Fin

So this is it. Erin is halfway across the globe on her plane now, and I'm sitting back at the coffeehouse we've made our oasis. I've had some time to reflect on the journey, even have a mock departure when I took Erin to the airport last night. It's absolutely surreal that this journey is coming to a close. I have about 7 more hours left before I'm in the airport waiting for my flight. Erin and I were talking last night about how even though we're beyond excited to get back home, this has been an amazing experience for us. There have been so many ups and still a few downs. I was talking to Colton last night about the whole experience. While it's been 6 long weeks here, when I look back on it, it's easy to consolidate it all and see really only the good parts, which makes this trip so worthwhile. I probably wouldn't do it again for another 6 weeks, but I would definitely do it over again for maybe a shorter time.

This time has flown by despite my bitching during the experience. I really remember quite vividly touching down at the break of dawn 6 weeks ago wondering what I got myself into. The drive from the airport to the hostel was a emotional one. I sat through an hour of traffic to go a few kilometers, watched hundreds of Kenyans walk on the dirt shoulder of the exhaust covered highway, saw motorbikes weave in and out of traffic haphazardly. Could I really do this for 6 weeks? Live in this place away from everything and everyone I know and love? 

Some of my favorite experiences of this trip include spotting my first zebra on the plains, seeing baby giraffes make their way lankily behind their mothers, watching gazelles sprint across the grass, seeing elephants up close and person all during my adventures with Stuart in Amboseli and Chyulu Hills. I got to see the Western oasis of Nakumatt Junction, the first time I realized there was more diversity to Kenya than I expected. I remember walking onto the critical care unit at Kenyatta for the first time, wondering what kinds of diseases I was being exposed do. My journey to Aberdares with Erin and my parents was amazing, despite the major hail storm we got stuck in on our game drive. Our walk through the Nairobi National Park was great, even if we got soaked in the process. Traveling to the Kibera slums was eye opening as well, seeing how so many Kenyans live off of mere shillings a day. 

I've also met some great people during this trip. Our first weekend here, Erin and I met Carol in Mombasa, who turned out to be a pretty amazing girl. She introduced us to Natalie and Nadine, who we enjoyed getting to know greatly. Nadine will be moving to NYC in June also, and I couldn't be more excited to have another friend there. Whenever we said goodbye to any of our preceptors, a small sense of sadness came over us knowing we would likely never see them again. Rossie, Irene, and Dorothy were amazing at Kenyatta! We also met and got to know Ann while at Flora. Definitely enjoyed her company during meals, as well as many others we had quick conversations with. The hospitality we received was amazing by the majority of people we encountered. 

This has been an amazing experience for me. I'm doubtful I will ever return to Nairobi, so I hope I will savor these memories for a long time. Even if I don't, I have a million pictures to remember them by. 

All that said and done, these next few hours will be painful until I'm riding up the escalator at Hartsfield Jackson International Airport to finally be back home. There is so much I've missed about home and so many people I can't explain how much I've missed. 

You might get one more post on here after this one, but seeing as this effectively ends my crazy time here in Nairobi, this might be it. Thanks to everyone who's followed it. Be sure to check my Facebook for all the pictures I haven't been able to post in the past couple of weeks!

Lions and my last day of rotations

So Sunday was my birthday and despite celebrating Friday night with friends, we decided to keep ourselves entertained by seeing some more - you guessed - ANIMALS! We had been looking at this "safari walk" in Nairobi National Park and had been asking around, but no one had any solid advice about it. We decided to go for it regardless because we had a free afternoon. We hired our usual driver to take us out there, and few minutes into the trip we got a few big drops of rain. Not a big deal for us - it'll probably pass quickly. We arrived at the gate and found our way to the safari walk. We checked out the prices, which online we had read to be about 700-800 shillings but posted were $10 for students 13-18 years old and $20 for adults. We were definitely a little peeved about the prices since we had already hired a car to take us out to the park, but decided to go for it anyway. We both had our student IDs on us, and since they got us into another park for a quarter of the adult price, we gave it a go. I said I was 18 and only had my student ID with me. The ticket guy promptly said the cutoff for students was 17 in Kenya. I pointed out his sign, and he said the printed sign was wrong and that 18 constituted an adult in Kenya. Annoying. We decided to see the price of the nearby animal orphanage, which turned out to be $15, so we went back to the safari walk. Erin went first this time since I would be paying $20 regardless. Erin told them she was 17 but only had her student ID. A woman there asked what year she was born, to which Erin responded 1989. The woman declared that that made Erin an adult, and Erin responded that she hadn't had her birthday yet! I just shook my head and urged her to move along. I don't think I would have done any better in the situation, but 1989 is definitely not 17 years old! How old we're getting! We suck it up and pay out $20 each and even got a shiny ticket with a stamp in return. 

We start the walk, deciding to take our sweet time since we paid a lot for it. We start making the trek, which is actually just a glorified outdoor zoo in essence. Not quite what we were expecting, but still worth it in hindsight. A few minutes into the walk the rains start. Then get stronger. I had a rain jacket, but Erin doesn't have anything really. We just tough it out, both very aware that our feet were about to get very wet and muddy. We are determined to have a great time, so that's what we immediately did, frolicking in the rain having a good time. We took about 2 hours to get through the walk and saw a rhino, pygmy hippo, hiena, cheetah, leopard, and four lions! It was definitely worth it as it completed my viewing of the big five, albeit some weren't quite in the wild! Certainly a worthwhile trip and I got some good pictures that'll go up as soon as I'm back home.

With the weekend over, we dove head first into our last week, eager to wrap things up and finish our last few days here. We began Monday morning back at Kenyatta Hospital earlier than required, so we walked around to explore a little more before meeting our preceptor. After a brief meeting with her, we all realized that none of us really knew what we were supposed to be doing the last few days. Erin and I felt that we had seen the majority of the hospital but had a few more suggestions. We hadn't seen the emergency department, which is called 'accidents and emergencies' here or more commonly 'casualty', as well as the renal unit. So we go on a half day tour of these facilities, which was pretty interesting. The hospital manages a lot of dialysis patients on only a few machines, which definitely make for a difficult time treating patients who may require dialysis urgently. We talk about the organ transplant process here, which is quite different than home. Patients here in need on a new kidney are required to find a family member on their own who matches them. There is no national matching system and organ harvesting is widely considered taboo. People in Kenya generally believe people should be buried whole without even a piece of skin missing, so organ harvesting isn't really even under consideration here. The requirements of financial ability, family support, etc, are similar here although less stringent. After the renal unit, we toured the A&E department, which at a basic level operates quite similar to American EDs. Similar to Grady, patients are lined up all the halls and there are long lines throughout the department. Great experience overall. 

We just did half a day there, as we needed to write up a report for Kenyatta, as well as work on our poster presentation for Mercer. We parked it at our favorite coffeehouse nearby to write both and got a lot done. Tuesday we had off after a bit of confusion, so we used to day to get a lot of busy work done at the same coffeehouse again. They know us now. We both got a lot done, professionally and personally.

Wednesday was our last day of rotations ever! We spend just a few hours at Kenyatta, giving our report to our preceptor and tracking down a few key people to say thank you and goodbye. We have really enjoyed our time at Kenyatta specifically, so we wanted to say proper goodbyes. We spent the afternoon touring the University of Nairobi's schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, and pharmacy with a few pharmacy students. We had a nice time seeing their facilities, which are similar to ours at home, just much less high tech. Their pharmacy classes are about half the size of our too. They have lot more labs in general for more chemistry based learning during their education, while we focus more on clinical skills. 

So for our last two days here, we're going with a friend to the Kibera slums, one of Africa's largest slums, for the day on Thursday and then hiking in the Karura Forest with some of the students from the college of pharmacy. Should be a great last few days!

Could not be more excited to finally get back home though. I was thinking as we walked out of Kenyatta for the last time of how this has OVERALL been a great experience. I have plenty to say about it, but wouldn't take it back, all things said and done.

I'll be sure to blog once or twice more before this trip is all said and done. Thanks for checking in!

Freaky Michael Jackson guy

So events from since the last post until Friday night: zero.

We continued to work at Pharmaceutica, the community site just west of us about 2 km or so. We pretty much run the place now except we know none of the rules. The setup is quite similar to a fast food restaurant in the sense that there is an up front "ordering" area and a back "preparation" area. These two areas are separated by a small window, about one foot wide and maybe one and a half feet tall. Prescriptions go in the window and drugs come out. So our job is to sit in the back and fill the prescriptions. On average for Thursday and Friday, we go about four prescriptions per day. Enthralling, you say? But it's okay because Erin and I are cool, so we spend our time doing one of three things: telling stories of our misjudgments and debaucheries of the past, reviewing for the NAPLEX with my review book on my iPad, or killing some pigs with flying birds. I'm quite proud to say I got Erin hooked on Angry Birds. One interesting thing is that because everything is so relatively controlled, you can get most prescription drugs OTC if you have a good reason. A group of mzungus came in needing some anti-malarials. One bought a box of doxy (100 count) for 300 shillings. $3.75. I bought 75 pills for $9 AFTER insurance in America. 

But Friday came and we said our goodbyes, which is when we always seem to evoke the most friendly interactions of our coworkers, surprisingly. Maybe we're doing something wrong. 

We come back to Flora, hang out for a minute, and grab a light dinner since we're planning on getting dinner later. We sit with a really nice couple who is currently living in west Kenya close to Lake Victoria. They're working for a medical group providing care to those underserved populations and will be here for a year in total. Pretty awesome to actually be making a difference! Turns out they actually lived in Decatur for some time, so we talked about our favorite parts of Atlanta and took the fatal shift into talking about restaurants. We talked about the great Indian and Ethiopian food in Decatur and around Emory, the Korean on Buford Highway, even went so far to mention Chipotle! Ughh, I miss my Chipotle. I'll be needing a HUGE fatty burrito from Chipotle and a HUGE pizza from Goodfella's when I get home. Certainly. 

We head back to our room to get ready for what I'm hoping will be a great night. Since it's the most convenient day to celebrate my birthday, we go out to an Indian place my friend Raj recommended that's really close to the bars. I love Indian food. Maybe more than Italian, which says a lot. Not probably not as much as Mexican. Or more appropriately Tex-Mex. Erin has had Indian food about once in her life, so she gets our waiter's recommendation for a chicken dish and I get a paneer dish. Both dishes are great and completed with some rice and garlic masala nan! Such a good meal. Plus a Tuskers beer helped enjoy it too.

Then we headed off to the bar. We went to Gipsy, the same bar as last weekend because it was on the same block as the Indian place, plus it was fun last time. It's just Erin and me at this point since we've had some communication issues with our cellphone. We're just hanging out, chatting and people watching but not much more. I want to go downstairs to see the crowd a little more, so we head down after grabbing another drink. We're just enjoying the scene and music and definitely the people watching. Even though it's only our second time at the bar, we see quite a few familiar faces! Notables include a FREAKY Michael Jackson looking dude. Wearing a very MJ hat and huge sunglasses with an all black outfit. Complete with a blonde molestache. He's just sipping wine out of his gloved hand walking around eccentrically. He dances a little, again eccentrically. Most people just make way for him as he swiftly moves around the bar. We also see a creepy bleach blonde African with eyes that could burn holes through steel. So creepy. 

So after a little while, we decide we might head home soon. But little did we know that was not the plan. As we're watching the crowd, I get a huge hug from behind, and turns out our friends Carol and Nadine have arrived with about six others in tow. I guess it's time for the party to get started. Everyone grabs a few drinks and we dance most the night away with some new fun people. 

One interesting thing about this place is that a corner of it is apparently where the gay scene in Nairobi is. I even read this later on a FourSquare review. One corner of the bar closer to the dance floor is occupied by quite a few gay Westerners. Interesting to see the scene even here in Africa. 

Anyway, after some usual straight girl drama with some of the new girls (wallets being stolen, creepy guys dancing on them), it's finally time to close it down. All the other guys came in their own cab, packed in to the max. So since we're going to a different place, we decide to grab our own cab. We walk outside and up the street a few feet before noticing there is a small crowd of people up ahead. Then I notice there is a dude on the ground with his shoes being taken off. Then I also notice a guard with a large machine gun walking up to the scene past us. If that's not my cue for turning around, I'm not sure what is. I quickly direct Erin in the opposite direction and we find a beat up cab to agrees to take us home for 500 shillings, the cheapest ride yet! We're starting to drive off and a girl gets in the front seat, who turns out to be his girlfriend, beer in hand. We just sit back and relax for the short ride home. Once we arrive, we talk to the guy's girlfriend for a second because she's funny, then settle up the bill. Except we don't have 500 shillings exactly. The driver (nor girlfriend) has change, so we give him the small bills we do have and some coins, amounting to about 470. Not a problem for our driver! 

We get back to our room to the night. I try to Skype with Colton for a second but naturally Skype has it out for me. The internet has been so horrible lately, but Skype has typically still been working. Hopefully it'll last for a few more days.

Saturday was a supremely lazy day. Since I've been getting up so early each morning, I'm up at 8:30, just messing around on the scant internet. We watch a little Grey's Anatomy, since that's one of the only things I have on my computer apparently other than movies, and relax. We grab some lunch and decide we need to do something. We since our Kenya Museum Society membership gets us into one last place in Nairobi, we decide to head down to the National Gallery since it'll be free. It's about a 20 minute walk there, so not bad at all. It's a beautiful day, albeit hot. We arrive at the gallery to find out that it's really quite small. There is only one exhibition there, which is a temporary one featuring  a few short films on slumlife and a few photography exhibitions. Even so, it's free so we enjoy it as best we can. After finishing up our 45 minutes there, we head outside to see the sky has turned a nice shade of very dark gray. The weather changes so rapidly now in the rainy season. We book it back up the hill to Flora to sit out the storm. It's actually a nice walk since it's cool outside now, but the impending storm makes us rush a bit. We make it back to our room, open the windows, and enjoy the storm as it comes in. It rains for about three hours or so, including our walk to the dining room for dinner. After dinner, we watch some more TV before realizing the power is actually out. Yay! This usually doesn't happen for too long, but this outage lasted for at least two hours, past when we went to bed. I took my contacts out by flashlight. Just one of those things you deal with!

Sunday is here, and it's my BIRTHDAY! Since we already did my celebrating, I'm not expecting anything of the day except a little bit of fun. We're planning on trying to visit a few more orphanages in Nairobi today, so hopefully the weather will cooperate. 

Anyway, nothing new past that. Just watching my countdown until I'm on a plane to spend a few hours in London before heading back to Atlanta! I am sort of anticipating these last few days being a little horrible since I want to come home soon, but still have to wait out the days. We're heading back to Kenyatta for three day, which we're actually excited about, so that should make the time pass a little faster. Then a few last minute things on Thursday and Friday, then I leave Saturday. It's been a hell of a trip so far and not quite finished yet. I'll try to make the best out of my last few days!

Easter Monday and Pharmaceutica 85

So after I wrote the last post, I texted our coordinator at the University of Nairobi since we didn't have any contact information for our next rotation and it was Sunday evening. He texted back that we had Monday off also for the Easter weekend and a student would be escorting us to the new site come Tuesday morning. Erin and I weren't sure whether to be excited or annoyed. We have tried to space out our time here in Nairobi with events to keep us occupied until we come home, we this extra day threw a hitch in our entertainment plans. We still have a good checklist of things to do, so we decide to pull a few off the list. 

Since we are now temporary members of the Kenya Museum Society (check out the previous post about getting cultured), we have free entry into the Karen Blixen Museum out in Karen, so we decide to take advantage of this, as well as the nearby Kazuri Bead Factory. We talk to our friend Raphael, who runs both the kitchen at Flora and a driving service. We arrange for his driver to take us to the locations for the afternoon. 

We make the drive out to Karen to the museum first. Since it's a holiday, it's not very busy at all, which is great for us. We are shown the ticket counter where we proudly present our membership cards. The man looks at them curiously, and we start to wonder if we missed a detail. He asks us a few questions about how long we're staying in Kenya, whether we've applied for our alien visas yet, etc. He never says it, but it seems like he's hinting that the memberships are for residents only. After a few minutes and consultations, he agrees to let us in, much to our delight. We are assigned a private tour guide to show us around the museum, which is the house Karen Blixen lived in for 14 years of her 17 in Kenya. I'm not usually a big fan of this type of history, but I had to admit, it was pretty cool seeing some of the things. We toured the kitchen, the living room, both bedrooms, etc, of her house, which were filled with numerous original items of furniture, from an original wooden sink to an original Louis Vuitton suit case from the early 1900s. There are also numerous animal skin rug replicas, as the originals were given to the Danish King as gifts by Karen - how cool! We walked out to the back yard, which has a small seating area flanked by two mill stones. These stones were imported from India as the Indians there didn't believe the stone in Kenya was suitable enough for use. It's also thought that two Indians were killed on these mill stones, and small red specks can still be seen. Regardless, these stones are where Karen used to spend her time finishing her evening cigarette, as her back yard looked out upon the Ngong Hills. Ngong is Swahili for knuckles, as the hills have four distinct peaks that definitely resemble knuckles! It's an amazing view for sure. We make a quick stop in the gift shop, where things are actually reasonably priced! 

Off to the Kazuri Bead Factory! It's just down the road, so a very quick drive. As we pull in, we quickly realized the factory itself is closed for Easter Monday, but the shop is still open. The factory was started to help single mothers in need of reliable employment, and it now employes over 340 women and sales directly impact the lives of these families. We tour around the shop for a while, and Erin and I both find some pieces of pottery to get, plus there happens to be a 15% off sale while we're there! We decide to make a quick tour of the grounds even though it's closed, and much to our surprise, the security guard offers to show us the grounds and basically give us a tour! So we get to see how the clay is actually derived. It actually comes from Mount Kenya, so our pottery is actually really unique! The clay is mixed with water, pressed out for several hours, then after a few more steps is available for shaping. We're able to see the various parts of the factory, from shaping of the beads and pottery, to glazing and finishing. We even get to see the kilns, which are so thick and burn up to 9000 degrees Celsius! It's a pretty cool operation that definitely benefits these women greatly. 

Since we missed lunch, we decide to take up one of my parents' recommendation to eat at the Karen Blixen Cafe called Tamambo. Should have known that it'd be much better than our usual Flora food or PBJ. We sucked it up and splurged a little, but definitely had nice food sitting outside on a perfectly manicured lawn with GRASS! It's been a while since we've seen actual grass, not dirt fields, haha! We pay up and head back to the hostel for a very quiet night before starting our next rotation site. 

So yesterday we started our fourth week of this rotation, which is also our last site before returning back to Kenyatta National Hospital. We're at a community pharmacy called Pharmaceutica 85. The concept of chain pharmacies has reached Kenya yet, so each pharmacy is individually owned, but sometimes one pharmacist opens up more than one pharmacy to bring in the paper. 

Regardless, we enter (yet again) a foreign land of pharmacy practice to learn its nuances. This is after a 20 minute walk up to it on dirt and broken pavement sidewalks, past a few bus stops of diesel fumes, even along an open sewer that appears to not have drained in a few weeks. The pharmacy itself is nice and clean, well organized. The pharmacist there, Purity, opened the pharmacy herself in 1990 and has been running it ever since. It's pretty remarkable that she knows almost all of her patients' medication and due dates. It's not a busy store but still shows her dedication. We spend the first day just trying to get acclimated, and we are again greeted with the same attitude that we must already know a lot about Kenyan medicines, which we don't. They use brand names, and for one medicine, there could be up to 30 different brands, from our experience. You see, here, manufacturers brand their own generics to make them more marketable and differentiate them from the competition. This is something I'm so happy America doesn't do. How confusing!? But despite the learning curve, we try to acclimate quickly, and we are able to fill prescriptions pretty easily once we have found the drug on the shelves. But even after the first day, we don't have a grasp at all as to the regulations and laws. We've now learned that's because there aren't many. The differentiation between prescription and OTC is very gray, and pharmacists can essentially dispense anything they want as long as they fell the patient knows what they are doing. It's a weird system. Controlled medications are not nearly as highly regulated here as America, but then again, they don't have the same drug abuse problem we do. 

After two days, we're slowly learning the system, but we're still frequently thrown a curveball when they give out something we thought they said they never would. One of our shocker moments today was when we got a prescription for Ritalin, a powerful stimulant, that was written for 3 months originally. It had already been filled once for one month, which was denoted on the prescription, turned back to the customer, which they now presented to us for the second fill. In America, you can only have one fill per prescription for this kind of med, and the actual med is so highly regulated. But here in Kenya, it just has to be kept in a locked cabinet, but that's about it. 

The pharmacy is slow, so we again have a lot of free time. It's a good thing Erin and I get along really well, otherwise it'd be really boring or really painful. But we just talked all morning and then tried to keep ourselves awake after lunch today. We even reviewed a lot of drugs in pseudo-prep for the boards. 

But we're home now with only two day left at Pharmaceutica, a weekend, three days at Kenyatta, then two days off and then heading HOME! We're both starting to get antsy about going home, but we're still enjoying ourselves out here.

The debbie downer moment of the day was that we paid in full the remainder of our rent here, which was all too much. So we're in the cash crunch time of our trip, but still planning on doing fun stuff, just on foot and for cheap! I'm sure we'll stay entertained though!

Not too much else is happening in life. I have a lot of HR paperwork to do for NYP when I get home and a lot of moving to do, but I'm actually really happy with the schedule of things. My good friend Alex is actually moving into my house when we move out, and he agreed to let me keep most of my stuff I'm taking to NYC there for a couple of weeks. He might buy some of the furniture too, since I'll likely be living in a box in Manhattan. I've been talking to two friends who live in NYC now about rooming with them when I move, so I'm pretty confident I'll have a roommate, which is great for friends and for money! I'll fly up there at the beginning on June for the wet boards, but I should be able to move up there June 16th or so like I planned. I was really worried with how everything would work and fit in what seemed like a really tight schedule, but I think everything is nicely falling into place. I say that now because it's easy to say when I CAN'T deal with it in Africa. Things will seem more hectic when I'm back home, but fear not, I'll find time to still enjoy my last half summer or freedom. But I sure am ready for a paycheck again!

Thanks for reading!

Weekend in Nairobi

Foreword: all the pics associated with this post are here: 
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1945696958489.2061943.1124460020&type=3&l=061cc4122e

Like I mentioned before, we stayed in Nairobi this weekend, which was actually my first continuous weekend here. We've been out of town every weekend before, so we took the opportunity of a three day weekend to explore our surrounding that we've grown to have a slight distaste for. Have to give it an honest try before you totally dismiss it, right?

So Friday we tagged up with our friend Carol and her friend (now our friend) Nadine to see the elephants and giraffes, as well as Bomas. Check out my last post for those awesome stories.

Saturday we lounged around a bit and waited to Nadine to make the long walk from her place to ours. We decided to do all of our exploring on foot to both save money (and the horrible hassle of dealing with cabs) and to really see Nairobi first hand. There's only so much you can see when you're zooming by buildings dodging potholes and goats. Nadine has only been here for a week out of her two month stay, so this was her first time seeing the city center, and actually Erin's first time too. Our walk took us down the hill from our hostel into the city center, then out towards the Westlands (which I'll get to later in this post) to our first stop of the Nairobi National Museum. Mombasa Highway is a newer highway with still a lot of construction on it. We knew it'd be an adventure to travel on foot, but we took the challenge. That challenge required us to cross a six lane road. Fear not! Kenyans do this regularly, so we followed their lead. And the median in the middle helped.

After making our way up small hill of construction materials, we found ourself right at the main gate of Nairobi National Museum. As we stepped inside the gate, we quickly realized this was going to be much higher caliber than we expected. The campus is very well landscaped with large planters and decorative sculptures throughout. We walked past part of the botanical gardens to get to the ticket booth just inside the main gate. Erin and I read online about a temporary month long membership to the Kenya Museum Society for only 800 shillings ($10). Pretty great deal considering entry for adult non-residents was 800 shillings anyway, and this would get us into other museums for free. So that's what I asked about first. The ticket agent looked at me quite confused about what I was asking for. I mentioned that online it said we could purchase the memberships at the Museum Shop, so she directed us to the shop, which per her instructions, seemed like it was back outside the ticket building, so that's where we went. About ten steps outside we hear hissing and clapping behind us. Not thinking much of it, we keep walking until we realize it's the ticketing agent hissing and clapping at us. Yeah, that's how you get someone's attention around here. Guess it worked. We were redirected to the right office and the person working the counter was more familiar with my request now. She had to look up the details though, so apparently it's not a common request. She even asked how we even found out about this. The best part is that for only 800 shillings, we got our membership and also free entry into the snake exhibit at the museum, which would have been another 400 shillings. They must not advertise this too much because it's a steal!

The museum had three exhibitions, one temporary and two permanent. The temporary one was all African artwork but was all for sale. A weird concept for a museum, but we enjoyed the art all the same. Then we made our way through the animals of Kenya exhibition, which was actually really awesome to see after we've done some game drives and safaris so we could identify some of the animals and learn about them. Definitely would recommend it for anyone after they've done a few trips into the country. Then we made our way upstairs to the history of Kenya exhibition. This was set up into three sections of pre-colonial Kenya, colonial times, and independent Kenya. All three of us were very surprised at the quality and depth of the exhibition. There were very descriptive placards with almost every item along the way with great explanations about the history, which was fascinating to learn about since we don't really get very much education about African history in America. It was really cool to learn about the pre-colonial into colonial times and also about the effect of the world wars on Kenya and the roots of independence. We got to learn about the presidents of Kenya, influential figureheads, the Mau Mau movement for independence, and the struggles after independence. Kenya has a pretty awesome story and makes me realize how much there is to know about the world.

After the exhibitions, we walked through the snake park, which had some of Africa's most dangerous snakes like the Black Mamba, Puff Adler, cobras, and boas. Really awesome to see but also a little creepy. There were a few exhibits of lizards and turtles to help liven things up. Also three alligators, including the American Alligator. Not sure where that one came from...

We wandered through the gardens after that, admiring the sculptures and landscaping. The museum is situated along a river, but naturally separated by a large fence covered in razor wire. Welcome to Kenya. We made our way back up to the main gate and headed out along a different route to the National Archives about two kilometers away. This route ended up being a little more adventurous and authentic than we anticipated. We seemed to have walked down the road exclusively for car maintenance, so I guess this is the equivalent of your local auto shop. By American standards, it was sketchy as hell, but after walking the distance, we had no problems. What (most likely) is a completely safe road in Kenya would be a nightmare in America. Interesting experience.

We meandered and found our way up to the main road as planned, Moi Avenue, which is their main thoroughfare through city center. Again, seemed a little too third world for comfort, but we quickly settled into the pace and actually enjoyed window shopping a little and taking in the urban life. We stopped into a chicken and chips place for some food, since we hadn't even eaten lunch yet. I was the first to order to I just went for it, not knowing the system. Naturally I got it wrong. You first go to a tiny booth with a 3 inch wide hole cut into it to order and pay. Then you take that receipt to the counter to place your order. Functionally similar to America, but still quite different in appearance. We enjoyed our Kenyan fast food and relaxing for a second before heading back to Moi Avenue to find the archives. Turns out we stopped just short of it for food, so it was just across the street. We walked inside to a pretty quiet but large building to try to explore some of the relics of Kenya. Despite an overhaul in the past few years, the space is still a little dingy and not very well lit, but we do our best to take in everything. There are many relics of tribal gear, spears and shields, pottery, traditional horns, as well as a few exhibitions on the history of Kenya, which supplemented our visit to the museum. We spent about 45 minutes in here before it closed.

We then walked around downtown a little more to explore the urban scene before heading back up the hill to our hostel. Passing the supreme court, other governmental buildings, convention centers, churches, you really realize that despite being 8,000 miles away from home on another continent, different societies are really not all that dissimilar. That's one of my favorite things about traveling, when you realize you're really not that far from home and we're really not all that different. It's a cool feeling that I'll never get tired of: finding some comfort miles away from home in a foreign land.

After making the hike back up the hill, Nadine decides to hang out with us since we're all planning on seeing some of the nightlife later that night. We had a few snacks at the hostel since we had a pretty late lunch, just sat around getting to know each other. Nadine will actually be moving to NYC when she gets back stateside in two months, so we're already making plans to hang out once I'm up there too. Small world!

We arrange for a driver to come pick us up and take us to Westlands, the aptly named Western neighborhood. A good friend Raj who grew up in Nairobi suggested we try a place called Gipsy, so I took him up on the advice. With Erin and Nadine not being big club people, we planned on getting there around 10pm, watching the bar fire up while hanging out with a few drinks then seeing where the night takes us. We definitely beat the crowd there, but even being a big place, all the seats downstairs were taken, so we venture upstairs by the window to watch the night unfold. After an hour or two, we've observed a group of middle aged, round bellied Britons serenade some African beauties, a group of what appears to be high school, MAYBE freshman in college, aged kids smoking and drinking way too much too early, and a party bus of football fans with whistles and vuvuzelas. All before things really even got started. We make our way back downstairs to the more crowded area, checking out the mix of expats, locals, and even a few obvious prostitues. We dance for a little while, enduring the strange mix of music, anywhere from country to house to pop. But we still have a great time, if for nothing else but the people watching. My favorite was a pissed off Napoleon syndrome guy upset at another guy who was classily dancing with his lady after bumping into him. Classy guy handled it classily, as expected, and Napoleon's chick just looked unentertained. Gotta love angry straight guys at clubs!

We text our driver (love the use of mobile phones here!) and head back home around 3am, much later than I anticipated, much to my very pleasant surprise. After a really nice night out, we sleep in on Easter morning. Seeing as we live in the back of a church, we got to hear some pretty good music as we woke up. Now we're just spending a lazy day here in the city, saving a few things to do for next weekend and our last two days that we have off the next week.

Speaking of how little time we have left here, I've been gone from home for five weeks now and have two more to go. Time has flown by despite missing so much from home. Erin and I have a funny way of rephrasing how long we have left here to make it sound better. Last week, we said we just had two full weeks of rotation left, then it was our last week here. Sounded better than three weeks left. We also phrase it in days of rotation left. Today we have 8 days left. Pretty good right? I have a countdown until when I leave Nairobi, which despite our efforts to push time ahead seems stuck. Days move slowly sometimes, but weeks have flown by. Four weeks here already and it seems like just yesterday I was writing my first post about my apprehension being here and away from home for so long. 

I do find myself very regularly thinking about home, especially with certain cues. Food is a big one, but we're maybe even adjusting to the somewhat bland and regular food here. I often find myself hearing a song while were out that reminds me of friends at home or even driving on the wrong right side of the road to pass a car, haha. Skype and Gchat make traveling so much easier than it'd ever be otherwise, but they can't replace talking to everyone I love back home. I get to email friends and family regularly, chat daily with friends, and talk to Colton pretty much every day, but still can't wait to see and hug everyone when I'm finally back. But flip side of that, Erin has been a great companion out here. We both have boyfriends back home, so we can definitely relate about that, which has been tough for me. She's been great with enduring some of our adventures, even planning quite a few on her own, which for a new world traveler is awesome! So far, our three weeks together have been smooth despite spending every waking hour together. Hoping for a smooth last two!

Thanks for reading, and I'll get you guys updated as we start our community pharmacy site tomorrow!

The weekend!

So first things before I forget: I've posted a few pictures on here, but I've posted most of them on my facebook. Here are a few links to check out if you don't have facebook/haven't seen them yet:

Chyulu Hills, Amboseli, and Aberdare game drives:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1938010686337.2061812.1124460020&type=3&l=e27a045240

Mombasa: 
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1942371275349.2061884.1124460020&type=3&l=d6c987b251

The elephant orphanage, giraffes, the The Bomas of Kenya:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1943698388526.2061900.1124460020&type=3&l=b76b6e6eb8

Hopefully those work! I'm sure someone will let me know if they don't.

Okay, so on to the real stuff! As you can probably tell from my last few posts, we haven't enjoyed ourselves quite as much as we probably anticipated, which has definitely been a let down, but we're still determined to at the very least entertain ourselves. But at the same time, we've made a nice to-do list to keep us entertained with Nairobi for our remaining two weeks. We had Good Friday off, so we took full advantage of this! We met our friend Carol in Mombasa, and she lives just a few kilometers away with some other volunteers here in Nairobi, so we tagged up with her and her friend Nadine for today's adventures. We first hit up the Sheldrick Elephant Orphanage, which rescues baby elephants orphaned via poaching. The foundation also sets to remove snares and prosecute poachers, removing over 93,000 snares and aiding in the arrest of over 900 poachers. Pretty impressive if you ask me! At the orphanage, we were able to see two different groups of baby elephants, one younger than the other. We caught the tail end of seeing the youngest elephants, but still caught a glimpse of the youngest of the group, not more than about 2 feet tall! The second group out was of slightly older elephants, but much more active. They were constantly playing with each other and also trying to see how far the workers would let them wander into the crowd. It was pretty awesome! Mostly because we got to PET a baby elephant! Their skin is really very tough with spiky hairs! I got some great pictures of them playing around, so be sure to check them out!

Then we headed over to Giraffe Manor, which is a hotel you can stay at and giraffes visit your windows, but being on our budget, we just toured the area. The site provides food pellets for you to feel the giraffes, and they are WELL trained to know who has food. The giraffes just wander back and forth looking for who has food, not just who is holding up their hands. We got to feed several giraffes and pet a few too. Those are all in the pictures too!

Then off to The Bomas of Kenya, which I thought was more of a heritage museum, but turned out to be a large outdoor exhibit of how the 42 tribes of Kenya live in their villages, plus an exhibition of traditional dances. It was pretty cool getting to explore the various types fo villages, some made purely out of grasses, others all of mud. It was neat to see the differences in priorities with wives too. Some villages had huge huts for the first wife and tiny huts for the husband, while others were reversed. Some villages had huts specifically for unwed sons and wed sons. It was definitely a good thing to see. Then there was a dance exhibition of some "traditional" dances. I use quotations because it was the same group of dancers for all the tribes' dances, and some dances included very western clothes, so we just took that with a grain of salt. Overall a great experience though!

We dropped Carol and Nadine off at the local shopping center then headed back to our hostel for dinner. All total we were exploring for about 6 hours today, which I say is a great day!

Tomorrow we're going to try to head out to the National Archives and Nairobi National Museum for a bit more culture! We're planning on walking most of it, as the weather is changing so things are much cooler, plus we'll get to see more of the city this way. I'll be sure to update you guys on those adventures as well!

Like I said before, be sure to check out those pictures! I definitely think I got some good ones.

The only other major thing now that's relatively new is the added stressed of getting ready for residency. I got an email from HR regarding pre-employment, and they suggest being in the NY area a month before I begin, which is July 1st. I can tell you now, I'm not moving up there a full month before I start. I planned on trying for a lease to start on June 1st since my current lease ends May 31st, but not moving until mid-June. I think I'll still be able to, seeing as my only major tasks for HR are my physical and some finger printing. But who knows. My start date of July 1st seemed SO far away when I was getting into this whole process, but considering I land in the States April 22nd and could potentially have to move the beginning of June, I have very little time left in Atlanta. The on top of that drama, I still have to take the 3 part board exam for NY, one of which requires me to be on site in NYC. But I'm just trying to be organized about everything and not worry too much about it. Hopefully everything will line up!

Thanks for reading!

And then there were 8

Eight days left of rotation, that is!

Today we finished up at Nairobi Hospital. We have tomorrow off because Nairobi is rampantly Christian, so Friday is a national holiday. Fine by me! We're heading to the elephant orphanage and giraffe center in Nairobi with a few friends tomorrow to see some urban wildlife. We're hoping to hit up a museum in that area too called Bomas to see more of the history of Kenya. Then Saturday we're planning on seeing the National Archives and Nairobi Museum to get a little culture too! Since we'll be in Nairobi this weekend, we're hoping to see a little of the nightlife too. We're planning on hopefully heading to another park out of town next weekend, then we head home the weekend after. Time is ticking down here!

We were pretty happy to finish up at Nairobi Hospital mostly because they don't have very expansive clinical services nor have ward rounds, so there isn't much to do except verify and pack meds. But the people were nice, even if the rotation was pretty unstructured. But we did get to take tea and eat bread whenever we wanted. That was a major plus.

The only really interesting thing about the site is they basically had every brand name med still in production. Like ancient meds we struggle to remember to know brand names to. They have them all. And patients demand them. Counterfeits are so feared here that those with money get the "originals" to avoid this problem. And if you're VIP, you wait in the director's office, not the waiting area. They they personally deliver your meds to you. It's classy. Or classist. 

Anyway, there's a short update. We're off to our community site next week. Things are supposed to be quite different there vs America, so we'll learn a lot there. Until then, thanks for reading!