Bye Bye.

Why is it that your schedule always gets super busy when you have no time left!?!?! I leave tonight, so naturally, I have 8 million things to do before then, including visiting about 4 different people at 4 different places in the city. chaos!

I'm not ready for this either. I'm having so much fun, understanding so much more Kiswahili. Getting around by myself...and now I already have to go. When I told people I was going to Kenya for 5 weeks, they said, "Wow, that's a long time!" But no, it really isn't. Last time I was here for 3 months and that didn't seem long either. Alas, I must go. School starts on Monday. :( I'll be jetlagged for the entire first week of class, but it's totally worth it! Can't wait to come back. Maybe next time I'll stay for a couple years...

We're about to take off so, sayonara (wrong continent, najua) Africa. Kwaheri ya kuonana (bye and hope to see you again).


(not my photo)

That's an Awful Lot of Blood!

Saw this guy lying in the road near Karen roundabout leo. I think he was hit by a care and I think he was dead. There was an awful lot of blood. Just saw briefly as our matatu was passing. Someone was already attending to him. I kinda wanted to jump out the window to see/help? but the patatu had the bar accross the middle of the window specifically to prevent people from jumping out the window without paying.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yay for my birthday! Just hung out today. Tootled around town. Visited UoN engineering nerds. :) Went to Carnivore for a late lunch with some friends. We went specifically for the nyama choma, but were dissapointed to find that the nyama choma chef's are on break from 3-6pm!!! Sigh. So, we had to pick something else, which was also good, but not the full Carni experience. But at least I can say I've been there now. :) Better luck next time.

Just Teach Them Something.

By Grace today. School Administrator/teach for 4,5,6th grade was out. So, when the students finished the assignment they had been given, I was told by the 1,2,3rd grade teacher, "Just teach them something. Math, English, anything." Shoot. Just teach? Well, I thought to teach math, but soon realized that not only were there a combination of 4th, 5th, and 6th grade math students in the class, but even the ones in the same level were not on the same page of the book. So, when I asked the 6th graders which page they were on, one said "The three of us are on page 17." but then someone else piped in, "Well, I'm only on page 6!" and others, "We're on page 20." So, I just said, "Well there's now way I can teach you a math lesson if you're all on different pages, just just work the problems where you left off last time and ask questions if you need help."

Kayole!

Spent the day chillaxin' at Stanley's Dad's house in Kayole (near the JKIA - Jomo Kenyatta International Airport). It's kinda cool here. A very urban scene.


View from Baba Stanley's apartment complex ("Baba Stanley" means Stanley's dad).


Apparently, this guy is boiling a goat head in that pot. I'm told it makes a good soup.


Reception antennas.


Up on the roof/3rd floor (the complex is not finished yet).

I would not be at all upset if we ate the rooster for breakfast. I'd even slaughter it myself. I was sleeping like a rock, 'til 7am when he tought to begin his morning chior practice! Oooh I was mad!


He was told to fix the iron. Yay for Electrical Engineers. Unfortunately, he didn't have his preferred screwdriver. As he tried to describe the importance of the screwdriver to me, he put it in terms I could understand, and stated: the screwdriver is the engineer's stethescope.


Posin' with the neighborhood. I think they're all looking at me tho... :{


Family shot! Baba Stanley, half-sis, Stanley with half-bro (Cosmos), step-mom.


One of the pimped-out Eastlands matatus. Apparently there's a new one in Kayole that's so tricked-out that the conductor doesn't even have to hussle to get passengers. They just pull up and watu pile on. It has a plasma/LCD screen on the ceiling and even one of the back of each seat. The purpose of these screens is for music videos....Hmmm, I wonder where these matatus are parked when not is use? I know I'd steal one if I had the chance. Then again, they're likely running 24/7.

I think the polici pretty much hate the matatus...they give the police too much trouble and disregard most traffic laws. For instance, they are not supposed to drop or collect passengers at certain places because it congests traffic. This evening, on the way back to Bomas, our matatu, leaving the main stage in town near Kenbanco House, decided he would pick passengers in a "no load zone", which also happened to be right in front of a police officer. So, the police hits the side of the matatu with his baton/stick thing. The conductor makes some astonished face accompanied by an exclamation of "Ay!" or "Hey!" in response, while he lovingly inspected the 'wounded' door. As a result of his grumbling and his continued efforts to load passengers, the vehicle received another emphatic, whap! Again, resulting in more (probably rude) remarks from the conductor. Luckily, the driver entered traffic before this went any further.

Back to NBO

1130-1300: boat to Mbita

14-1445: ferry to Lwanda

1500-1730: matatu to Kisumu

1730-2030: William's house until our EasyCoach leaves. We had joked that the first time we visited him, he gave us a place to sleep. This time he fed us. Now he just needs to give us clothes and we'll have our basic needs covered. As we were leaving, it was pouring, so he gave us a jacket. haha. what a guy.

2100-0400: EasyCoach to Nairobi.

Time for bed. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz............

Do you realize that the amount of time it took us to get from Nairobi to Mfangano, I could have gone all the way from Seattle to Nairobi! Ay caramba!

More Gross Medical Stuff...&...The Efforts of a Village

THE GROSS (but actually super cool) MEDICAL STUFF:

Sites of the day:

*epilepsy (partial complex sz) in a 10yo. Reported symptoms: tired --> lies down for 30-60minutes --> wakes and is confused and speaks jibberish.

*febrile sz (5yo & baby)

*Polio (17yo boy): Pt reported that he'd had this for 2yrs. Unusual to get polio at age 15. We tried to get more information about where he lived to see if there was any correlation with a recent outbreak or anything, but we were not very successful. He was very reluctant to tell us what area he was from. MD treated with PO (oral) Naproxen for pain & topical anti-inflammatory for right knee. We can only treat his symptoms. The damage from the Polio has already been done. (Right-sided weakness and muscular atrophy. His right knee had very significant patellar swelling. It was very pronounced and nobby-looking. I guess a good way to describe it might be like a baseball sitting on top of a twig, or something. Very distinctive Polio walk/limp. Basically, his right leg is totally deformed and weak, so it kind of drags along while he supports himself with the Left leg and a walking stick.) I reall wish I would have taken a picture of some of these things, but here's a pic from the web of the effects of Polio. I couldn't find the pic I wanted, but this is a good diagram of the muscles effected by Polio:



*vaginal yeast infections (many causes for this kind of stuff, but one way is from sitting in bad water, such as a lake, puddles, etc, to bathe, wash clothes or dishes, etc). We saw this kind of thing a lot in Dominican Republic.

*more tinea capitis. By the way, this (ringworm) is a fungal infection. Round patches with defined and slightly raised edges:


Ringworm (tinea capitis)

versus

Folliculitis. Patchy and more irregularly shaped.

Once these pustules start to dry up/scab over, it is a little more difficult (for a newbie) to distinguish from Ringworm.

*Shingles in a 25yo woman (down her Left leg). Likely HIV+ because she's so young. Also, commonly Shingles is seen on the back around the rib cage, but it can occur along any nerve pathway...and if you know your nerve pathways (which I don't) you can easily identify it was Shingles because it follows that path exactly. The husband a dark patchy rash accross his face (nose, forhead, and cheeks. Likely HIV dermatitis).

*umbilical hernia


Today was my last day at the med clinic. We returned back to Mfangano on the 430pm boat, which naturally, left around 530pm. I've been "mzungu'd" to the max over this side, but maybe the cherry on top of all the "mzungu-ing" was from the boat conductor. Someone else on the boat has something like "Now, where is this mzungu going?" And the conductor defensively responded: "This is our mzungu! Go find your own mzungu." So now I proudly hold the title of Mfangano's Mzungu. :)

IT TAKES A VILLAGE:

As we were walking up to the shamba, there was a big gathering of people by the airstrip. Some sort of meeting apparently. We later learned that a relative of Stanley's was among them. Well, by that I mean he was the main event. As it turned out, the gathering was an intervention. The guy's mother told on him to the community youth group because while he should be in university now, he prefers playing pool all day and has no motivation to work or go to school. So, his fate was to undergo interrogation and caning by the youthgroup, who then proceeded to develop a plan of action for him. His sentence: he has been assigned a teacher by the youthgroup and is to be woken at 6am each morning for studying. Needless to say, he's not at all happy about this and ignores all of our probing question regarding "Tell us what happened Thursday evening? Where were you?"

These types of interventions are the typical mode of getting someone back on the right track. Not too long ago, ome parents were accused/known to be neglecting their children (leaving them in the house, not being good parents). The village found out, brought both the mother and father to one of these sessions, and they were both caned and severely scolded for their parenting (or lack thereof).

Also, if a man is found to be beating his wife, he's caned as well.

Therefore, it takes a village. I wish we had this kind of community support in the U.S. I think we'd have a lot fewer problems if we had more people being accountable for each other.