Valentine's Day update

Feb 14, 2010
We've been having a wonderful time here. Wednesday night we had a dinner at this beautiful forested loft hut restaurant by the fireplace in honour of our new dutch med student friend going home. Wed day we went to an HIV orphanage, but all kids were at school, so we just had an orientation and then went to a secondary school to do a little talk on preventing HIV. We did only the final part of the talk. That day we visited a neighbouring trades college in the country and had a demo at the pottery workshop. He even showed us how they gather the clay from a mountain river and go through to get the finest particles- cool. He was great too, seems he puts so much love and positive energy into his dishes. Thursday we were back at the hospital and did some TCM tongue and pulses on patients in order to do case managements on them. Then we did some more surgery observation- a plate and screw into femur after rebreaking the old compacted break. Interesting. Couldn't get a great view, but that was ok. There weren't enough lead jackets in surgery, so we had to stack and huddle behind Rio in his jacket to block us from the xrays. (Rio was a paramedic from San Fransico, now aiming to become a doctor). Friday we did case managements and research and then presented our findings to our group. Sat. we did a Transformational breathing workshop- it was amazing- and something I've been wanting to do for a long time (under a different name). Last night we went out to party with some of our new friends we met through surgery- ie. Rio, the guy from San Fran and one of his buddys we also came to know (they volunteer at a girls at risk school called Daraja Academy). Was fun, but a few disappointments and awkward moments. Oh well. Today was a day off, and we sat by the pool and burned our leg :) oops. Now just have to finish up a case management.

Just arrived!

We came back a day early from mobile because Amit was sick. But we have had an amazing time.
I havn't had time yet to enter blogs, but I am writing in my journal. Last night we sat around the fire to sing together. It was really nice. We've been sleeping/camping in wild life preserves. I've been sleeping pretty well here. Last night we were up in the mountains on a private preserve where Amit's friend is doing research on babooon societies. Zebras were yards from our camp site bf bed, looking at us, but then got spooked. We bouldered this morning to over look the whole valley. We've seen so many different animals: giraffe, zebra, impala, thom thom's, dick dick's (the rest are all harry harry :), waterbuffalo, water buck, rhino (no elephants yet), wort hogs, a leopard (rare to see), baboons, secretary bird, many beautiful birds, including the national bird of uganda- the crowned crane, superb starlings, guinea foul (spotted like my mom's old wreath), little funny rodents , heard hyenas, gekos etc.. Amit is taking very good care of us- he is strict even. But at the same time easy going. Strict about protocols for safety. The roads are so bumpy. I can't wait to tell you more about the tribes people. The kids are hillarious. They all just want to touch you and rub your skin and hair and they say 'howa eew' 'howa eew'(how are you) over and over. I'll tell you more later- but it's pretty amazing to be doing this. We may be going to samburu national park this weekend with a dutch guy and a woman who's also dutch but lives in Nanyuki. Sounds interesting. Amit says this is his favorite place and recommended it above all else. The dutch guy is a 4th year med student who has been doing the mobiles with us (with mpala- the nurse and counselling unit we travel with).