Friday at the hospital I decided to spend the morning at the maternity ward. One side of the unit had a few rooms (when I say "rooms" I mean a bed behind a curtain) with women laboring. The other side had rooms for complicated pregnancies.
Not long after arriving, doctors and nurses kept asking us to put lines (IV's) in patients. I was a bit frightened since I was unfamiliar with their IV catheters. Marlen, who is a senior med student from Norway, offered to put the first one in so I could watch and see how their catheters work. In the states, our catheters have a button to push once you're in the vein that retracts the needle to prevent sticking yourself. Here there is no such thing...you literally take out the needle and set it on the bed.
After Marlen was successful, I decided to give it a try. After checking the patient's chart and seeing the words serum-NR (meaning HIV nonreactive), I found a good vein and went for it. I managed to make a bit of a blood bath but was successful.
There were a few woman screaming in pain. I don't blame them since there is no pain medication and no support from their spouses (men are not allowed in the rooms). The doctors or nurse midwives use a fetoscope (sp?) to listen to the baby's heart rate. One side of it is placed on the woman's abdomen as you press your ear up against the other side to listen. None of the women are hooked up to monitors like in the states, and vaginal exams are done every 4 hours. Therefore, there is no way of knowing if the baby starts going into distress. When the women are ready to push, they scream in Swahili, "doctor the baby is coming!"
Shortly after I had arrived, I saw a baby that was a stillborn, meaning the baby was born dead. Those are always sad. We finally saw a woman deliver who had meconium stained amniotic fluid. Not terribly uncommon, but can be very dangerous to the baby if the baby aspirates it. Meconium is a baby's first poop and can often happen inutero. So, preparing for this delivery, we went to set up the suction and realized it was broken! We tried improvising and making our own suction device with a syringe attached to a suction catheter but it didn't work that well. Fortunately, the baby came out crying. After seeing tons of deliveries, I still find them incredible to watch.
After the hospital, we lounged around the house anticipating going to see Lion King in 3D at Nyali Cinemax. I had never seen a movie in 3D and we are going on our safari on Thursday, so I was pumped! After getting yelled at for taking a picture inside the theater (fun fact: theater is also what they call the operating rooms in the hospital), I put my 3D glasses on and watched the movie. Why is it that I am 26 years old and still get sad when Mufasa dies??
Some of the girls bought liquor at the Nakumatt before the movie and played a drinking game where some of them had to drink every time they heard the word Simba, and the others Mufasa. I decided not to drink since my tummy was feeling a bit funny.
After the movie all 18 of us went back to our house, only to find that our power was out! I have gotten used to losing the power every day for a few hours, but it has always been back by night time. We all sat around in a circle with flashlights, most drinking (minus me and some of the Irish guys) and played a game. 2 people think of a rule and then say I am going to a picnic and am bringing a... sausage for example. Then you then go around in a circle saying what you're going to bring and try to figure the rule they made, based on whether or not they tell you that you can come to the picnic. Silly game that I remember playing as a child. Of course I was one of the last people to figure it out so I was getting frustrated...
Some of the group decided to go out but I was exhausted, so I figured I would try and fall asleep even though it was sweltering hot in our room. I got creative and tied one of my hand held battery operated fans to my mosquito net above my head and was able to fall asleep. Kitty got annoyed by the noise and turned it off after I fell asleep. I woke up at 3 AM and turned it back on, but she yelled "that fan is f$&@ng loud. Shut it off!" So I shut it off and somehow managed to fall asleep.
I got up real early because it was so warm and started hand washing my laundry with Lillian. She asked me to pay her 1,000 shillings, which is a little more than $10, but I had so much laundry that I wanted her help and didn't mind paying. It made me feel very grateful for my washing machine back home!
Most of the group spend the day at an elderly home, then orphanage, then some went back to White Sands resort and others to a place called Fort Jesus. I had already been to the orphanage last week and felt like relaxing, so I stayed behind doing laundry and laying by the pool. I dozed off at the pool, and woke up to Neil (one of the Irish guys) singing and playing the guitar. Neil and the 4 Irish girls were all hysterically laughing as Neil was singing a song he wrote about getting sick with food poisoning. Some of the lyrics were about puke coming out his noise and sleeping with a paper bag taped to his face. It was hilarious. It seems that every day there are at least one or two people that are sick.
I think we are going to have a chill night tonight and not sure what's in store for tomorrow!
Saturday, 9 July 2011
Thursday, 7 July 2011
First full day at Coast General
I know it's been a few days since my last post, but there havent been enough interesting things to blog about until now! Firstly, we are unsure what has been going around, but a little over half of my group has been I'll and unable to keep their food down (both directions...sorry if that's TMI). We aren't sure if it's a virus or just all of our bodies trying to adjust to the environment here. I am feeling pretty good today and am extremely grateful that I did not break my thumb last night! I fully slammed it in the car door...It was smashed in when I got it out, but luckily it's ok! I'm such a clutz.
We all went out to this really delicious dinner last night about 30 minutes away. The restaurant was on the water and was beautiful. We decided to sit in the section that was cemented to the ground, so we weren't swaying back and forth. Given my problems with motion sickness, I was thrilled with this decision. I had prawns which of course came out fully shelled and with the heads. I spent about half the time pulling everything apart, but they were some of the most delicious shrimp ever!
This morning I woke up finally feeling well enough to go to Coast General Hospital where our group is volunteering. I met with a guy named James who gave me a tour of the units I am interested in working in. Those wards are inpatient pediatrics, outpatient peds (mainly giving immunizations), maternity and the newborn area. I was blown away touring around how poor the hospital is (not to mention it is 100 degrees in there with no air conditioning). It's a good thing I brought my little hand held fan because I started feeling light headed a few times. The fan actually came in handy as a toy and good distraction in the pediatric ward.
One thing that absolutely blew my mind was when James told me they only had one pediatric ventilator. That means they can only care for one critically ill child at a time...this hospital is one the main hospitals in the area, so you can only imagine how many children die each day because they don't have enough medical equipment and resources. James said something long the lines of, "if another kid gets sick, it's unlucky for them." My jaw literally dropped. In the unit I worked in, we could have up to 10 or more kids intubated with more ventilators to spare...so sad. I told James I needed to go to the canteen to get a bottle of water before I dropped to the floor from the heat. After getting made fun of at the cash register for my horrible Swahili accent, I walked out to find James. Apparently in the 2 minutes I was gone, a lady gave birth on the ground right there at the entrance of the hospital. She must not have been able to wait any longer! Crazy...
After deciding to stay in the pediatric ward for the day, I went and listened to the doctors rounding on the patients. The unit is one large room split into a few sections with beds everywhere. There is absolutely no privacy. I guess you just hope the kid next to you doesn't have some contagious disease. They put the kids with known contagious illnesses in isolation...but you never know. One kid in the main ward was getting worked up for tuberculosis which can be highly contagious. I took a few steps back when I heard the word TB and remembered I brought some TB masks from home that are back at our place. Not very helpful at this point! I didn't bring a bag to the hospital, and it's so warm that all I wore were scrub bottoms and a t-shirt. This didn't leave me much room to bring any belongings/supplies to the hospital... so I literally stuffed the back pocket of my scrubs full until my pants were almost falling down.
Back to the unit... there is an entire separate peds (pediatrics for you non medical people) unit for kids with diarrhea. Apparently diarrhea is a common symptom of HIV and other common illnesses seen here in Africa...they must see enough of it for it to have it's own ward! The smell in the main peds ward was like nothing I can adequately describe. There were times when I was just breathing through my mouth because it was so nauseating.
When I took a second to tune out the doctors' voices, I could hear several crying children, and I noticed a tv on in the back playing a hip hop music video...interesting choice for a pediatric ward.
In the first two pods of the unit were the sickest children. A few kids had HIV, and one was pretty sick looking...Malaria and meningitis seemed to be the most popular illnesses, but others included an abscess, ascites, and a few with febrile seizures (high fever can cause kids to seize). The last several pods are for kids admitted with malnutrition.
It was quite an interesting day getting acquainted with the hospital. Hopefully tomorrow will be more hands on.
Later in the day we went to a resort called White Sands with a really nice beach about 15 minutes away. It was so windy I thought I was going to blow away. The tide was so low there during the morning/early afternoon that several of the group walked far out into the ocean. We wandered around after and ate a yummy dinner. I'm about to post a few pics! I'll bring my camera to the hospital tomorrow and take some pics. Now time for bed before another long day tomorrow!
We all went out to this really delicious dinner last night about 30 minutes away. The restaurant was on the water and was beautiful. We decided to sit in the section that was cemented to the ground, so we weren't swaying back and forth. Given my problems with motion sickness, I was thrilled with this decision. I had prawns which of course came out fully shelled and with the heads. I spent about half the time pulling everything apart, but they were some of the most delicious shrimp ever!
This morning I woke up finally feeling well enough to go to Coast General Hospital where our group is volunteering. I met with a guy named James who gave me a tour of the units I am interested in working in. Those wards are inpatient pediatrics, outpatient peds (mainly giving immunizations), maternity and the newborn area. I was blown away touring around how poor the hospital is (not to mention it is 100 degrees in there with no air conditioning). It's a good thing I brought my little hand held fan because I started feeling light headed a few times. The fan actually came in handy as a toy and good distraction in the pediatric ward.
One thing that absolutely blew my mind was when James told me they only had one pediatric ventilator. That means they can only care for one critically ill child at a time...this hospital is one the main hospitals in the area, so you can only imagine how many children die each day because they don't have enough medical equipment and resources. James said something long the lines of, "if another kid gets sick, it's unlucky for them." My jaw literally dropped. In the unit I worked in, we could have up to 10 or more kids intubated with more ventilators to spare...so sad. I told James I needed to go to the canteen to get a bottle of water before I dropped to the floor from the heat. After getting made fun of at the cash register for my horrible Swahili accent, I walked out to find James. Apparently in the 2 minutes I was gone, a lady gave birth on the ground right there at the entrance of the hospital. She must not have been able to wait any longer! Crazy...
After deciding to stay in the pediatric ward for the day, I went and listened to the doctors rounding on the patients. The unit is one large room split into a few sections with beds everywhere. There is absolutely no privacy. I guess you just hope the kid next to you doesn't have some contagious disease. They put the kids with known contagious illnesses in isolation...but you never know. One kid in the main ward was getting worked up for tuberculosis which can be highly contagious. I took a few steps back when I heard the word TB and remembered I brought some TB masks from home that are back at our place. Not very helpful at this point! I didn't bring a bag to the hospital, and it's so warm that all I wore were scrub bottoms and a t-shirt. This didn't leave me much room to bring any belongings/supplies to the hospital... so I literally stuffed the back pocket of my scrubs full until my pants were almost falling down.
Back to the unit... there is an entire separate peds (pediatrics for you non medical people) unit for kids with diarrhea. Apparently diarrhea is a common symptom of HIV and other common illnesses seen here in Africa...they must see enough of it for it to have it's own ward! The smell in the main peds ward was like nothing I can adequately describe. There were times when I was just breathing through my mouth because it was so nauseating.
When I took a second to tune out the doctors' voices, I could hear several crying children, and I noticed a tv on in the back playing a hip hop music video...interesting choice for a pediatric ward.
In the first two pods of the unit were the sickest children. A few kids had HIV, and one was pretty sick looking...Malaria and meningitis seemed to be the most popular illnesses, but others included an abscess, ascites, and a few with febrile seizures (high fever can cause kids to seize). The last several pods are for kids admitted with malnutrition.
It was quite an interesting day getting acquainted with the hospital. Hopefully tomorrow will be more hands on.
Later in the day we went to a resort called White Sands with a really nice beach about 15 minutes away. It was so windy I thought I was going to blow away. The tide was so low there during the morning/early afternoon that several of the group walked far out into the ocean. We wandered around after and ate a yummy dinner. I'm about to post a few pics! I'll bring my camera to the hospital tomorrow and take some pics. Now time for bed before another long day tomorrow!
Tuesday, 5 July 2011
I fed a giraffe!!
I'm not going to blog much about Sunday since it was a pretty lazy day, but here are a few of the events of the day. We were planning on going to a park about 10 minutes away to feed giraffes, but after arriving there at 5 pm, we realized we missed all of the animal feedings. So we went over to the Irish boy's house, which is about a 10 minute walk from us. There are too many of us to all fit at this compound, so the Irish guys and 2 girls from Norway, who I have not met yet, live at the other house. We pretty much just sat around and chatted for a few hours. I have decided I love Irish people. I've met several of them in the last week and they are all ridiculously nice. I love their accents, even if I dont understand them half of the time. It's been fun comparing all of our different countries and funny sayings. Whitney, who is from Canada, adds "hey" to the end of many sentences and the Irish boys talk so proper and are so polite. Sometimes I feel a bit loud and vulgar around them but I think they're getting used to us!
Monday, we got up early to go register at Coast General Hospital, where we will be working. Just as we got inside it started to downpour. First real rain I've seen here. I still haven't taken a full tour of the hospital, so I'll post more info after I spend more time there.
We decided to go feed the giraffes today since we missed it yesterday. This place called Haller Park is right off a main road near us. I had no idea what to expect, but figured it would be small and similar to a zoo. We walked into the park and I instantly felt like I was in the amazon. Swamps and trees everywhere...monkeys in every direction, you could almost trip on them. We went to feed the giraffes first which was so insanely cool! We fed them these little pellets and their tongues were so slimy! I've never been so up close to a giraffe and it was truly one of the coolest things I've ever done. The monkeys kept stealing the pellets and shoving seversl of them in their mouths at once. Pretty funny. Next, we took a walk through the reptile park with a guide, and he pointed out all of the different snakes. One of them was the most dangerous snake in the world. Not quite sure why that one wasn't in one of the enclosed rooms...After the reptiles, we headed over to see the hippos. They are huge, weighing in at about 3 tons! We were so close to them too, which was absolutly surreal. We saw several monkeys carrying their small babies and even saw a few feeding from their moms. So neat! Check out fbook for those pics. We also saw antelope and buffalo just roaming around. The final feeding were the crocodiles. One of the park workers dangled meat above the crocodiles and they jumped into the air to try and grab it. Got some great pics of that too! Overall, one of the best experiences ever and so unexpected given it's location off the side the road! Africa is so darn cool. Alright that's it for now. I'll blog agsin when I some interesting things to share!
Monday, we got up early to go register at Coast General Hospital, where we will be working. Just as we got inside it started to downpour. First real rain I've seen here. I still haven't taken a full tour of the hospital, so I'll post more info after I spend more time there.
We decided to go feed the giraffes today since we missed it yesterday. This place called Haller Park is right off a main road near us. I had no idea what to expect, but figured it would be small and similar to a zoo. We walked into the park and I instantly felt like I was in the amazon. Swamps and trees everywhere...monkeys in every direction, you could almost trip on them. We went to feed the giraffes first which was so insanely cool! We fed them these little pellets and their tongues were so slimy! I've never been so up close to a giraffe and it was truly one of the coolest things I've ever done. The monkeys kept stealing the pellets and shoving seversl of them in their mouths at once. Pretty funny. Next, we took a walk through the reptile park with a guide, and he pointed out all of the different snakes. One of them was the most dangerous snake in the world. Not quite sure why that one wasn't in one of the enclosed rooms...After the reptiles, we headed over to see the hippos. They are huge, weighing in at about 3 tons! We were so close to them too, which was absolutly surreal. We saw several monkeys carrying their small babies and even saw a few feeding from their moms. So neat! Check out fbook for those pics. We also saw antelope and buffalo just roaming around. The final feeding were the crocodiles. One of the park workers dangled meat above the crocodiles and they jumped into the air to try and grab it. Got some great pics of that too! Overall, one of the best experiences ever and so unexpected given it's location off the side the road! Africa is so darn cool. Alright that's it for now. I'll blog agsin when I some interesting things to share!
Sunday, 3 July 2011
Orphanage/Diani Beach
After a very busy 2 days, I finally have some time to blog. It's very difficult to articulate exactly what I am seeing and experiencing here, but I will do my best! First, let me say I am so in love with Mombasa. Every day I am here I fall more in love with this place. I was a bit worried it was going to feel touristy and that I wouldn't get a real African cultural experience, but that has not been the case. We have been practicing Swahili often, but the words are so hard to remember! This is what Ive got so far (keep in mind I am completely making up the spelling): cuaheri is goodbye, somahani is sorry, tafadali is please, karibu is welcome. That's all I can remember. Haha. They seem to appreciate us trying even if we sound ridiculous.
Thursday we went to a place called Precious Vision Care Center, which is an orphanage that houses 250 kids. Some are orphans, some abadnoned by their parents, and others whose parents are too poor to care for them. The kids were so excited to see us that they were all screaming and running up to us to shake our hands. I brought a huge duffel bag filled with toys to bring to the kids. Right before we went to the orphanage I gave a few of the toys to Benson, Lillian and Dolas, who are part of the Elective Africa staff, to give to their small children. Benson got a little carried away and I had to tell him to save some toys for the orphaned kids. Anyways, watching them hand out the toys to the kids at the orphanage was one of the most gratifying experiences. All I could think about was how I wished I could have brought more... The kids were all so well behaved and were lined up singing and clapping "thank you." Its truly amazing to see how happy these kids are despite all of the obstacles they face on a daily basis. Truly inspiring. I could tell some of the kids had kwashiorkor from malnourishment (big bellies), their clothes were all ripped, almost none of them had shoes on, and there were flies on many of their heads. It looked exactly like what youve seen on the commercials on tv...I wish I could have taken them all home.
We took a walk around the village where the orphanage is and it was extremely poor, run down and dirty. The people lived in small huts and there were goats roaming around everywhere. It truly made me feel grateful for everything that I have. I was assuming we were going to take a tuk tuk home from the orphanage, but all of a sudden about 9 motorcycles pulled up and Betty said, "Do you mind taking a motorcycle home?" I've never been on one before but I was up for it! I wasn't quite sure where to hang on because I didn't want to hold on to this guy I didn't know...so I just gripped on to this handle bar behind me and held on for dear life. Of course my motorcycle led the pack...I wasn't scared at all though, and luckily the ride was only about 10 minutes long.
Other highlights from Thursday were purchasing a fan at the Nakumatt and having to carry it 20 minutes home. I bought the smallest one they had which was not small by any means...I felt pretty silly carrying it down the street and several of the local people made comments about it during the walk back. We happened to be walking next to this guy in a wheelchair who had very small,frail legs. He would not stop talking to us, and it seemed like no matter how fast we walked, he was always right behind us! We crossed the street to get to our house and he stopped and was watching us and waiving...super creepy! I asked our staff if they knew him, which they did...its a good thing we have security!
I learned I'm highly allergic to Pebbles the kitty. I must have touhed my eyes after petting the cat because my eyes were so itchy and then swelled and got extremely red. I've been trying to stay away from the cat now but it seems to really like me and always tries to sit by me on the couch and come into my room!
I've gotten used to taking cold showers and have just gotten very quick at taking them, but I finally had my first hot one on Thur! It was quite a treat. You don't realize some of the things you take for granted!
Friday, me, Whitney, Ann and the three Irish guys (Mark, Andrew and Simon) left at 10 in the morning to head to Diani Beach. We took tuk tuks through downtown Mombasa, which I had not seen yet since the compound Im at is in the suburb Nyali. We got off and got in the line for the ferry. It was so crowded and I was getting shoved by some of the locals. Once we boarded the ferry, it was only about a 10 minute ride. When we got off the ferry, we were swarmed with people asking us if we needed a matatu, which we did. They told us it would be a 10 minute ride, but 45 minutes later and after having been in a matatu with 20 people crammed in it (insane) they told us we were at Diani Beach. We got out and didnt see anything that looked like a beach. We asked several different people, and they all pointed us in the same direction... so we walked and walked and walked.... 45 minutes later, I was sweating buckets and still no beach was in sight. We saw a sign for a hospital and walked in to ask for directios. They told us to get in another matatu, which we did and only took us about 5 minutes up the road. We walked through a path onto Diani Beach but realized we were on the wrong side of the beach. The beach was covered in seaweed past our ankles, but we had no choice other than to walk. We could see in the distance where we wanted to be but it was a long ways away...1 hour of walking through the seaweed, dodging crabs, getting bitten by Mosquitos and getting swarmed with vendors (one guy told me to go back to my homeland after I told him I wasn't interested in one of his keychains), we finally made it to clean white sand. We laid down on the beach for about an hour but had to get up because the tide was getting stronger and had already drenched some of our belongings. We kept walking until we met some nice Americans and Brits who we hung out with for a little while. We continued down the beach to a restaurant called Forty Thieves which was filled with Americans and Europeans. We were planning on going to this restaurant in a cave that was supposedly really cool but found out it doesn't open until 730 pm. Considering it took us 3 hours to get there (should have only taken 1:15), we thought it'd be a good idea to leave before dark (it gets dark here at about 6:30). The journey back home was a lot smoother. Whitney hassled the tuk tuk driver because she didn't believe he knew where we lived and told him if he was lying he wouldn't get paid. Luckily the driver knew exactly where we lived and even gave us his number and said he'd come pick us up another time when we needed a tuk tuk. Next we took a ride to a private hospital since one of the people on the trip needed medical attention. Interesting to see a private hospital...haven't seen the hospital I'll be at yet but I can imagine there is a huge difference.
Edwin, who works with Elective Africa out of New Jersey, was in town for a few days and wanted to take us all out. I had spoken with Edwin frequently over the past several months leading up to the trip asking him all of my predeparture questions. I was excited to finally meet him and go out and see a local Mombasa club. The place he took us to had four different sections: The restaurant, room with pool tables, strip club, and dance club. Can you guess where we went? Obviously the dance club! It was a blast. These kenyans really know how to shake it on the dance floor! At 1 am there was a talent show with singing, rapping and dancing acts. There was one very strange act where I'm pretty sure a guy was trying to do a contemporary dance about delivering a baby. He something stuffed in his shirt...it was bazarre. My favorites were the dance acts and the girl dressed in cowboy boots and hat singing a Shania Twain song. I recorded one of the dance acts and will post the video on my facebook page. I think those are about all of the highlights so far! I'll try not to get behind again. Hope you are enjoying my blogs! See Facebook for pics!
Thursday we went to a place called Precious Vision Care Center, which is an orphanage that houses 250 kids. Some are orphans, some abadnoned by their parents, and others whose parents are too poor to care for them. The kids were so excited to see us that they were all screaming and running up to us to shake our hands. I brought a huge duffel bag filled with toys to bring to the kids. Right before we went to the orphanage I gave a few of the toys to Benson, Lillian and Dolas, who are part of the Elective Africa staff, to give to their small children. Benson got a little carried away and I had to tell him to save some toys for the orphaned kids. Anyways, watching them hand out the toys to the kids at the orphanage was one of the most gratifying experiences. All I could think about was how I wished I could have brought more... The kids were all so well behaved and were lined up singing and clapping "thank you." Its truly amazing to see how happy these kids are despite all of the obstacles they face on a daily basis. Truly inspiring. I could tell some of the kids had kwashiorkor from malnourishment (big bellies), their clothes were all ripped, almost none of them had shoes on, and there were flies on many of their heads. It looked exactly like what youve seen on the commercials on tv...I wish I could have taken them all home.
We took a walk around the village where the orphanage is and it was extremely poor, run down and dirty. The people lived in small huts and there were goats roaming around everywhere. It truly made me feel grateful for everything that I have. I was assuming we were going to take a tuk tuk home from the orphanage, but all of a sudden about 9 motorcycles pulled up and Betty said, "Do you mind taking a motorcycle home?" I've never been on one before but I was up for it! I wasn't quite sure where to hang on because I didn't want to hold on to this guy I didn't know...so I just gripped on to this handle bar behind me and held on for dear life. Of course my motorcycle led the pack...I wasn't scared at all though, and luckily the ride was only about 10 minutes long.
Other highlights from Thursday were purchasing a fan at the Nakumatt and having to carry it 20 minutes home. I bought the smallest one they had which was not small by any means...I felt pretty silly carrying it down the street and several of the local people made comments about it during the walk back. We happened to be walking next to this guy in a wheelchair who had very small,frail legs. He would not stop talking to us, and it seemed like no matter how fast we walked, he was always right behind us! We crossed the street to get to our house and he stopped and was watching us and waiving...super creepy! I asked our staff if they knew him, which they did...its a good thing we have security!
I learned I'm highly allergic to Pebbles the kitty. I must have touhed my eyes after petting the cat because my eyes were so itchy and then swelled and got extremely red. I've been trying to stay away from the cat now but it seems to really like me and always tries to sit by me on the couch and come into my room!
I've gotten used to taking cold showers and have just gotten very quick at taking them, but I finally had my first hot one on Thur! It was quite a treat. You don't realize some of the things you take for granted!
Friday, me, Whitney, Ann and the three Irish guys (Mark, Andrew and Simon) left at 10 in the morning to head to Diani Beach. We took tuk tuks through downtown Mombasa, which I had not seen yet since the compound Im at is in the suburb Nyali. We got off and got in the line for the ferry. It was so crowded and I was getting shoved by some of the locals. Once we boarded the ferry, it was only about a 10 minute ride. When we got off the ferry, we were swarmed with people asking us if we needed a matatu, which we did. They told us it would be a 10 minute ride, but 45 minutes later and after having been in a matatu with 20 people crammed in it (insane) they told us we were at Diani Beach. We got out and didnt see anything that looked like a beach. We asked several different people, and they all pointed us in the same direction... so we walked and walked and walked.... 45 minutes later, I was sweating buckets and still no beach was in sight. We saw a sign for a hospital and walked in to ask for directios. They told us to get in another matatu, which we did and only took us about 5 minutes up the road. We walked through a path onto Diani Beach but realized we were on the wrong side of the beach. The beach was covered in seaweed past our ankles, but we had no choice other than to walk. We could see in the distance where we wanted to be but it was a long ways away...1 hour of walking through the seaweed, dodging crabs, getting bitten by Mosquitos and getting swarmed with vendors (one guy told me to go back to my homeland after I told him I wasn't interested in one of his keychains), we finally made it to clean white sand. We laid down on the beach for about an hour but had to get up because the tide was getting stronger and had already drenched some of our belongings. We kept walking until we met some nice Americans and Brits who we hung out with for a little while. We continued down the beach to a restaurant called Forty Thieves which was filled with Americans and Europeans. We were planning on going to this restaurant in a cave that was supposedly really cool but found out it doesn't open until 730 pm. Considering it took us 3 hours to get there (should have only taken 1:15), we thought it'd be a good idea to leave before dark (it gets dark here at about 6:30). The journey back home was a lot smoother. Whitney hassled the tuk tuk driver because she didn't believe he knew where we lived and told him if he was lying he wouldn't get paid. Luckily the driver knew exactly where we lived and even gave us his number and said he'd come pick us up another time when we needed a tuk tuk. Next we took a ride to a private hospital since one of the people on the trip needed medical attention. Interesting to see a private hospital...haven't seen the hospital I'll be at yet but I can imagine there is a huge difference.
Edwin, who works with Elective Africa out of New Jersey, was in town for a few days and wanted to take us all out. I had spoken with Edwin frequently over the past several months leading up to the trip asking him all of my predeparture questions. I was excited to finally meet him and go out and see a local Mombasa club. The place he took us to had four different sections: The restaurant, room with pool tables, strip club, and dance club. Can you guess where we went? Obviously the dance club! It was a blast. These kenyans really know how to shake it on the dance floor! At 1 am there was a talent show with singing, rapping and dancing acts. There was one very strange act where I'm pretty sure a guy was trying to do a contemporary dance about delivering a baby. He something stuffed in his shirt...it was bazarre. My favorites were the dance acts and the girl dressed in cowboy boots and hat singing a Shania Twain song. I recorded one of the dance acts and will post the video on my facebook page. I think those are about all of the highlights so far! I'll try not to get behind again. Hope you are enjoying my blogs! See Facebook for pics!
Friday, 1 July 2011
Jambo!!
After waking up at about 9 am I went into the main house to unpack. Since most of the people coming for the month of July have not yet arrived, I lucked out and got one of the air conditioned rooms. Since I am slightly high maintenance when it comes to sleeping in the heat (ok maybe very high maintenance) this is a really good thing considering it is so hot and humid here.
The room I'm sleeping in is a large room split into 2 sleeping areas. This girl Kitty and I are on one side and Ann and Whitney are on the other. Kitty is a first year med student from NY, Whitney is from Winnipeg and is premed, and Ann is premed from MN. Ann and Whitney are 21 and 20 which makes me feel old!! Three others that are here on the program out on a safari, 3 guys just arrived from Ireland, and several more people will be arriving this week.
Lillian is one of the house keepers and Dolas is our cook. I tried explaining what gluten free was but I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I was talking about...it's a good thing I brought 3 boxes of cereal, bars, oatmeal and the list goes on...
We explored the grounds of the compound as we waited for Betty, the program director, to take us into town. There is a high fence that surrounds the compound with several pieces of sharp glass placed on top to keep intruders out. On the grounds there are orange and mango trees, large bright colored lizards and a pool. I was told that there were always monkeys hanging around the yard, but it wasn't until I walked into the pool area to find about 15 monkeys hanging from the trees and sitting on the roof, that I actually believed it! We got them to come real close by throwing food at them. Now I feel like I'm in Africa!
The main town is about a 20 minute walk down the road. On our way, we passed several other people walking. Most people here are extremely friendly and will say "jambo!" meaning hello, as they walk by. There are matatus (taxi vans) everywhere with guys hanging out of the windows trying to get you to get in. Those and tuk tuks (tiny three wheeled taxis) are apparently the safest way to get around Mombasa.
Once in town, we went to exchange money at a bank that was inside a casino, which I found a bit odd... Next we went to the Nakumatt (supermarket) where I had to get a new hairdryer since the one I brought started smoking. We were also on a mission to find a sim card for my iPad so I could connect to the Internet. Little did I know you would need a USB port to connect to the internet, which the iPad clearly does not have. After a wild goose hunt around Mombasa, we finally found a place that sold sim cards and now I have Internet!!
After we finished our errands we headed down the dirt path next to the compound in search of the beach. We were told it was a 5 minute walk, but it was more like 20. The Indian Ocean is beautiful and the beach was white sand, but other than that it was pretty dirty with vendors everywhere. I bought a few things, but having been to Mexico several times I know how these vendors can be...Ann on the other hand, who completely fits the Minnesota Nice stereotype (I didn't know people actually say UF-DA),kept buying things and getting ripped off because she felt bad. I had to literally pull her away from the vendors or else we were going to be there all day...We thought we got lost on the way home since we didnt remember standing in front of the mozambique consulate, but after calling Betty, she laughed at us and told us we were rigthe around the corner from the compound.
Dolas made us this meatball, potato and rice dinner when we got back which was so delicious, and the first real meal I had eaten since I left Minnesota. After a long, amazing day, I was so excited to climb into bed and use my fan for the first time. Right as I turned it on it blew out and started smoking. I'm now 0 for 2 with electronics...my luck
The room I'm sleeping in is a large room split into 2 sleeping areas. This girl Kitty and I are on one side and Ann and Whitney are on the other. Kitty is a first year med student from NY, Whitney is from Winnipeg and is premed, and Ann is premed from MN. Ann and Whitney are 21 and 20 which makes me feel old!! Three others that are here on the program out on a safari, 3 guys just arrived from Ireland, and several more people will be arriving this week.
Lillian is one of the house keepers and Dolas is our cook. I tried explaining what gluten free was but I'm pretty sure she had no idea what I was talking about...it's a good thing I brought 3 boxes of cereal, bars, oatmeal and the list goes on...
We explored the grounds of the compound as we waited for Betty, the program director, to take us into town. There is a high fence that surrounds the compound with several pieces of sharp glass placed on top to keep intruders out. On the grounds there are orange and mango trees, large bright colored lizards and a pool. I was told that there were always monkeys hanging around the yard, but it wasn't until I walked into the pool area to find about 15 monkeys hanging from the trees and sitting on the roof, that I actually believed it! We got them to come real close by throwing food at them. Now I feel like I'm in Africa!
The main town is about a 20 minute walk down the road. On our way, we passed several other people walking. Most people here are extremely friendly and will say "jambo!" meaning hello, as they walk by. There are matatus (taxi vans) everywhere with guys hanging out of the windows trying to get you to get in. Those and tuk tuks (tiny three wheeled taxis) are apparently the safest way to get around Mombasa.
Once in town, we went to exchange money at a bank that was inside a casino, which I found a bit odd... Next we went to the Nakumatt (supermarket) where I had to get a new hairdryer since the one I brought started smoking. We were also on a mission to find a sim card for my iPad so I could connect to the Internet. Little did I know you would need a USB port to connect to the internet, which the iPad clearly does not have. After a wild goose hunt around Mombasa, we finally found a place that sold sim cards and now I have Internet!!
After we finished our errands we headed down the dirt path next to the compound in search of the beach. We were told it was a 5 minute walk, but it was more like 20. The Indian Ocean is beautiful and the beach was white sand, but other than that it was pretty dirty with vendors everywhere. I bought a few things, but having been to Mexico several times I know how these vendors can be...Ann on the other hand, who completely fits the Minnesota Nice stereotype (I didn't know people actually say UF-DA),kept buying things and getting ripped off because she felt bad. I had to literally pull her away from the vendors or else we were going to be there all day...We thought we got lost on the way home since we didnt remember standing in front of the mozambique consulate, but after calling Betty, she laughed at us and told us we were rigthe around the corner from the compound.
Dolas made us this meatball, potato and rice dinner when we got back which was so delicious, and the first real meal I had eaten since I left Minnesota. After a long, amazing day, I was so excited to climb into bed and use my fan for the first time. Right as I turned it on it blew out and started smoking. I'm now 0 for 2 with electronics...my luck
Thursday, 30 June 2011
Kenya Bound!
With 2 huge suitcases and a backpack so heavy it was painful to stand, I hugged my mom goodbye and went to find my new friend Ann inside the airport. Ann was also going on Elective Africa and we had connected through the program months ago and booked our flight to Mombasa together. Just when Ann and I were about to go to the counter to get seats together, we looked at our boarding passes and realized that we were assigned seats right next to each other. We did not book our seats together and it was a 747 airplane with hundreds of seats...what are the chances? It's a good thing we got along well because it definitely made the next 26 hours more fun-filled.
It didn't take long for the fun to start...minutes later I had my first experience with the body scanner, but apparently I looked really threatening that day and needed an additional patdown. This should have taken about 10 seconds but ended up taking 10 min. The lady kept touching my armpits, and as most of you know, I am extremely ticklish and couldnt stop laughing and fidgeting. After leaving MSP an hour late we were headed to Amsterdam, where I went through the scanner again and got another patdown. Somehow Ann managed to dodge the patdown both times...wtf
I was so happy to board the flight to Amsterdam. The smart thing to do would have been to try and sleep since it was night time in Kenya...easier said than done. The adrenaline kicked in that we were actually on our way to Africa that we spent the next 7 hours talking, laughing, playing scrabble (I got schooled), gin, UNO (not the best 2 person game...) and watching a movie on my iPad. Several of the conversations seemed to revolve around the 8 hr time change. For some reason, likely due to our increasing delerious state, we had a lot of trouble trying to figure out when to eat, sleep, take our malaria medications, etc... Somehow, I fell asleep for the last hour of the flight and before I knew it, we had landed in Amsterdam! 1 hr late of course...but we still had 4 hours until the next flight.
While waiting at the gate in Amsterdam we saw a group of people with Kenya mission trip shirts on. When I asked one of them what they would be doing in Kenya, he responded loud and enthusiastically "we're going to spread the word of Jesus christ." Not sure what that really means...Next we met these three people who were headed to a small town to go gorilla tracking. They gave us some good pointers on places to visit during the weekends. We killed some time learning about the "big 5" toughest animals to hunt and sipped on $10 water. Ann and I somehow managed to work the system at the gate and get our seats together after being told 2 other times that it was not possible. Im pretty sure she just moved someone without asking them...so nice of the Dutch KLM lady.
The next flight was the most painful since it was another 8 hours and I couldn't sleep...I was literally a wide eyed zombie with blood shot eyes. Luckily, once I reached that tired/naseous state, I fell asleep for 2 hours and then got another adrenaline rush once we landed in Nairobi. (1 hour late again...) Our three hour layover turned into 1 hour after we sat on the runway for what felt like ages. Once we got off the plane and cleared customs we were headed for our Mombasa flight. 3 people had told us our luggage was checked thru to mombasa, but for some reason I didn't quite trust them...after walkining thru customs and passing luggage, I asked about our luggage for a fourth time and the lady said of course you have to get your luggage here...seriously people?? Of course our luggage came last and we were starting to panic. We threw all of our bags on a cart and went on a hunt to find the Mombasa terminal. Not to mention how hard this cart was to steer and that Ann had to help push me to get over the speed bumps. Yes speed bumps. We had to walk outside to another terminal and our flight was leaving in less than an hr.
Walking outside to find the plane was interesting since there were about 5 planes with no signs up...we just followed a crowd of people hoping we were boarding the right plane. The flight from Nairobi to Mombasa was thankfully only 45 min. We sat next to a middle class Kenyan woman who told us such wonderful things about the hospital we will be working at. This is how she described it: huge disgustung, chaotic hospital with ignorant doctors, where people die all of the time when they shouldn't. Sounds great right? Luckily that flight was over before I knew it, and I was driven to the elective Africa compound where I slept on a top bunk on a rock hard bed with a mosquito net on my face. I thought I would never fall asleep but I was so tired that the next time I opened my eyes it was morning.
It didn't take long for the fun to start...minutes later I had my first experience with the body scanner, but apparently I looked really threatening that day and needed an additional patdown. This should have taken about 10 seconds but ended up taking 10 min. The lady kept touching my armpits, and as most of you know, I am extremely ticklish and couldnt stop laughing and fidgeting. After leaving MSP an hour late we were headed to Amsterdam, where I went through the scanner again and got another patdown. Somehow Ann managed to dodge the patdown both times...wtf
I was so happy to board the flight to Amsterdam. The smart thing to do would have been to try and sleep since it was night time in Kenya...easier said than done. The adrenaline kicked in that we were actually on our way to Africa that we spent the next 7 hours talking, laughing, playing scrabble (I got schooled), gin, UNO (not the best 2 person game...) and watching a movie on my iPad. Several of the conversations seemed to revolve around the 8 hr time change. For some reason, likely due to our increasing delerious state, we had a lot of trouble trying to figure out when to eat, sleep, take our malaria medications, etc... Somehow, I fell asleep for the last hour of the flight and before I knew it, we had landed in Amsterdam! 1 hr late of course...but we still had 4 hours until the next flight.
While waiting at the gate in Amsterdam we saw a group of people with Kenya mission trip shirts on. When I asked one of them what they would be doing in Kenya, he responded loud and enthusiastically "we're going to spread the word of Jesus christ." Not sure what that really means...Next we met these three people who were headed to a small town to go gorilla tracking. They gave us some good pointers on places to visit during the weekends. We killed some time learning about the "big 5" toughest animals to hunt and sipped on $10 water. Ann and I somehow managed to work the system at the gate and get our seats together after being told 2 other times that it was not possible. Im pretty sure she just moved someone without asking them...so nice of the Dutch KLM lady.
The next flight was the most painful since it was another 8 hours and I couldn't sleep...I was literally a wide eyed zombie with blood shot eyes. Luckily, once I reached that tired/naseous state, I fell asleep for 2 hours and then got another adrenaline rush once we landed in Nairobi. (1 hour late again...) Our three hour layover turned into 1 hour after we sat on the runway for what felt like ages. Once we got off the plane and cleared customs we were headed for our Mombasa flight. 3 people had told us our luggage was checked thru to mombasa, but for some reason I didn't quite trust them...after walkining thru customs and passing luggage, I asked about our luggage for a fourth time and the lady said of course you have to get your luggage here...seriously people?? Of course our luggage came last and we were starting to panic. We threw all of our bags on a cart and went on a hunt to find the Mombasa terminal. Not to mention how hard this cart was to steer and that Ann had to help push me to get over the speed bumps. Yes speed bumps. We had to walk outside to another terminal and our flight was leaving in less than an hr.
Walking outside to find the plane was interesting since there were about 5 planes with no signs up...we just followed a crowd of people hoping we were boarding the right plane. The flight from Nairobi to Mombasa was thankfully only 45 min. We sat next to a middle class Kenyan woman who told us such wonderful things about the hospital we will be working at. This is how she described it: huge disgustung, chaotic hospital with ignorant doctors, where people die all of the time when they shouldn't. Sounds great right? Luckily that flight was over before I knew it, and I was driven to the elective Africa compound where I slept on a top bunk on a rock hard bed with a mosquito net on my face. I thought I would never fall asleep but I was so tired that the next time I opened my eyes it was morning.
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