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.