tumaini children's center

Erik volunteered yesterday at Tumaini, a place for orphan children (ages 2 months to 18 years) to come and have a safe place away from the streets. It's a very sad but rewarding experience. Tumaini started in January of this year and barely has the resources to give the children porridge for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There were about 100 kids (75% boys). Their backgrounds vary but for the most part they live a life of pick-pocketing, trafficking, drug abuse, fighting, HIV, and more. Almost all the kids sniff glue because it is a numbing experience that keeps them warm at night. Just picture a little 7 year old boy with hardened glue above his upper lip. All the kids speak "swang" (Swahili slang) so it was a difficult experience picking up the words. Erik helped wash, feed, farm, and play with the kids. The goal of the program is to give street kids a place to clean up, stay sober, stay safe, and to educate them (Math, English, drug abuse) so that they can change their lives and pursue a higher education. The reality is that this won't happen unless the funding of the program increases. It costs about $150 a week to pay the lease, electricity, and food - but, the program has a difficult time finding the resources just to keep running. Erik introduced himself to most of the kids, but in the end he was simply called "Mzungu" (Swahili for white). This is not surprising because most of the people in the community have never seen a "white" person before. The real excitement came when a group of boys and Erik were playing soccer. Soccer at the center consists of 2 sticks on each end (representing the goals), stones (representing out of bounds), a dirt field with many holes, and a 1/2 filled soccer ball. Nevertheless, the barefoot kids were better than the "Mzungu" with gym shoes. About an hour into the game, as he started gaining their trust, one of the boys passed him a ball above his head. Erik jumped, then landed on the side of his foot in a hole. Not even a week into the trip and Erik has a sprained ankle! At least there are a lot of doctors here at the IU House...

1st day on the wards

Lindsay survived (barely) her first day on the wards at Moi University Teaching and Referral Hospital. To say the least, the experience was shocking, humbling, and inspiring all at the same time. To set the stage, the hospital is gated from the community by armed guards. They serve two purposes: to keep by-standers out and to keep patients who haven't paid their medical bills in. On the wards, two patients are assigned to every twin bed, head-to-toe fashion. Isolation rooms do not exist - so all TB patients are thrown in the mix with the others, without masks (unlike the US, where TB patients are admitted to negative pressure rooms, and anyone entering is required to wear a special N-95 mask). There is constantly urine, vomit, and feces all over the floor (or in the sink, as I saw today), and the nauseating smell of body odor penetrates your nostrils, clothes, and hair. We do patient rounds with the Kenyan medical students and residents. Unlike the US, medications and lab tests are completely hit or miss. It's common to wait several days for a test that takes one hour in the US. Patients commonly do not receive medications that were ordered, and X-rays take several days to be completed. There is a CT scanner (which is surprising), but patients must go across town to have access to MRI. It is a constant struggle to decide which tests are necessary, knowing that the patients probably cannot afford them. The experience has been overwhelming...on the first day, I did a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) - my first one - on a patient without any local numbing medicine. In the past two days, two patients have already died. Apparently the mortality rate is 10% at this hospital. The pictures don't give a clear view - we were told, though, that certain Kenyan tribes will literally try to kill you if you take a picture of them. Certainly more stories and photos will come, but for now, we're trying to keep things in perspective and be open to how this experience will change us forever.

waterfalls, giraffes, and amazing views

Exciting day! We had our first adventure outside of the IU House today. We started the morning off by driving (off-roading) 30 minutes away to Umbrella Falls - a hidden waterfall in the middle of nowhere behind an old man's farm. It took some courageous rock-scaling and sliding on our butts to get to the viewpoint, but it was well-worth it. To make the experience even cooler, we were able to walk behind the fall and see a giant rainbow. After the waterfall, we drove about 1.5 hours along unpaved, pothole-damaged dirt. We had the pleasure of sitting in the very back seat of the van the entire way...at one point, Lindsay hit her head on the ceiling as we crashed through an enormous pothole. We finally arrived at Kreuger Park, a family-owned giraffe preservation alongside a mountain. The family rescued 14 giraffes several years ago to protect them from being killed on their way to Uganda. We took a 3 hour hike around the mountain - saw several impalas and plenty of cows (strangely enough). Two and a half hours into our trip, we finally stumbled upon a single giraffe peering from the bushes. Eventually, we saw the entire herd with a two-day old baby giraffe. Spectacular. We'll never forget the thunderous sound of the stampeding giraffes across the mountainside (as they ran quickly away from us). We ended our day by driving to Kerio View, a restaurant overlooking the Rift Valley. We sat for several hours eating great food, drinking Tusker beer, and taking in the breathtaking view. What a great way to end the day, despite our sore butts and sunburned skin.

IU house

Today was a pretty low-key day. The rest of our group of seven arrived this morning and got a tour of the IU compound. It's made up of five, two-story houses. Each house has 4-5 bedrooms, a couple bathrooms, and a common area on the ground floor. Our room has one twin bed and one double bed with, of course, a mosquito net. The bathrooms are better than expected, with running water and clean towels...but we're lucky to have luke-warm water in the morning. The best feature of the IU house, according to Erik, is the extensive sports collection. There is a basketball net, a whiffle-ball "court," and even a place for dodge ball. The elevation in Eldoret is about 9,000 ft; it's an understatement to say that Erik was out of breath during all of the sporting activities. There was a lot of keeling over and panting during the two-hour basketball game. Lindsay, on the other hand, has religiously been taking her doxycycline for malaria - one major side effect is photosensitivity. Lindsay is a little sunburned today. We finished the day by walking to a local restaurant called "Mamma Mia." Interestingly, it had just as much Indian cuisine as Italian. We enjoyed the curried chicken and pizza. Big day tomorrow - we're finally getting a tour of the area and seeing some local scenery! Thanks to everyone for the support!!

we made it!

After a day and a half of travel, we've finally arrived in Eldoret, Kenya. For the most part, our travels were uneventful (besides the screaming boy next to us on our way to London). We arrived in Nairobi at 9 pm Thursday evening and after navigating the long passport lines and rushing through customs, we were greeted by our cab driver. Needless to say, driving through Nairobi at night was an experience of its own. To start, our cab was inspected via flashlight by armed police officers as our driver turned up the radio and knowingly kept his foot on the gas pedal. We passed through the industrial sector of town, which was packed-full of homeless, barefoot people who occasionally darted in front of our cab. There are no speed limits in Nairobi, and passing other vehicles occurs whether your blind spot is clear or not. When we reached the Heron Inn Hotel, we were pleasantly surprised by the open-air appearance, despite another armed guard at the front gate. Our room was simple – it took us both working together without success for 10 minutes to turn the light on (turns out, we had to insert our room key into the light switch…who knew). Friday morning started early at 4:30 am to ensure we had plane tickets to Eldoret. We did indeed get seats, and we made it safely to Eldoret, which welcomed us with children lining the gates of the airport runway. We proceeded to the IU House, which is a 15-minute drive from the local airport. On the way, we barely dodged cows, goats, sheep, and people competing for pavement space. When we arrived, we were given a tour of the compound and the hospital – more on that later. We’ve also already taken our first Swahili class – turns out “pole” means “sorry,” but “pole pole” means “slow down.” That’s it for the day; we’re going to bed early to try to overcome the jet lag. Let’s hope we can sleep through the chorus of wild dogs outside our window.

preparing to leave

Our trip has been delayed by one day due to the nation-wide referendum occurring Wednesday August 4th. We are now scheduled to leave Chicago on Wednesday and arrive in Nairobi on Thursday. We will fly to Eldoret, our final destination, on Friday morning. We will post more once we get there!