Behind Amy's Lens

No pictures til Thursday

The internet connection at Keekorok Lodge is extremely slow and it might cost me a fortune to post pictures to my blog from here. We return to Nairobi on Thursday and I will post them then.

Tuesday Oct 31

Happy Halloween!

Tuesday Oct 31

We woke up at 6 am for our 6:30 game drive. This morning we saw the same group of elephants and a male lion. Today we got a much closer view of the elephants. It is quite rare to see a male lion. He was with a female and there was a very large kill next to them. It is mating season for the lions. We were hoping to catch a little action, but they were aparently taking a break.

We also saw the buffalo - so we have now seen 4 of the five. We hope to see the rhino tomorrow although we hear it is quite difficult to find them.

We ate breakfast after the morning game drive and then headed off to tour a Masaai village. On our way we got to see 5 giraffes. A couple were very close to the road. While it was really neat to watch the giraffes at the reserve last week, seeing them in the wild was breathtaking. We got to watch one bend down and drink from a water hole. It was stunning.

When we arrived at the Masaai village the warriors and elders danced for us and then showed us around the village. When we walked in one of the Masaai was wearing a large hat made out of a lion mane. The Masaai used to hunt lions, in fact, it was a right of passage for a warrior to kill a lion. He then became an Elder and was able to marry. The warrior that is the first to spear the lion gets his mane. The Masaai that talked with us last night explained all of this to us. I congratulated the Elder on his kill. He was quite pleased. He was also proud to show off the scar on his leg. It is not a very big one, although I expect it was quite painful. This happened about 8 months ago. The Masaai no longer hunt lions; however, they will kill one if it is attacking their cattle.

We watched the women sing for us. Then we got a tour of a hut. Masaai huts are made out of sticks, mud and cow dung. They last for approximately ten years. At that time the village breaks them all down and then moves on to a new place. Then they led us into their market area and Janet and I did a little shopping. Janet is quite good at bargaining a good price. We found some nice things.

Then we headed back to the lodge. Janet and I went back to our room. I had been a bit worried while we were out because I realized that I left my money belt in my room. Unfortunately it was not there when I returned. It had all of my cash, one credit card and my passport. Janet and I searched the room and then headed for the front desk. The manager and security came and searched our room as well. At this point I was of course extremely upset. I can't get home without my passport. I really was not concerned about the money or my credit card - those things can be taken care of fairly easily. The passport really freaked me out. I said multiple times to the manager - and in the company of other staff (including our room steward - that if the passport is returned all else is forgotten. I came to understand that this is really the best hope you have of getting your passport back in this situation. So, we called the tourist police (a group of police with special additional training that work only with tourist crime issues). The security guards went off with the room steward to search her room and the manager and I went to call the embassy.

Our entire trip to Kenya has been planned and organized by a group called Impact By Design. They plan conferences and large events for businesses. The owner of the company was with me the entire time helping me figure out what to do next. I am very grateful she was there. One of the Kenyan neurosurgeons, Paul, has a brother that is part of the tourist police and he was there as well. He did not say a word other than occasionally saying "tsk, tsk, tsk". I believe he was actually quite helpful in the events to follow.

I let the embassy know my passport had been stolen and they gave me the information on how to get a new one. I don't return to Nairobi until Thursday, however they would be able to get my a replacement one by Friday afternoon. We leave Saturday night. I was relieved to find out that I would be able to go home on schedule.

I left the manager's office to email and call Bill, my husband, to have him cancel my credit card. This all took quite a bit of time. I headed back up to the manager's office to see if they had finished searching the steward's room and to find out if the police had arrived yet. Then I headed back to my room. Janet had gone back shortly before me to search the bushes around our room. As I was walking down the path she came running out of the room to tell me that my money belt - with everything in its place - was sitting on the corner of the bed when she walked in. It seems that by contacting the embassy and the police the person decided it was not worth the trouble. They left all of my cash in the money belt. I was very surprised to find that. I tried to contact the embassy again to let them know that my passport was back in my possession, but they closed for the day. I don't know if stolen passports get voided or something so I am a bit anxious to get in touch with them in the morning. I hope that I do not need a new passport now that I have reported mine stolen. The police were unable to write a police report since nothing was really stolen. They did however write up a letter of explanation in case I do need to go to the embassy for a new passport. It was really quite a mess.

Janet and I had a few Tuskers and the manager sent lunch out to the patio for us. It was nice to calm down a bit after a fairly stressful afternoon.

Every day that I have spent in Kenya has been a completely new experience for me. I have seen and done things far beyond my imagination. Because of that, this trip has been amazing and overwhelming at the same time. I feel like today's experience was just another new thing. I am fine, my documents are fine. I know that these things happen everywhere in the world and it has not tainted my trip at all.

The neurosurgeons have been wonderful throughout this trip, but especially today. Many offered to give me cash to get home. I believe that Paul helped make things happen with the manager and the police today. If I had been alone I am not sure I would have gotten this resolved.

So, tomorrow we go on another game drive. I hope to see the rhino, hippo and of course the hyena for Helen.

Monday Oct 30

We left for the Masaai Mara on Monday morning. Instead of our usual bus tranportation we drove in Land Rovers - a much better choice. We headed out of Nairobi and through the Rift Valley. It was gorgeous. We stopped on the side of the road at the beginning of the Rift Valley and were met by some men selling African Curios and other items. These guys are some serious salesmen. It was really my first experience with this and it was very odd. I didn't buy anything from them. I was really just trying to figure out how the barter thing worked.

We traveled on some extremely bumpy roads - much like our trip to Nyeri. Although, this time were traveling much slower. It was about half dirt and half tarmac, however the tarmac was really just potholes with a bit of road in between. These potholes were the size of dinner tables - not just dinner plates.

We stopped in a town and had some bananas and a little Tusker (beer). Then we finished our journey to the Mara. Our drive was about 5 hours. We saw many Masaai on the way.

The Masaai tribe is frequently the tribe that you see in photographs from Africa. Their signature color is red. They are somewhat nomadic and are cattle herdsmen.

The Masaai Mara is a reserve park that is actually owned by the Masaai. It is leased from them by some council or government office. Then the owners of the lodge lease it from the council. So, the Masaai receive lease payments on a regular basis.The Mara is famous for the Big Five - the five most deadly (to warriors) animals. They are (in order if I remember correctly) the Buffalo, Leopard, Rhino, Lion and Elephant.

We arrived at Keekorok lodge and had a fabulous drink with fresh fruit and fruit juices. It was delicious. After lunch we headed our for our first game drive. Game drives occur at sunrise and sunset every day. We rode in Land Rovers with the tops up so we could stand and see out. We drove around and found many zebra, antelope, gazelle, and wildebeasts. Then we found a group of elephants. There were 3 adults and 3 young ones - the youngest being about two months old. We were quite close to them.

We also watched a cheetah hunting. She walked around a bit using her nose and then headed towards some elan - kind of like an antelope. They seemed a bit big for her to catch, but we watched for quite some time to see what would happen. She slowly moved through the tall grass. At times it was very difficult to spot her. She sat and stared for a very long time. Eventually she rolled around in the grass. We decided to move on to something else. We all were kind of hoping to get to see a kill.

Then we found quite a few lions. They were all up on a large rock sunning themselves. They were enormous. I was really amazed at how large they are. We were really not that far away from them either. It is funny to watch the animals look up and notice us. Some ignore us and others sit and stare for a while. Some of the lions were very interested in watching us. The group was almost all female with some young males.

We were very lucky to find a leopard up in a tree - actually there were two of them. The leopard is very difficult to find in the Mara. They hide in trees and are quite shy. Also, many of the big trees are a ways away from the road and it is park rules that you must stay on the roads. However, our drive (and all of the others around us) headed off the road because of the leopard spotting. Whenever there is a big animal to see the drivers all let the others know and pretty much everyone heads over to see. Then we all sit and watch. We got word that the park rangers were headed our way and so we all took off for more things to see.

We were all very excited to get so close to 3 of the Big Five on our first game drive. We also saw some ostrich, many birds including a group of vultures feasting on a carcas and a warthog.

We got back to the lodge and had a sundowner - a cocktail party at sundown. It took place out on a deck that overlooks the Mara. One interesting thing about our lodge is that it is not fenced in. Many animals walk around the outskirts of the lodge. The grounds of the lodge are just beautiful. Monkeys run around on the roof tops.

Janet and I had a wonderful drink called Elephant Tears. Wow! It had orange flavored vodka, orange juice and grenadine. I expect we will be making a few of those when we return to the States.

After dinner we watched the Masaai Warriors dance. It is very cool. Lots of singing, yelling and marching around. Then they went outside to the patio and did a jumping dance. During this dance the warriors jump very high to impress girls. It was in fact impressive. Then we sat and talked with one of the Masaai after the dance. He told us a lot about the traditional culture and answered all of our questions.

A man from another tribe met us at the walkway back to our room. He lead us down the path with his spear in hand. He would occasionally shine his flashlight over the grass next to us and there were zebra and other animals just hanging out.

The room has a beautiful mosquito net system. I will have to take a picture of it. After we turned off the lights it was very dark and very quiet. I could hear the mosquitos whining above us. This is the first time we have really had any mosquitos. We both woke up bite free.

We are on safari!

We arrived in Masaai Mara yesterday and have had a great time so far. The internet connection here is extremely slow and there is only one computer for the whole lodge. So, I have a lot of posts to make and pictures to view in my room. Then I will come and post here hopefully later this afternoon.

BBQ!

Note to my friend Bonnie: You may not want to read today's post. It involves a goat.

Today was another completely crazy day. I cannot even believe what I saw today. We started out by going shopping and bought some very nice things. Then we went over to Dr. Peter's house for a barbeque - a goat barbeque. There is actually a really neat back story to today so I will give you that first.

Earlier this year Dr. Peter was in St. Louis for 3 months. He stayed with Dr. Smith and his wife. Because Dr. Smith took Peter into his home, Dr. Smith became Peter's symbolic father. The tradition is that when a father comes to visit his son's new home the father slaughters a goat. So, first we had lunch - rice dishes, salads, etc. Then it was time to deal with the goat. I will spare the gory details, but I do have a full photographic account if anyone is interested. While I have no problem with watching surgery, watching a goat be slaughtered is a totally different thing.

The children were really interesting during this whole thing. They were right down there taking part - none of them used a knife, but they held legs and such. They kept reminding the men that were working not to hurt the lungs.

So, then they began to grill the goat meat. We all sat around and waited. Then the women walked around and offered the ribs and other various parts of the goat. At this point Dr. Smith went to say thank you to Peter for the lovely day. Dr. Smith's wife was back at the hotel not feeling well so he was anxious to get back to her. Peter said that we hadn't had the "goat head soup" yet, but that it would be ready soon. So, we all hung out and waited.

I walked around and photographed the area. Then I was called to come and photograph the making of the soup. It was pretty awful. They boil the skull, with the head cut open to expose the brain and the spinal column and cord. (I cannot believe I am typing this.)

So, that boiled for about 20 minutes. During this time the children were having a fabulous time blowing up the lungs by blowing through the trachea. It was very freaky, but kind of cool at the same time. They all took turns passing it around. Then they filled the lungs up with water and had a water balloon fight. I swear I am not making this up.

Peter presented Dr. Smith with some wonderful items to thank him for coming. Then he served the soup. When Peter's wife came around with the soup she said that it was fine if we did not enjoy it. I was pleased to be let off the hook a bit. So, I took a sip. Truthfully, the goat meat and the soup were really not that bad. The goat meat could have been good had I not just watched it being slaughtered. The soup was a bit odd and I cannot say that I liked it. I did have a number of sips, but I also dumped part of it out behind my chair so it looked like I drank more than I did. I really did not want to offend them.

Janet and I came home and had a bag of m&ms to get the taste out of our mouths. Then we sat and had a beer and some appetizers while we hashed out the events of the day once again.

I do have pictures and will not share anything graphic. But, once again I am still very behind in working on my images from each day. I hope to do that tomorrow.

Tomorrow we leave for safari! I am so excited. We will be leaving first thing in the morning and will arrive at Masaai Mara around 1pm. Then we will have our first game drive. I cannot wait. We will be there until Thursday morning when we will fly back to Nairobi. Janet and I will stay in our hotel for one night and then Friday morning we will fly to Mombasa to do a couple of surgeries. We will fly back to Nairobi on Saturday afternoon and then stay at the airport until our flight leaves for home.

We should have internet service while we are in Masaai Mara - wireless network out in the bush! So, hopefully I will be able to post.

Saturday the 28th

I have gotten very far behind in reviewing my pictures each day. I still have Friday to do and I am not going to get started before I head to bed. It is after 1am here and it has been an unbelievable day. I am going to try to explain what we saw today although I don't really think I can do it justice.

We woke up at 5am to get ready to head to Nyeri which is a fairly large city north of Nairobi. It is the main city in the central province of Kenya. One of the local neurosurgeons picked me and Janet up and then we went off to pick up Dr. Jose - an extremely amazing neurosurgeon from Spain. We all drove together in Peter's Subaru north. Driving in Kenya is crazy. Everyone goes as fast as they can and there is little regard for lanes, right of way, or pedestrians. The other day Janet and I were in a cab and we nearly hit 3 groups of young children heading home from school.

Anyway, the road out of Nairobi might as well be the autobon. We were going about 140 km which I think is about 85/90 mpg. The whole time the car's speed alarm is going off. Peter (and every other driver) was weaving back and forth from "lane" to "lane". Once we got out of Nairobi the road narrowed and what was a divided highway turned into a two lane highway. This part of the road is really about two car widths wide. It is covered in potholes. Dinner plate size and larger potholes all over the road. The road is also occasionally just dirt. So, when a driver wants to avoid a pothole he swerves one way or the other. The really exciting part is that you don't have any idea which way the guy in front of you is going to swerve or which way the guy coming towards you is going to swerve. It is really just a big free for all. In addition everyone is tailgating. Very exciting. Oh yes, and of course Peter answered a million phone calls on our way. The trip is 2 hours each direction. Poor Dr. Jose - he was just a wreck about this. All Janet and I could do was to laugh. I guess we had both accepted the fact that if we were going to die on this crappy little road that was just how it was going to be. Dr. Jose was really fighting fate. Being the gentleman that he is he kindly offered me the front seat when we stopped for breakfast. I thanked him for thinking of me but said I was perfectly fine not having a birds eye view of what was going on.

There were little villages - if that - on our way to Nyeri. The poverty was incredible. The scenery was gorgeous. It is a very hilly part of Kenya and it is so green. There were banana trees everywhere. I hope that some of my pictures came out although we were flying down the road so they are likely just a big blur.

We stopped for a quick breakfast at a very nice golf club. We sat and ate eggs, bacon, toast and tea. Then we headed for the hospital. Kenyatta National Hospital in Nairobi is in terrible standards compared to what we see in St. Louis. The hospital in Nyeri was much worse. First we had a clinic that was run by medical students. Actually it seems that the medical students are kind of running the hospital and that was a little scary. While they are doing what they can, they just don't have the training for this level of pathology yet. So, they ran the clinic and Dr. Peter spent a lot of time instructing them. He does this once a month.

Then we went on rounds. This was awful. It smelled. It was hot and dirty. The first place we stopped was the nursery. Kenyatta's nursery is fabulous compared to this place. There were metal baskets all around the edge of the room. Inside each basket was a plastic mattress and a naked baby. They were nearly all premature. The hospital does not have any incubators or oxygen for these babies. They are pretty much on their own. In the back corner was a 9 month old little boy - again completely naked - whose mother threw him into a latrine and then was arrested. She is currently in prison, but the hospital can't do anything with the baby because she will not release him from her custody so he can be adopted out. It is a horrible situation. He has been there for three months.

In the middle of the room there was a very large radiator surrounded by a metal cage. There was barely room to walk.

Then we went off to a couple of the adult male wards. There were rows of beds, many with more than one person in them. Everyone was in horrible shape. It smelled. It was dirty. We met a patient who has such advanced TB that he has developed tumors. At this point I started crying and needed to leave the room.

Janet and I went outside and we walked around a bit. Eventually a woman came up to us.
She promptly decided that Janet was her sister and then took Janet's scrub hat off of her head and put it on her own. We spent some time talking to her. She spoke a fair amount of English, but everyonce in a while she would spurt off into Swahili in kind of a low, deep voice and talk about God. It was a little freaky. She reminded both of us of a witch doctor. Anyway, she also put her hat on my head. Now I am pretty sure I have lice. Lovely.

So, we participated in the very first endocopic brain surgery in a province hospital in I believe the entire continent. Wow. It was really a big step forward for neurosurgery in Africa. Dr. Jose is truly an expert and a pioneer with endoscopic brain surgery and he has worked very hard all week to train as many Kenyans as he can. The surgeons at Kenyatta now have the ability and the equipment to do these procedures. It is going to make a huge difference in patient care.

We were supposed to do a second surgery, but things don't happen very fast here. In everything is always at least two hours late and even then done extremely slowly. Everything that is except for the driving. Instead we stopped for a quick - ok it really took nearly two hours - lunch and then headed home.

Janet and I had understood that we would be back at about 1 or 2 today. So, we booked massages for ourselves at the hotel. The massages here are about $25/hour so we jumped at the chance. However, we had to call and cancel as we were still up in Nyeri. Then this evening we were supposed to leave in the bus at 6:30 for a fabulous dinner at the Carnivor restaurnt (more on that in a moment). Instead we arrived back at the hotel at nearly 7pm. So, we got dressed quickly and raced downstairs, only to wait another half an hour for the bus.

The Carnivor restaurant is a really cool place. When you walk in there is a giant grill and is roasting various kinds of meat on spears. Cool. They walk around with the spears of meat and carve you off a piece. Usually they have zebra and crocodile and other fun things, but we understand that there has been a recent law change or something which makes that nearly impossible. So, we had chicken, pork, lamb, beef, ostrich meatballs and camel. Actually the ostrich meatballs were fantastic. The camel was actually pretty good. Then we danced and had a great time.

So, that is about it for the day. I hope to spend some time in the morning going through my pictures. I will post them as soon as I can.

Tomorrow I believe we will be doing some shopping. Then we have a very exciting afternoon planned. Dr. Peter has talked Dr. Smith - a neurosurgeon from St. Louis into slaughtering the goat for our BBQ for tomorrow afternoon. I'm not real sure about this. It is hard to imagine a day that is farther away from my normal life than today was. But, tomorrow might just top today.

We have been busy

It is just after 5am here. Janet and I are going with two doctors to a little village outside of Nairobi to a hospital to perform a couple of surgeries. These surgeries are for hydrocephalus.

I haven't had a chance to look at my pictures from yesterday yet and will post some later. But, we spent much of the day in the OR. While we have been able to do a fair amount of surgeries while we are here it has been a bit frustrating that we haven't been able to do more. Every day a couple of doctors sit and wait for a room to do their surgery. Their patient waits in the prep area too. Yesterday one of the doctors sat in the OR all day waiting to be able to do his surgery. It never happened. We only have access to two operating rooms. Needless to say many of the doctors wish that they could have been operating all day every day.

While there are Kenyan nurses here, Janet is the only nurse from the US. She ends up scrubbing into a case, then scrubbing out early and going to another one. Then she spends the rest of her time running around getting things and taking care of things for the doctors who are in surgery. She has been very busy.

Yesterday afternoon we arranged to show Finding Nemo in one of the pediatric wards. The kids really enjoyed it. We handed out some candy and they were very excited about that too. It was a fun afternoon.

I will post more when we return this afternoon!

Quick update

I did not get a chance to post this stuff yesterday, so here goes a quick update and my pictures.

Janet and I spent the day taking care of some business. First we stopped off at the PR department at the hospital to get permission for me to take pictures in the newborn unit. I was pleased at how protective they were. But once we explained why we wanted to take the pictures they were more than happy to help. We feel that we can get donations for proper basinetts and cribs as well as some much needed supplies for the nurseries. They are operating on not much - like pretty much every other department at Kenyatta. So, the head of the floor took us around and was very eager to point out all of the things that needed fixing.

Here are some of our pictures.

This row of cribs house the abandoned children. I couldn't get them all in the picture.

They feed with cups, not bottles.

We spent some time holding a few babies. They don't get much cuddling. The nurses have far too many babies to take care of.

We also worked out some plans with the PR department and the pediatric wards to show a movie this evening. Next week we will be handing out the dolls as part of a conference wrap up. There has been a fair amount of media about our work here. The PR department is using everything they can get to keep the buzz going.

Last night we had a very nice cocktail party at another hotel. Then we came back and had a late dinner.

When we went to bed last night the hotel was pretty loud. It continued throughout much of the night. It turns out the guy next door to us fell asleep with his TV blaring. Once the rest of the hotel settled in and got quiet it was impossible to sleep. At 3am Janet insisted that the night manager do something more than gently tapping on the door. So, they attempted to key into his room, but the deadbolt was locked. Then they tried to climb out on our little balcony and over to his to get in through his window. No luck. They continued to lightly knock on his door when Janet finally went over and started banging on the door. They finally followed suit and after about 20 minutes of banging he finally woke up and said "oops". Nice. Of course Janet and I were up for quite some time after that. I have no idea what time we finally got back to sleep. I didn't even want to look at my watch because I knew it was bad.

The doctors left earlier this morning for some seminars and we are getting ready to head out for more surgeries today. This evening we will show Finding Nemo or some other fun movie to the over 100 children on the pediatric ward.

Tomorrow we are going off to a remote hospital to do some surgeries. I am excited to see what there is to see there.

We have also been invited to travel to Mombasa for an overnight stay. We will be doing surgeries there as well. Mombasa is a coastal town with white sandy beaches. There is one neurosurgeon there and he could use a little help. We will fly down next Friday and then come back Saturday afternoon before we need to get ready to come back home.

I am excited about all of the extra wonderful things we are getting to do while we are here.

I can't sleep

Sigh. It is about 3:15am here. I am awake and cannot go back to sleep. This is the first night that I have been awake like this. I am hot and I have indegestion that I cannot get to go away.

Giraffes!

Today was a lot of fun. I got to be a tourist today. I traveled with the wife of one of the surgeons and our tour guide. First we went to the Karen Blixen museum. Karen Blixen lived in Kenya for approximately twenty years. During that time she built a hospital that provided free service. She paid the salaries of the hospital staff. She also setup a community school. She was a painter and a writer. The book and movie Out of Africa is about her time here. I was not able to photograph the inside of the house, however I was able to spend some time walking around the grounds to photograph the beautiful landscape.

From there we went to visit the Kazuri Bead Workshop. Kazuri means small and beautiful. It was started in 1975 by Susan Wood to provide regular employement to the women from villages around Nairobi, many of whom were single mothers. Today the workshop fullfills orders for around the world. They create beads, dinnerwear and other beautiful ceramic items. It still employs many of the women it set out to help.

Then we got to visit the Giraffe Centre. We fed and watched up close about six Rothschild Giraffes. They were gorgeous and quite shy unless you had some food to offer. While we were there I watched and photographed a large group of students from a local elementary school. They were all 5-7 years old. They were squeeling with joy while the giraffe ate from their hands. I photographed them watching tortoises. I was trying to be away from them so I could get them playing and laughing, however my attempts to be sneaky did not work. Soon there was a line of children waiting for pictures - however it took me a while to realize they did not want me to take their pictures, they wanted pictures with me. Their teacher went through two rolls of film. It was very surreal. I did finally get them all to let me photograph them a bit. And then I showed them the back of my camera so they could see themselves. They were more excited and squeeling even more than they had when they were feeding the giraffe. It was a neat experience. Eventually I had to just leave because they started lining up for pictures with me again!

Then we traveled to lunch at the Karen Blixen Coffee Garden. I somewhat expected a few tables on a patio with a little lunch. Instead, we rounded the hedge to find tables arrnaged throughout a very large yard. There were gorgeous bushes of beautiful flowers with small birds all over. We sat down and we enjoyed four course lunch. It was quite different from my usual McDonald's Playland or "whatever I can find in my refrigerator" lunch. Unfortunately I did not take pictures here.

I have made a few observations about life in Kenya. First of all there are hoards of people walking around the streets all the time. There is also a fair amount of traffic. Driving on the streets here is frightening at best. The road surface is horrible - although I expect much better than I will experience on our travels to the Masai Mara for safari. There are no lanes per se and no stoplights. There are quite a few roundabouts.

There are a very large number of side of the road nurseries - rows and rows of flowers and plants in plastic bags. In a city with such poverty I wonder who buys these flowers and plants.

There are also lots of side of the road setups selling everything from fruit, baskets, beautiful wood beds and tables, wrought iron work, and very elaborate gravestones. These things are all frequently at the same "store". The beds and furnature are all set out in the mud and grass.

One of the first things I noiced was that each room has many clocks on the walls. They do not all work, in fact if you are lucky only one of them works. It seems that when a clock stops working they simply place a new one next to it. Some rooms have four clocks up next to each other and then a few more across the room. Kinda funny.

The Kenyans are extremely friendly and nice. They are so very welcoming to us. Everywhere we go people welcome us and they are just happy to have us.

Our hotel has a guard on every floor all the time. The hospital has guards all over the outdoor corridors. It is a bit odd all though I guess somewhat comforting.

Tusker beer is good. Warm bottled Coke is not that bad.

We have been mostly eating at the hotel. They have a very nice breakfast buffet. We do not eat much at the hospital, both because there just really isn't time and also because it really is not pleasant to eat it. So, we stock up on breakfast and dinner. Every morning I have a giant omlett, some bacon, some pastries, fruit, and some very delicious juices. The orange juice is fantastic, but the passion fruit is my current favorite.

My laptop battery lasts about an hour here.