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.     

The African church experience

Today is Sunday so I went to church.   I actually went to two church services.  The first one I went to is here on the hospital compound.  This seems to be where most of the missionary doctors go.  The service is all in English and it was fairly typical of the American church.  The church was probably about 40% white and 60% black.  I think some of the patients and families from the hospital also attended the service.  One patient in particular stuck out to me.  He was a little boy probably around 6 or 7 years old.  I have seen him around the hospital grounds throughout the week.   Every time I have seen him, he has been in a wheelchair or walking around with a single crutch.  I believe he is alone here at Tenwek, as I have not seen him with anyone else.  This morning he came into the church hobbling a little with his one crutch.  He was wearing the same clothes that I have seen him in all week.  He looked up and smiled a little at me before sitting down right in front of me.   Actually, I think every time I have seen him he has been smiling.  The time came for the offering.  The offering bag went by him, and I noticed that he dropped a couple of small coins in the bag.  Coins are very little money here, but that is not the point.  He was clearly giving out of money he really didn’t have to give.  It reminded me of a passage in Luke 21:1-4 which says “As he looked up, Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury.  He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins.  I tell you the truth, he said, this poor widow has put in more than all the others.  All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”  I had not planned to go to this church this morning, but I am glad I did.  I am hoping to be able to meet this boy sometime during the upcoming week. 

 I did leave the first church a little early, because I wanted to be sure to make it to the African Gospel Church which is where I had planned to go.  This church’s scheduled start time is 10am.  I had heard it doesn’t really start at 10, so I arrived a few minutes late.  As it turns out, I was still one of the first people there.  They were just starting to setup for church around 10.  I met up with one of the surgeons here that is from the Detroit area.  He and his wife are here full time.  They used to be in small group with Kristen before they left the Detroit area.  Church finally started around 10:20 however there were still very few people there.  By around 11 the church was getting fairly full.  There were probably around 250 people in attendance, and the surgeon and I were the only two white people (his wife is out of the country working on a mission project at the moment).  The service had a lot of singing and most of it was in the local language.  Their singing is quite unique.  It kept on reminding me of the Lion King.  The preaching was in both English and the local language.  They had two men standing at the podium.  The pastor spoke in English and then the other guy translated into the local language which I think was probably Swahili.  The service lasted about 2 hours and 15 minutes.  I took probably about 15 minutes of video with my camera so those back home could see a little of it.   Near the end, the pastor held up some produce.  I wasn’t really sure why he was doing this, but Todd, the surgeon, explained that some people brought things from their farms as a tithe.  The pastor was asking if anyone wanted to purchase the items in order to turn the food tithe into a money tithe for the church.  I have never seen that in the US before.  As we were leaving the church, I noticed there was only one car in the parking lot.  All of the people in the church had walked to church.            

After church, I came back to the guesthouse for lunch.  It was quite an unusual lunch today.  It of course had green beans, pineapple, and rice, but we also had pizza, mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and cinnamon rolls.  The fried chicken was boneless chicken that they dipped in batter and fried.  The pizza had the same type of crust as they use to make rolls, pizza sauce, and cheese.  It was not exactly Hungry Howie’s pizza, but it was a nice change.  All of their food is made from scratch here.  They have two cooks in the guesthouse that cook for about 8 – 12 of us every day.  I think they start cooking in the morning for lunch and cook all afternoon for dinner.  Most of the food is fairly good.  I also tried a banana this morning for breakfast that I had purchased from one of the local vendors yesterday.  Their bananas are different here.  They are shorter and have a slight orange/yellow tint on the inside.  They taste good though. 

I’m a celebrity

Today, I have the day off from work, so I decided to venture outside the hospital gates and see a little bit of Africa.  I took a lot of pictures today.  Before I left the hospital gates, I decided to go over to the hospital to take a few photos so everyone back home could see what the hospital looks like.  The hospital is a little less congested on Saturdays, so I figured I could get more pictures today.  There are certain people called Masi that you are not supposed to take pictures of so it is a little difficult to get a picture without them in it.

After I left the hospital, I walked down a “street” towards a waterfall that is nearby and took several pictures.  Later on my walk, I saw some boarding schools, and the kids were having school on a Saturday.  They have an elementary school for boys and girls and then an all girls school right near the hospital.  At the elementary school, all of the little girls are wearing the same color of green dress and the boys are all wearing the same pants, shirt, and tie. It is hard to tell the difference between the boys and girls except for the way they are dressed because all of the girls have their heads shaved.  At first, I thought the boys might just be wearing dresses as well, but then I saw some boys in their outfits.  Two of the girls saw me taking pictures and they called over to me and said “will you take our photo?”  This was perfect because I wanted to take pictures of the kids but I didn’t know what the protocol was.  So they lined up just perfect, and I took their picture. 

Later on, I saw another group of kids walking along the road.  I looked at them kind of closely and they were looking at me just as close.  It was a group of 7 or 8 kids and none of them had shoes.  I said hi to one of them and they said hi.  Then one came over to shake my hand.  As soon as I shook one kid’s hand, they all came over and wanted me to shake their hand.  Each one made sure they got a chance to shake hands.  I kind of felt like a celebrity on the red carpet in Hollywood.  I left the kids and continued on my walk.  I saw them again on my way back to the hospital and another one of the doctors was also in the area and he stopped to talk to me.  As we were talking, the kids just came up and stood around us for probably 10 to 15 minutes while we talked.  I really wanted a picture of them, but the doctor kept talking to me and by the time we were done the kids had left.  Maybe another time this week I will see them or other kids. 

I also went out and did some souvenir shopping today at the “shops” around the hospital grounds.  I found some things and hopefully I didn’t get taken for to much.  Nothing is priced so you just barter with the vendors.  I bartered my way out of 600 Shillings which is a little over 7 dollars.  I am sure I was charged more being that I am not a Kenyan, but oh well.  I also bought some bananas from one of the vendors.  They look different than what they do in the States so I will see how they taste. 

Tonight we had fried chicken and French fries for dinner.  The French fries are not exactly what we have in America.  They look the same, but they fry them way to long and they end up being as crunchy as potato chips.  I guess it is a little hard for a Kenyan to know what French fries are supposed to be like since they have probably never had them before.  I also got to taste some mango today.  It is a lot better than what I remember mango tasting the few times I have had it in the States.  I of course had rice, green beans, and pineapple today as well.  I probably am not going to want any of those three things for a few months after I get back.  I have all 3 of those things in some way for almost every meal it seems like.   

Work went a little better yesterday.  The first couple of days it was hard to figure out where I could plug in.  I did something that I have never done before with virtual servers but it seems to have worked out.  They have a lot of the same technology as we have in the States, but they don’t know how to use it, or they do not know what the best practices are, so things are quite different here.  They were having an issue with their x-ray system here where images were taking up to 3.5 minutes to view.  At first they were going to just put the images on another “server” which was actually a desktop pc.  I told them that would not fix the issue, so we got the images to work on the virtual server.  It is now taking about 15 – 25 seconds to pull up the x-ray images, which is much more acceptable.

After dinner tonight, I was able to talk to Kristen!  It was so nice to hear her voice after a week apart.  I got a cell phone here, and as it turns out, it is very cheap to call the US.  It only costs about 5 cents a minute to call the US.  While I was out shopping today, I added time to my phone at one of the shops as these phones are all prepaid.  We had a pretty clear connection.  I think I am lucky as to where I am staying though.  I talked with one of the doctors who is also using a rented cell phone from Tenwek, and he said where he is staying, he doesn’t get any reception.  Last night I was also able to talk with mom and dad so that was also nice.

Would you like rice with that?

Well I have been here about 4 days now, and I think every meal but one has had rice as a main ingredient.  It is a good thing I like rice!  When we went to the grocery store in Nairobi before coming to Tenwek, they had a full aisle devoted to different types of rice.  I have either chicken or beef with almost every meal, though I dont think that is common.  It seems like several of the missionaries have hired house help for cooking, cleaning, and buying supplies.  I believe it is fairly inexpensive to have the help.  The hired workers generally have prepared the meals that I have been served at the missionaries homes. 

Today I have been working on some server issues as well as general pc networking issues.  One pc was in a room they called the casualty room.  This room basically looks like a room that treats some pretty tough things.  As I was getting the pc with one of the other IT guys, I saw CPR being performed on a guy for the very first time in my life.  I was baically standing so close to them that if they asked me to help, I probably could have.  I have always understood that CPR is basically a last ditch effort to save a life.  I stood there for a minute while we were getting the pc and watched a little of what was happening and just prayed for the guy.  As it turns out, I had lunch with the doctor that was performing the CPR.  She said he did make it through the CPR, but that he was headed to the OR.  It didnt sound like his chances were real good of making it.     

I have started to make a friend with one of the IT guys.  He is here for a summer internship and then going back to college.  He is a Kenyan and does not have a huge knowledge of IT.  He asks a lot of questions and I try and show him some IT things.  He is also very interested in hearing about the United States and what my life is like.  He taught me some Swahili today.  Swahili is the local language that most Kenyans know.  Most of the Kenyans that I have run into also know English, but I am told only the educated learn English.  So next time some says Habari (Ha - Bar - E) to you, you can respond Mzuri (Mis -ur -e).  They are asking, How are you?  You are responding, I'm fine. 

A couple other things that are different here is greeting people and chai breaks.  Whenever someone walks into the IT room, they greet everyone with a handshake.  This is fairly common.  The Kenyans want to shake your hand.  The other thing is every morning abound 10:30 everyone hospital wide gets chai.  I dont think I have had chai like this in the US, but I am also not a big chai drinker except for here.  The hospital delivers a container of chai to each department.  It is basically hot tea, milk, and I am not sure what else. 

Kwaheri (qua - harry) - Goodbye

The road to Tenwek

This morning, I left the guest house in Nairobi and traveled 4 hours by car to Tenwek hospital.  Once you get out of Nairobi, the traffic isn't really that bad and I think I could have driven for most of the drive.  Tenwek is about 150 miles outside of Nairobi.  The roads were for the most part paved and looked very much like American roads.  There was one spot that they were working on the road and so cars basically have just made up their own detour in the field next to the road.  The thing that strikes me the most as we drive pretty much anywhere here is the amount of people alongside the road.  Some are walking someplace, but many are just standing, sitting, or laying there watching the cars go by.  Ocassionaly, we would drive through a small town.  They would make cars slow down with speed bumps when going through the town.  Most of the towns have just a row of businesses such as a local bar, a gas station, and maybe a family owned restaurant or hotel.  It is all very different than the US.  Driving through Nairobi, we saw many vendor with their products out by the road. 

We also stopped by "Meijer" on the way out to Tenwek.  It was kind of a grocery store/shopping mall.  It had many American brand foods there.  Some were fairly expensive.  A jar of Ragu was about 4 - 5 dollars.  I of course just bought some candy to try that I had never heard of.  A dad and his daughter that are here that came with us are on a different meal plan and they had to buy groceries for the two weeks they are here.  He said it was about 180 dollars. 

So, I am finally at Tenwek.  I have my own room and bathroom.  Tonight will be my first attempt at sleeping under a mosquito net.  I dont see any mosquitos yet so hopefully it doesnt get to crazy.  I was given a tour of Tenwek Hospital.  It is a fairly large complex of buildings and seems kind of hard to figure your way around.  I am sure that will get easier after tomorrow.  I had dinner at my host's house this evening with another couple who are here for a short term.  Afterwards, I talked with the hospital administrator about their IT infrastructure.

I'm Here!

I'm Here!!!!!!!!!! Everything went smooth. I am super exhausted at the moment though. That was a lot of flying and I didnt get much sleep. I probably only slept for maybe 3 hours total off and on.  My body has no idea what time it is. I have been eating at all hours of the day and at times my body is not used to. My layovers were fine, my visa went fine, my luggage all made it, and my driver got me to the guest house here in Nairobi. I arrived basically at dark, so I couldnt see much of the city. The driving here is crazy. It is the first time that I sat on the left side of a car as a passenger.  It dawned on me on the way to the guest house that we were also driving on the opposite side of the street.  I dont think they have ever heard of stop lights.  Picture a major city in the US with no stop lights at intersections.  Basically you just inch your way into the lane you want to be in and go.  This driving would take some getting used to.  I didnt see any accidents but there were stalled out cars in a the middle of the road in a couple of places to add to the challenge of driving.  There are also a lot of people just walking around on the sides of the roads.  We had several people just walk out in front of us.  Picture a busy road in the US and people just randomly walking out in front of traffic in the dark.  Tomorrow is another day of travel to Tenwek.  I belive it will be about a 4 hour drive in the morning.    

Today is the Day!

The day has finally arrived.  It is almost hard to believe.  In a little over 24 hours I will be on a different continent and a much different world then I know.  Please pray for safe travels today and tomorrow.  I will arrive in Nairobi at 6:05pm local time which is around 11am EST time Sunday morning.  I will be spending the first night at a guest house in Nairobi and then traveling another 4 hours by car the next day to Tenwek.  Looking forward to sending updates from the other side of the world!  

Kenya Statistics

Since I have lived my entire life in the United States, I do not know a lot about Africa or Kenya.  When I think of Africa, I think of African safaris, poverty, and in respect to Kenya, long distance marathon runners.  Some interesting facts about Kenya are that there is approximately 41 million people that live in Kenya, two thirds of the population live below the international poverty line of $2 a day, 26 percent of Kenyans have access to the internet, 62 percent have a cell phone, and 28 percent of households own a TV.  It is interesting to think about these statistics and reflect on what we in America think of as normal.  It is normal for us to have multiple TV’s in our house and multiple devices connected to the internet.  It is normal for us to go to Walmart or Meijer and get whatever supplies we need.  However, what we have here in America is not normal to the majority of the world.  God has blessed us and our nation.

About Tenwek

My trip to Tenwek will begin on June 1^st.  I will arrive in Nairobi, Kenya about 24 hours after I leave the airport in Detroit, MI.  Once in Nairobi, I will have another 4 hour car ride to my final destination at Tenwek Hospital in Bomet, Kenya.  Tenwek is located about 150 miles from Nairobi in the Bomet County of Kenya’s Rift Valley Province.  The hospital is located about 100 miles south of the equator.  Tenwek is administered as a subsidiary of the African Gospel Church in cooperation with World Gospel Mission.  The hospital was founded in 1937 and has now grown to a 300-bed referral and teaching center, making it one of the largest Protestant mission hospitals in Africa.  It provides primary health care to 600,000 people within about a 20 mile radius.  The climate is very temperate due to the 6800-ft. elevation.  In the month of June, while I am there, it is normally dry and cool in the evenings.  Temperatures this time of year range from 51 – 70 degrees.  I will be arriving near the end of their rainy season. 

  

My Journey

My journey to Tenwek has been months in the making.  Last fall, I started thinking and praying about a short term mission trip and where God would lead me to go.  Kristen had just returned from her trip to Togo, and she told me about conversations she had with the local missionaries.  They were very excited to hear about my IT skills, and they told her how much I could be used in Africa.  This really was an eye-opener to me.  I had always heard of missionaries going to spread the Gospel or performing medical missions in Africa, but I never really thought of Africa as a place that needed IT or IT missionaries.  I had several conversations with mission organizations in the following months, and found that IT is very much in need in Africa.  Shortly after New Years, I started looking at various mission and local church websites for opportunities.  I talked with missions organizations about the possibility of going to South America or Africa.  Throughout the next couple of months, I would have opportunities to go to several places.  My two most promising opportunities were to go to Zambia or Mozambique.  Both of these locations were great opportunities, but neither seemed to be the right fit.  I was looking for a third world country where I could use my IT skills in a hospital.  Tenwek was just what I was looking for, and God presented the opportunity at just the right time.  I will spend two weeks helping the hospital with a large upgrade to their IT infrastructure and implementation of an electronic medical records system.