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.
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