Some Pictures

Stores just outside the hospital gates

Guest House I stayed in the first night in Nairobi

Rift Valley - this stretches for about 3700 miles

Town on the way to Tenwek

Stores on the edge of Rift Valley

Field on the way to Tenwek

Tenwek Hospital

My room at Tenwek

A view from the front door of my room

Place I ate dinner every night.  This guy cooked our meals on the weekend.

Basketball court at Tenwek

My apartment complex at Tenwek

Hospital cafeteria

Some of the hospital buildings

River near Tenwek

Trees near the river

African church I went to

These girls saw me taking pictures, and they wanted their picture taken.  They attend a boarding school near Tenwek.  All of the girls had shaved heads.

One of the doctor's homes

Inside a store just outside the hospital

Just outside the hospital gates.  The motorcycles in the picture are taxi drivers

I thought this picture was funny.  Apparently the word hotel in Kenya can also mean a place to get some food

You think our roads are bad....

Another picture of the road

Church service at Tenwek

Inside the African Gospel Church

Waterfall near the hospital

homes where some of the kids I met.  This is where the kids live that treated me like a celebrity.  

IT Room - where I spent most of my time during the day

The kids that live in the home pictured above.  I asked them to smile, but I don't think they understood any english.  

River near waterfall

Some of the IT guys I worked with

This woman was balancing this package on her head with no hands just before I snapped the picture

Stores around the hospital

These fruit stands were common.  Women will sit at these stands all day.  I took this picture on a day the woman was not around.  I saw her there almost every day however.  

Car Wash!

Baboon alongside the road

Town between Tenwek and Nairobi

Some of the countryside

Trees in a field

I made it home!

Hello everyone,

It was a long day yesterday, but I am home now. I will try to post some pictures by the end of the week.  Thanks for praying and following my blog while I was in Africa.

The Road to Michigan

Today is my last morning here in Africa.  In a couple of hours, a driver from Samaritans Purse will be arriving to take myself and two others on a 4 hour trip across the countryside of Kenya to the airport in Nairobi.  My flight doesn’t leave Nairobi until just after midnight tonight.  I will most likely be sitting at the airport for a few hours before I leave.  I didn’t really notice very much to do at this airport either.  It certainly is not like the airports in the US.  I will be flying from Nairobi to Brussels and then on to the US.  I will have a little less than 2 hours in Brussels so hopefully my flight leaves Nairobi on time.   As I was getting dressed this morning, I thought about how I am going to be wearing these clothes for about the next 48 hours.  A hot shower will probably be nice when I get home.  Please pray for safe travel to the Nairobi airport and air travel back to the US.  Also, pray that all of my luggage makes it back to the US.  Please also pray that I can get some sleep on the flights back home.  I wasn’t able to sleep much on the way here.  I will be back to work on Monday, and I will need to readjust to the eastern time zone, as I have fully adjusted to the time zone here in Kenya, and we are 7 hours ahead.    

I am looking forward to sharing with everyone when I return.  I have taken over 300 pictures so far plus some video.  I am sure there will be more to take pictures of on the ride back to Nairobi as well.  Thank you all for following my blog and praying for me while I have been in Africa.  I have learned a lot the past couple of weeks.  God is doing a lot of good things in this region.  God is good.

See you in the US!

The Meeting

Today was my last full day here at Tenwek, and I was determined to meet the little boy from Sunday.  On my way into work this morning, I walked with a physician who is visiting here at Tenwek in the pediatric department.    I asked her about visiting hours, and she said I could come at almost anytime.  About 11 this morning, I had a break in what I as working on, so I decided to go back to my apartment and get the things I had brought for a child here.  I went down to the pediatric ward and told one of the nurses why I was there.  She asked me if I wanted to see a specific child.  I said I didn’t know the name of the child, but that I had seen him walking around the hospital with a crutch.  She knew exactly who I was talking about.  I waited outside the big room where all the kids had their beds, and a couple minutes later, she came out with the boy.  He had the same clothes on that I had seen him in for the last two weeks.  He came and sat down next to me and we shook hands and smiled at each other.  The nurse said he didn’t know any English.  She translated a couple of things for me and explained to him that I had brought some things to him.  I opened up the coloring book and took out a couple of crayons.  I don’t think he had ever seen either of them before.  I took one of the crayons and colored a little bit of the picture so he would get the idea.  He took the crayon and intently colored the picture for the next 15 – 20 minutes.  Every so often he would look up at me with a big smile on his face. They also had one of his friends come out who was in a wheelchair.  His friend was a Masai and was there with his dad.  They also did not speak English.  I gave the bubbles to this boy, and he blew a bunch of bubbles all over the hallway.  We kind of stopped traffic in the hallway for a little while, with people stopping to watch.  After about 20 minutes, the little boy was done coloring the picture, and he was going to start on another picture, however I needed to get back to the IT room.  I think he thought I was going to take the book away.  I took the book and put it in his hand and put the crayons back in the box and put them in his hand and gave him some bubbles as well.  He looked up at me and smiled and gave me a high five.  Unfortunately, I did not get his name, and I didn’t think I should take a picture since his friend was a Masai and he may also be one as well.  Masai do not want their pictures taken.  It is easy to tell the adults are Masai as they have stretched out holes in their ears and they are often wearing red.  The little boy could use prayer.  I learned that he has been here for 3 months now, and his family has abandoned him.  I think the hospital is trying to find his mother.  I am wondering if the fact that he is alone with nowhere to go, is the reason he is still here.  He does walk with a crutch, so he is not in perfect health, but it seems like if he had the same condition in the US, he would be at home. 

I went to a missionary’s home for lunch today.  We had tacos, rhubarb pie, and ice cream.  It was probably one of the best meals I have had here.  It was very tasty.  The ice cream here in Kenya is different from the US.  It almost has the consistency of cool whip.  Tonight we had a special dinner with a good number of short term missionaries.  One of the hospital administrators was there with a presentation to tell us about the future of Tenwek.  They have plans to continue growing this hospital.     

I finished up some work with the IT department today.  Hopefully, they are better off from before I came.  Every morning we have devotions with the accounting office which is next door to the IT room.  The IT guys and some of the accounting staff thanked me for coming.  I gave the IT guys some notes that I wrote up with instructions on how to do active directory.  I also met with the medical superintendent and the IT team regarding the Linux pc’s, and it was determined that they will move to Windows pc’s.  I also gave them some notes with best practices and a plan for what needs to be done in the future.   

Just an average day

Today, I created some documents with screenshots that will help the IT guys with active directory when they decide to implement it. I also drafted a document with a short term and long term plan for implementing some IT changes.  One of the IT guys asked me about the active directory document, so I showed him a few things about active directory. One of his questions was about how I did a print screen to make the screenshots in the document. He had never done one before. The guys have been coming to me more for help in the past couple days. Anytime they can’t figure something out it seems they are calling me for help. Today, they were asking for my help on installing software that they use, and I have never seen before. They were installing it on an Apple computer, and I think it was their first time to install the software on an Apple.  We got it installed though!  

I had lunch today at the hospital canteen. I had fried chicken and french fries. I got to taste the Kenya version of ketchup. It is lighter in color, and it isn’t as thick as our ketchup.  I thought it tasted fine though. Their french fries were different. They were all very short. I had lunch with two of the IT guys, and a father and daughter that are here for a short term visit as I am. The daughter tried to order some intestines, which I guess is a popular dish because they were all out of it. I don’t think that is the first dish I would try. I am pretty open to eating things, but you have to draw the line somewhere.  

I went for a walk down to the waterfall tonight with one of the surgical residents that is here for a short term.  It was super muddy from all the rain today. We saw the kids that I saw on my walk Saturday. They all wanted their pictures taken.  They walked with us for a while, and wanted to hold our hands and hang from our arms for quite a distance. When we got to the waterfall, they seemed to be scared off and ran back home.

Have you ever heard of M&M's?

This morning I woke up, had breakfast and went over to the IT room.  After being there for about an hour, I started to not feel so well.  I think the banana I ate from one of the local vendors was not so good.  I came back to my room for about an hour, took some meds, and I have been feeling fine since lunch. 

I spent the majority of my day trying to figure out a way to make their x-ray images appear on Linux pc’s.  The manufacture of the software states that it is not supported on Linux, but since they have a number of Linux pc’s here, I thought I would give it a try anyway.  I tried just about everything I could think of but still nothing seems to work.  I think they are going to have to load Windows on their Linux pc’s.  In a business environment, Windows is what should be used anyway.  I also worked a little more on a document that I will give to the medical superintendent of some best practices in IT, and some hardware and software that I think would be helpful in the long term here. 

One nice thing about working in this type of setting is that you can go home for lunch every day and see your family.  The lunches that I have had at missionary’s homes that have families have had their families home for lunch.  I had lunch at the home of the doctor who will be the new medical superintendent starting this summer.  We had a chicken curry which was good, rice, and I finally got to try some chapati.  Chapati is a flat bread kind of like Naan Indian bread.  We also had ice cream with chocolate sauce!

After lunch, I took a bag of peanut butter M&M’s up to the IT room for the IT guys.  I showed two of the guys the bag.  They have never heard of or seen M&M’s before!  One guy said they have something similar though.  Between two of the guys, the bag of M&M’s was 3/4 gone by the end of the day, so I guess they liked them.  It is hard to believe that guys in their 20’s have never heard of M&M’s before.   

I bought a different type of banana on my way home tonight.  These bananas are about the size of fingers.  I did a little research online and I think they are called apple bananas.  They are a little sweeter than the normal banana.  I don’t know why they have apple in the name because they do not resemble or taste like an apple in anyway. 

Another difference here in Kenya is what they do with garbage.  They do not have a garbage collection from the local sanitation department once a week.  I see a lot of garbage laying around outside the hospital gates where there are a lot of people.  If it is not just thrown on the ground, it is burned.  I saw this a lot on our way from Nairobi as well.  I think even in Nairobi they have to burn all their garbage and that is a fairly large city. 

Just an update on the little boy from Sunday, I saw him again today.  He was laying out in the grass just outside of the hospital sleeping.  He is still wearing the same clothes that I saw him in all last week.  I asked the guest house coordinator what the protocol was for giving him a coloring book and some bubbles I brought, and she said to check with the nurse in charge of the children’s area.  I will have to find that person tomorrow.  I have plenty of candy here as well, but I have been told numerous times not to give candy out to the kids. 

Some Differences.....

I started out the day with a problem that I have been facing since I arrived.  I have a refrigerator in my room, but the problem is that it never shuts off.  I turned it down to almost off, but it still keeps running.  This causes an issue because it freezes everything.  I went to pour milk on my cereal this morning and the milk was a solid block of milk.  So, I had a breakfast of champions instead which included an African banana, some trail mix, a snickers bar, and some juice. 

Today for lunch we had a couple of new items mixed in with the traditional rice.  We had sukuma wiki which is a Swahili word that translates to “push the week” or “stretch the week.”  Sukuma wiki is a form of collard greens.  We also had Ugali.  Ugali is a tasteless dish of maize flour cooked with water to a dough like consistency.  It is eaten with a meat or vegetable stew or with sukuma wiki. 

Today was a good day at work.  I worked on a document that will give the hospital administrator some help with best practices from an IT perspective.  I am also working on figuring out a solution for their imaging system to make it work on Linux pc’s.  It works great on Window pc’s, but I am trying to make it work on Linux and Apple as well.

There are several differences that I have found or observed in my first full week in Kenya.  Some are cultural differences and some are just different than what we do in the United States.  So lets start with the cultural differences.  As I drove up this way from Nairobi, I mentioned that I saw a lot of people sitting or laying alongside the road.  As it turns out, most of these people were men.  Women are the ones that do the majority of the work in this culture.  Apparently there was a study done where women and men wrote down everything they did throughout the day.  Women worked all day long and men wrote that they slept and ate for the most part.  I wonder what this country would be like if men were working as much as the women.   There are men who work.  There are plenty here at Tenwek working, but it seems that men in general do not work as much as the women. 

Each morning around Tenwek all of the sidewalks and floors are washed with rags or mopped with soap and water.  The women that are washing are wearing dresses and some look like they are ready to go to church.  Not the typical outfit that someone in the US would wear to wash floors.  I am sure the floors do not get that dirty in one day.  My guess is that Tenwek is providing jobs for those who want to work. 

Ok, this is the most surprising cultural difference I have found.  Nursing mothers openly breastfeed in public.  In the US, mothers who breastfeed in public put a blanket over their chest and baby.  This is not the case here in Kenya.  Yesterday at church, I was just looking around to see how many people were there and to my right and to my left there were two nursing mothers sitting there in the pews behind me listening to the sermon and nursing.  There was also a woman a few days ago doing the same thing on a bench outside the hospital.  I guess things are a little different here in Kenya.

Another difference I have found is when walking around outside the hospital grounds, many of the kids will stare at me.  Most want to say hi, and they are generally really friendly.  Some want to shake your hand.  They don’t see to many white people, so I think they are trying to figure me out a little. 

I mentioned my milk was frozen this morning for breakfast.  I had intended on having the Kenya version of corn flakes cereal.  The cereals here are not that great.  I have tried rice crispies and corn flakes now.  The corn flakes actually taste like corn.  I was expecting something a little more similar to frosted flakes but these are definitely not frosted flakes.

Another thing I have noticed on a lot of people is their belts.  They are always really way to big, and they often times create their own holes in the belts.  My guess is they find whatever belt they can afford and make it work. 

Kenyan’s all want to shake your hand.  The one’s at the hospital shake hands more like Americans because they know that is what we are used to.  I shook hands with one of the guys at church yesterday and he gave me a real Kenyan handshake.  It was kind of like a slap of the hand then a shake and then you try and snap fingers with the other person as you release. 

One of the things I have noticed with my coworkers is they are so quiet.  They talk in a bit of a whisper.  I am constantly saying What?  When they pick up the phone to answer an IT question, I can barely hear them even though they are right next to or across from me.  I think it is a cultural thing not to be so loud like Americans are. 

I am constantly converting kilometers to miles and dollars to Kenyan Shillings.  My coworkers have all kinds of questions for me that require conversion. 

Chai is served every day at 10:30. 

I only drink filtered or bottled water here.  There is a filter that produces clean water for us to drink.  I even brush my teeth with the filtered water.  The water out of the tap cannot be used for drinking. 

They collect rain water off the roof of all the buildings here.  I hear it is used for washing clothes as the ground water has a tint to it that stains clothes.  They are large tanks, so I am assuming they use the water for something else as well.  I don’t think it is drinking water though.