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!
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