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!
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