Tuesday December 19th, 2006
Hey everyone!
i am having a blast in nairobi. im enjoying myself at the conference and talking to students from kenya, uganda, rwanda, and tanzania. so im definitely learning a lot more than i could have ever asked for.
the conference ends tomorrow, but i will be giving everyone my contact info so i can keep in touch with students throughout.
i will be traveling to kisi, a small village outside of nairobi, on saturday.
i will be going with dr. onguti and the Heart team and we will be going to orphanages to deliver christmas gifts and do some medical work along with that.
i apologize for not making this email longer or writing more often, its just that the internet is really slow. i hope this even goes through
i just got the opportunity to go to a market place today and do some shopping which was nice. a lot of bargaining, just like the swap meet in san diego. but the people here are incredibly nice. and the students have been really welcoming...you'd be suprise all the misconceptions about the states they have.
no luck on the baggage just yet...i just hope that it arrives while im here...i pretty much have nothing as for all of my stuff was in the luggage. so its been interesting. yup, the luggage did not arrive with me nor has it come yet...let me just tell you, i never want to fly into london heathrow again!
ok, im working on a presentation for the students here about my experience in the US so i gotta rush...hope all is well
Asanti sana (thank you in swahili)
December 24th, 2006
Jambo!Hey everyone, just thought I'd stop by to say hello. (DAD, hope you had an awesomebday!)Before I left for the country, on the last night of the conference, I went out with themedical students and I had a blast. We partied till late, they really love to dance hereand their club was amazing. It was nicer than some Vegas clubs I've seen. Really noexageration! We danced to rock all night, from Green Day to Alanis Morisette, nothing Iwould have ever expected. I've made some pretty awesome friends here, one girl is likemy Kenyan twin! We would finish each other's sentences, thats how much we werealike...scary...but awesome!I was out of the city for the last few days. I went to a small village up in the TaetaHills where we delivered goats and school uniforms for 50 children. It was a prettyawesome experience I must say. The country is predominately Christian, and very devout. So the church is really the basis of their culture. So on this trip to the village,probably the most spectacular part was watching the women sing African songs in thechurch. It was beautiful! I desparately wanted a picture of that but my camera batterywas dead! I know, so I'm sort of limited on the pics, but Im working on getting themfrom everyone here so we can share. We arrived and got to work. Dr. Flynn didn'tacompany me on this trip so I was pretty much the doctor. We did a quick assessment ofeach child, height, weight, skin, and really whatever I could pick up on with the fewminutes I had with each child. There was a lot of ringworm and other fungal infections,but suprisingly the children in that village were pretty healthy, or at least on thesurface it appeared that way. So it was pretty incredible to be a doctor to thesechildren and I really did my best to see what I could do for them, but we were reallyrushed, 15 minutes with the doc would have been great for these children, but all theygot was about 1.5 minutes with a medical student!We had dinner that night with the pastor from the village and his wife and killed achicken for us for dinner but it was going to be served later in the evening butunfortunately we all passed out before we could enjoy it...i know...but we had it forbreakfast instead. We said our goodbyes after the church prayer that morning, and Icried! shocking! but it was really moving to see how much hope and faith these peoplehave. its incredible.The roads are rough, hardly paved, so to go 90 miles takes you 6 hours, kind of like thepace in rush hour traffic in LA. So the journey was long. We went to a safari lodge forone night which was really nice. A little too nice! It was like a Cancunresort...ridiculous! But it was great, I saw pretty much everything but a lion. We returned on Saturday evening after sitting in some crazy traffic! A two lane highwayturned into 7 lanes out into the fields as people were trying to get through. Scary atsome points but we made it back to the city in one piece. Tomorrow we hed out for Kisi. Its another remote village about 6 hours away. We will bethere until Friday. We've got a busy schedule. Mon- a women's prison and giving gifts to their children (im hoping to examine the womenhere)Tues- a 300-child orphanage all under the age of 12 (we are giving each child a toy)Wed- Kids for school project at 105-children orphanage (uniforms and goats) we will alsotry to visit two other orphanages on this dayThurs- Purity Project (talk to youth about HIV/sex/abstinence)Fri- drive back to Nairobi and depart for the states stopping at the miserable LondonHeathrowI will be arriving back on Dec. 30th...kinda sucks because I will be in Sac all by myselffor new year's so if anyone will be in Sac let me know...Dad, dont worry, Dr. Flynn hasthe arrangements for when we get back.Okay, basically what I will also be doing at these orphanages is assessing children. Weare going to do our best to screen for the kids who are really sick and target ourtreatment for them. There are just too many to go through them all, but Dr. Flynn and Iare going to try to do our best. There are also 3 other people here that are visiting,one is a nutrionist so she's trying to do nutrition assessment and her daughter is hereas well, 14 yrs old and really works well with the kids. There is also a RN so we shouldbe able to do good in the health screenings. They are all from NorCal too. Random...The H.E.A.R.T. Organization is real great, they do alot of different projects and theyreally reach out to different villages. The only drawback, and its not that big of adrawback, is that it is a Christian organization. So everything is really religioushere. But thats also how the Kenyans are, so it might be the only way to reach out tothem. A lot of you know how I am, so this part is kinda weird for me, but I'm taking itall in, and really learning from them, and mainly just being respectful.Ok, this will be my last chance to communicate with anyone, so Happy Holidays and I willtalk to you guys when I get back...-ShabsO ya, and I finally got my luggage yesterday, everything still in there, so that was nice.But I was really learning to live off of nothing which is how it should be out here andhow it will be in the country when we leave tomorrow.For the Kenya Project:While I've been doing the conference and the traveling, I've been trying my best to makecontacts so that we can get the Kenya Project rolling. I've got Nairobi pretty muchtaken care of, just need to work on the outside villages. Really transportation is theonly issue. You need a driver you can trust and one that will be with you the wholetime. That might be a pretty big cost. Otherwise, accomodations can be easily handled,well sort of. I'm buying stuff to sell at the auction...that is where most of my moneyis going. That I think will help pull in some funds...we'll see. I'm going to also tryand get the kids to make me drawings but I have to focus on the screenings so I don'tknow how to juggle it all, but I will try.Dr. Flynn has spent alot of time refining some details and I have a lot of new ideas aswell.O, and the Rwandans want to work with us as well...I met some Sudanese people today andthey want our help too...So lots of contacts which is exciting!
