Week 3 and Mount Elgon

Tuesday, January 24th, sitting on my bunk bed.

I have been in Eldoret just over 3 weeks now, and my love for Kenya keeps growing.  I have had so many positive interactions and one-of-a-kind experiences that they are already blurring into the life-changing trip I knew this would be.  I really should be journaling on a daily basis, but the occasional blog-post is better than nothing.  Those of you who catch me on gchat get to hear some of the finer details, and I appreciate you letting me tell my stories!



Bry is one of my favorite patients! Unfortunately, he was
readmitted a few days after discharge onto a different team,
but he ran down the hall to find me!

 Week 3:  I finally had my bearings on the ward and was able to function (almost) as a Kenyan medical student.  My pediatric team welcomed a medical student from Holland and she and I quickly became friends as I showed her the ropes.  (Hey, Meike!)  To add more flair to our Kenyan team, the intern on my team is Indian and went through British schooling of some sort.  Quite the international group!  We had several long discussions comparing our cultures, education, politics (I kept pretty quiet during the politics part of the conversation, haha), etc.  It was a pretty cool environment.  I also really began to bond with our long-term patients.  And then I have a lot of love for the abandoned kids who now call MTRH home.  I have spent more than my fair share of time playing with them during our typically slow afternoons on the wards.  I could go on and on about each of them.  I took my camera to the ward a few days ago and surprised the kids with prints of the pictures today--it was a madhouse!  They LOVE cameras and pictures, and of course promptly began fighting over the prints.  Woops!  I'll just have to take my camera back to take pictures of the kiddos I missed on round 1 :)

 

LOVE these kids!  The patient is the one on my lap, and the
other kiddo is his little brother, who is upset that big bro
is getting all of the attention.  Such a cute family!

There is a 3 year old boy who has been in the hospital since mid-December for malnutrition who I "picked up" as a patient.  Fortunately, the mother speaks a fair amount of English, so when I was floundering around the wards, I tended to spend extra time with them.  The mother told me the whole terrible story about how she was run out of her house and was only able to take 3 of her 4 children, leaving the youngest behind.  She was able to return 2 years later but found her son severely malnourished.  I was very worried about the little guy, but long-story-short he pulled through and was discharged yesterday!  Of course, there is the tiny problem of the giant bill that she can't pay, but at least her family is healthy and about to be reunited.  I LOVE bringing smiles to these kid's faces, especially the 3 year old because it meant he was feeling better.  One of my conversations with the mother was particularly poignant--she asked, "Is it true, that in the US, you don't know your neighbor?"  I fumbled around trying to explain that one.  She went into detail about how neighbors help each other in Kenya, care for each other's children, share food,  protect each other, etc.  And then she responded with, "You won't help your neighbor, but you will help Kenya?"  ......yeah.  This family will definitely stay with me.


Mount Elgon: This past weekend 6 of us decided to take on Mount Elgon.  Joe Mamlin, the brain behind AMPATH who has lived in Eldoret for the last 13 years, endorsed it as his favorite thing to do. We HAD to check it out!  The whole trip ended up being a blast.  I was either laughing so hard I almost peed my pants or speechless over the beauty of nature at every turn.  For those of you on facebook, I have a new profile picture from the trip!  Also, here is a link to a video I uploaded to youtube, in case pictures just aren't enough:  Video Link!

The highlights, in bullet form this time!  :)

• Driver showing up an hour late in a MUTATU to drive us up a mountain.  A mutatu is an 11-seat rear-wheel drive van.  We knew it would be an interesting trip.
• Noticing that Micah, our fearless leader on the trip, speaks in a hybrid british accent when talking to Kenyans.  "Fraaaancis, is this the co-ffee plaaant?"  It was super noticeable from then on, and hilarious.
• Josh trying to point out the plant that smelled good out of the thousands of different plants we were driving by.  "No...wait....THAT ONE!"
• Needing to get out of the mutatu so our drivers and guide could push it up a particularly steep incline.  I'm surprised it only happened once.

• The hike!  Amazing.  Over each hill was a new landscape with new plants and spectacular views of the mountain.  See the video above for a decent representation.  Unfortunately, we were informed that it would only take 2 hours to get to the top, which was false.  Josh and Micah, the guys that were ahead of me at the time of video production, did actually eventually make it to the top, but we definitely ran out of daylight for the drive back down the moutain.  A little scary.  Us girls got tired of waiting for them so we started heading back on our own. I kept referencing those shows where hikers get lost and almost die right before getting rescued, and "This is how it happens!" became a tag-line for our long, unguided hike in the wilderness of Kenya.  We left a few signs for the boys so they would know we were ok, stopped for a yoga break, and eventually they caught up to us.
• Watching the boys fix the flat tire we got on the drive back down the moutain.  Of course the jack didn't work, so they had to lift our mutatu with their manly muscles.
• The overnight stay in the "guest house." We lost power for a while and lost water for the majority of the evening.  No shower for Jessica = gross.  We did manage to pull together a delicious meal of left-over Indian food and watch a movie on a computer, though.
• THE STARS!  Arguably my favorite part of this trip because it was RIDICULOUS!  Everyone in our group agreed that it was the most impressive display of stars that any of us had seen, and we are a well traveled group!  Joe took some pictures with a 30-second shutter, so I will be stealing those in an attempt to hang on to the beauty.  When I went to sleep that night, I just opened the window and looked up.

• Cave exploring.  The next morning, we used flashlights to go deep into caves and annoy thousands of bats.  I will attempt to post a video because my pictures didn't turn out.  They were super loud and occasionally flew a little too close for comfort!  Oh yeah, and Sarah came down with some terrible allergy/altitude sickness and couldn't even get into the second cave because the guano was so overwhelming.  I tried not to think about it.
• Waterfall shower!  There was a giant waterfall that we all eventually played in.  It was gorgeous, but the water was ice-cold and stung your skin because it was so huge!  Still worth it, particularly in my state of filth at the time.

So my "highlights" just ended up being a really detailed account of the weekend, haha.  Thanks for reading and/or lookng at my pictures :)  Now everyone go out and enjoy some cheezits for me!  I miss them!