that burning rubber? I thought. Freddy suddenly turned around with a panicked look on his face. "Get out of the car right now!" he shouted, and we were overcome by a mixture of confusion and panic, unsure of just how serious his instructions had been. He jumped out of the car, on top of the hood and proceeded to jump up and down as smoke wafted from under it. An awkward scramble ensued as the four of us struggled past bags and each other to get out of the car and to safety. But safety is relative when you're in the middle of a national park in East Africa. By exiting the car to escape a possible car fire, we had broken the cardinal rule of safari-ing: Never, ever get out of your vehicle. So there we were, scattered around a smoking Land Rover and would you believe it, the Kingfisher we were trying not to disturb, was watching us from his perch in the tree.

My first instinct was to move as far from the car as possible. But even just a few feet away, we would be incredibly exposed to the elements. To the left was a small river, to the right were dense, thorny acacia trees, and about 4 minutes back on the road was a herd of cape buffalo, the most aggressive animals in the East African bush. I found the differences in our reactions to this vulnerability comical. Tracie, the mama and business woman of our bunch, took to trying to fix the car while searching for emergency park numbers, which Freddy unfortunately did not have. Kat, who spent a month on safari with her family last year (often on foot) gazed around at the landscape and the Kingfisher, practically oblivious to the potential danger of which Alanna had become quite aware. "I think we should get back to back," her voice quivered. "Man your area!" she said. I wholeheartedly agreed. Then came a low grunt from the near distance. Injecting some humor into the now dangerous situation, Alanna asked if it could be a bullfrog. We unfortunately knew better. 

Back to back, manning my area (which was a combination of water and buffalo territory) and always solution-oriented, I began brainstorming scenarios and their corresponding escape routes. In the worst cases, there were hippos, buffalo and a flaming Land Rover to be dealt with. Why not start with the hippo. If a hippo approaches, I thought, I'll get away from the water. But I wonder how aggressively they'd come after us on dry land. Not to mention that the buffalo could arrive at any moment. Four screaming women would likely attract the attention of the herd. So it looks like running deeper into the bush to escape a hippo isn't the best option. That leaves the Land Rover..which is on its way to being on fire...or a climb up a thorny acacia tree. A thorny acacia tree...perhaps stepping on the nail was some sort of preparation.

My scenario-ridden psyche was soon interrupted by another low rumble. Still back to back, our eyes widened as another safari vehicle came into view. Luckily, Freddy had just put the fire out and deemed it safe to continue on. We hesitantly re-boarded the car -- really what other choice did we have -- and the other safari vehicle nudged our engine back into gear. The rest of the trip was wonderful, as you'll see below:

Manyara National Park