Traveling Tommy visits Hospitals and Universities

Here I am getting ready to have my blood drawn by a phlebotomist at Deral de Mavalane Hospital in Maputo!

Maputo, Mozambique

I am packed and off to a new country- Maputo, Mozambique- working with colleagues from Utah (Weber State University) and one from FURJ (Rio de Janeiro). This will be a new experience as I am the only person not fluent in Portuguese! Maputo is at the bottom of Mozambique and is the capital of the country. It is on the Indian Ocean, warm, and quite tropical!
We will be performing assessements at hospital labs and universities to assist their laboratory professionals in revising the curriculum for the basic, medium, superior level medical laboratory science programs

History: Maputo (previously known as Lourenzo Marques) has a population of about two million people and a large, busy harbour.
Under Portuguese influence, it became one of Africa's most beautiful and fashionable cities with an impressive skyline of tall buildings and a cosmopolitan Portuguese/African atmosphere.
Mozambique's war in the 1970s and 1980s left Maputo in chaos and poverty. The city was in terrible disrepair after the wars: Thousands of immigrants crowded buildings, litter was everywhere and water and electricity were scarce at best.

Today Maputo is slowly rebuilding but has still not regained the romantic heyday of the 60's and early 70's. The gap between rich an poor is vast: multi-million dollar mansions overlook the sea while massive slums ring the city, and dilapidated concrete high rises stand next to beautiful Portuguese villas.