Over the half-way hump :(

I have exactly 3 weeks left in Kenya. :( I have met so many great people, and just keep meeting more and more!  Just yesterday I was brushing my teeth next to a complete stranger, and by the time we were done, she had invited me to her room for coffee.  That's just how people are here.  My sometimes awkward tendency to say hi to random people solely because we made eye-contact is completely embraced here, and I love it.  I often get asked if I'm homesick...and I can honestly say that I'm not.  For the girl who hasn't lived outside of a 100-mile radius of the home she grew up in, it's somewhat surprising.  Watching home-videos of my 6-month old nephew does make me want all the details of life back home, but I've never had the thought that I wish I were back in Indiana rather than where I am!

I am starting my second week on one of the Men's Medicine wards.  The adult service is significantly busier and with more complicated patients than the pediatric ward.  Rounding lasts from 9am - 1pm without fail.  Luckily, I have a great team.  My registrar does useful teaching in an un-intimidating way.  We have a visiting resident from the UK, with whom I have developed a sign-language of sorts to know when he needs my pulse ox vs. BP cuff vs. hand sanitizer.  We have another outgoing and overworked intern who happens to be from Malaysia.  Today we welcomed a visiting medical student from Sweden to the team!  It turns out that Moi provides quite the international work environment!  Of course, the Kenyan medical students on the team were very welcoming to me.  I feel like I am forming bonds with them much quicker than I did in the beginning.  This week we restarted with a new batch of students, who seem equally friendly and awesome.

Since Mount Elgon over 2 weeks ago, I have stayed here in Eldoret.  It has been nice to feel like I live here rather than feel like a tourist.  I have kept myself plenty busy with work, exploring town, and random fun activities we come up with.  I think I'll try the bullet format again to give you a snapshot of the stuff I've been up to, and to help me remember in the future :)

• Eldoret nightlife = awesome!  Tuesday night Karaoke was so much fun.  Kenyans seem to take karaoke pretty seriously and usually sing slow power ballads.  We stuck to the American tradition of trashy pop songs.  A friend of mine and I sang "My Humps" by Fergie...it seemed quite inappropriate once I was reminded of the lyrics, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it!  On the weekends, we have gone to to the new Club Samba and Spree several times.  Clubs here are similar to those in the US, but the people make it so much more fun!  It's more about the dancing than the drinking.  Guys always outnumber girls on the dance floor, and eventually the entire CLUB becomes the dance floor!  There is always a fun mix of American and African music.  I will seriously miss this dance scene back home.
• I have visited a couple places for children here in Eldoret.  Neema House is a home and primary school for children infected or affected by HIV.  There are 40+ kids living there, most of which are <10 yrs old.  At least I had Sarah for support, but we were basically attacked for 2 hours, haha.  My favorite game was the "nap time" game, but mostly I played a lot of soccer.  Tumaini is a center for "street children" to drop in and get support in a variety of ways.  Shyamal and I attempted to teach them how to frisbee.  We ended up playing an ultimate-soccer-frisbee game, which was a huge hit.
• One of our random nights out deserves a bullet point.  The details are fuzzy on whether or not we were actually invited, but we got the whole group dressed up and crashed an Indian wedding!  Shyamal, the brown Brown University medical student (it's too perfect that I can't stop myself) acted as our tour guide through the temple and delicious buffet dinner.  Afterwards we strolled through a new part of town and stumbled upon a bar with pool tables and 2 very friendly gentlemen.  They had a hard time keeping track of our names, and didn't seem to notice that we kept changing them throughout the night.  Josh and I were apparently siblings, and eventually went by the names Michael and Janet Jackson.  When Kelly/Sally/Nancy tried to go by Hannah Montana, my drink almost came out my nose.  It was a very random, very fun night out!
• I attended a Kenyan Church service with 2 of my new friends here.  It was very different, yet was fundamentally the same.  Basically, it was smaller, longer, and louder than most US services!  The prayer morphed into worship, and then morphed back to prayer, etc.  It was difficult for an outsider to follow, but at times was very powerful.  There were many pearls from the message which I hope will stay with me.  Of course, everyone was very welcoming and even "honored" to have me attend!

• The Superbowl!  Natalie, our resident party-planner, talked a local bar into opening for us at 2am for the game!  Hawaiian pizza and Little Manning for the win at 4am in Kenya = epic.  Of course there were the hilarious hiccups, like how the workers set up the projector for the game but the sound was bass fishing, and how the "Please replace the light bulb" warning blocked our view of the score the whole game, haha.  Just little reminders that I was actually watching the game in Kenya!  Otherwise, I felt very at home with all of the downtown Indy shots!

The most important change that has happened over the last couple weeks is my ability to make connections with my Kenyan colleagues.  The first month, it seemed that the US crew spent a lot of time together getting to know each other.  We did fun Kenyan things, but mainly as a giant group of foreigners.  However, now that I am more comfortable, (and perhaps now that they are more comfortable?), I feel like I am forming true friendships.  My church invitation came from a friend on my pediatric team, who just stopped by my room to invite me for porridge!  She loved that I had never had porridge before.  (Fyi, it's like drinking a warm apple pie!)  I guess part of me asumed that the Kenyan medical students wouldn't take a huge interest in the next batch of IU students since so many of us rotate here.  I think (1) that belief is mainly false, and (2) we started at the beginning of a new school year for them, so we are almost like the FIRST batch of IU students.  It was a bit of a slow start because of it, but I do think my timing is great for meeting people and making friends.  I am already excited by the possibility of some of them rotating through IU in the future!