Arriving in Kenya

            Once we met up with our drivers we piled our luggage into one of the cars and all of us except Trevor rode in the other car. When he went to get in the car, he accidentally tried to get into the driver’s seat. So we learned pretty quickly that they drive on the wrong side of the road here! Don’t worry – Trevor made it to the apartments we would be staying in for the night in one piece! Not even 5 minutes outside of the airport we spotted a herd of zebras! We were so excited that our driver slowed down so we could see them and we just kept yelling “yay, zebras!!” So touristy I know! Haha. I was pretty nervous the entire ride to our apartments/hotel (not quite sure what to call them). In Kenya the street lines seem to be merely suggestions and no one stops for red lights! People constantly weave in and out of traffic too. 

View of Rift Valley

            The place we stayed was very nice. There were three apartments for us so that we each had our own bedroom and bathroom! We were used to cramming 5 of us into a single room in the hostels we had been staying in. When we got there, dinner was waiting for us. The next morning, we went to church. Jonathan (our UTMB Kenyan contact) had warned us that church would be like a rock concert and he was right! The church was called Mavuno (Swahili for harvest) Church and as we got out of our cars, the congregation was singing Dynamite by Taio Cruz. I think the words had been changed to Christian lyrics, but still! Even though the service was held under a big tent, they still had a projection screen, microphones, speakers, lights, and most other modern conveniences you would find in any auditorium. After a couple more songs (one of them in Swahili), a man and a women came on stage and did a sort of stand up comedy gig. They made jokes about old jingles and advertisements. Of course we had no idea about most of what they were talking about. This went on for quite a while until the pastor came up to preach. His sermon was about using entertainment for Godly purposes. It was actually pretty interesting. Toward the end (almost 2 hours later… I was struggling to stay awake), an African music artist, who I’m guessing is pretty famous here, did a little interview with the pastor. When the service was finally over, we grabbed lunch nearby. However, it took forever to get there because the traffic getting out of the church parking lot was crazy (and when I say parking lot I mean the gravel area behind the tent). Something I noticed that is interesting is that whenever you park anywhere in Kenya you are given a plastic card type thing that you have to return when you leave. Apparently it is for security reasons. Anyway, after lunch we left to go to our three locations. Before heading to Kijabe, our driver took Neeli and I to the mall in Nairobi (Westgate) so we could buy a modem and a few groceries. It was actually a pretty nice mall. We got our groceries at a store called Nakumatt which is pretty much like Kenya’s Wal-Mart. The drive to Kijabe was really beautiful and we stopped when we were almost there to look over the Rift Valley. When we arrived at Kijabe Hospital, it took a while for us to figure out where to go and who to talk to. There was a mix up with our housing, but we were able to stay at a complex right across from the hospital called the sitaplex for the night. It surprisingly nice and we even had hot showers in the morning!

            Monday was our orientation day. We went up to the front of the hospital and asked the security guards to call the contacts we had been given. We were directed to the medical education part of the hospital. There we met a woman who gave us a tour of the hospital and introduced us to everyone we ran into. We finally found someone who knew what to do with us and the rest of the day we followed around physicians in the HIV Relief clinic. It was a good day but also very tiring. After we finished at the clinic, we had to move to our permanent residence for the duration of our stay. Our new place is in a doctor’s house (apparently not here for the time being) and we are sharing it with a resident from Seattle who has been here for the past few weeks. She will be leaving on Thursday and we will then have the place to ourselves!

There's a ton more to write about, but I'm still catching up.. I'll post again tomorrow!