... I don't live in a conflict zone .... do I?

There are few things in life that make me stop what I’m doing and write down just what happened and how I feel.  A hail of bullets  near my workplace  qualifies as one of those things.  So that I don’t freak everyone out I should first say that I’m safe, and never was really in any actual danger.  However, near enough that it scared the crap out of me.  It’s been minutes since the firing stopped, but  my hands are still shaking, and I catch myself looking around nervously and reminding myself to breathe. 

The hospital where I work is just meters down the street from a local prison.  A local low security community service sort of prison.  So while there are guards and they do carry guys, the prisoners in their white and black striped uniforms to my experience have always been quite docile and polite.  They bring the hospital staff oranges from the orchard, and keep the landscaping around the hospital in order.  While there are some lifers, most are only in for a month or more, and are just passing the time until they are out again.  Apparently someone was unhappy with the current situation though and just tried to escape. 

The first sign that something was wrong wasn’t actually the pop of the gun.  I heard that … but with all the tuk tuks running on lawn mower-type engines my brain registered it as traffic.  The actual sign was the movement in the line outside my office after the second series of pops.  Each blast coming in pairs as though it were an automatic weapon that someone couldn’t quite manage to only get one shot off.  Pop pop, pause, pop pop, pause, pop pop pop.  I’m not sure if they caught the person or not at this point.  The shots became less frequent, and moved away toward the direction of town.  I suppose I am at the hospital, so if someone was shot you’d think I’d hear about it – but then all gun shot wounds are taken to the military hospital, so who knows.

It’s strange now that as my hands are beginning to stop shaking people are casually lining back up to have their prescriptions stamped and go about their day.  Word is that the prisoners were unsuccessful, so all adrenaline aside, life goes on unaffected.

Today I've Learned:

So today's post might be the start of a series of postings. Periodically ... perhaps even daily I have decided to just make note of one thing that I've learned that day. These things might be Kenya specific, or they might just be little bits of uber obvious information that one should pay more attention to. In this case that one is probably me.

So recently I have learned:

• July 9th South Sudan will officially be independent. (Let's pray that this can return to a peaceful celebration and not dissolve into the conflict that appears to be forming in Abyei).
• That if a male hospital employee shows up to work in a dress he is likely to be referred to the psychiatric ward.
• That a "Nimbus" is both a cloud that is about to fall as rain, and a drunk person who will soon fall over.
• That being sore from a work-out is a bigger problem in places where people don't work out as compared to places like fitness crazed Boston.

Thanks for reading :)
Rachel

The kid in me would like to go for a bike ride ...

... and the adult in me, would like for Cancer to be less painful socially as well as a less physically devestating diagnosis.

I recently remembered that I signed up for a charity ride called the Dempsey Challenge.  I will be riding 50 miles on my bike as well as raising funds.  This time it is to support The Patrick Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope and Healing in Lewiston, Maine.  This place provides free support, education and wellness services to cancer patients and caregivers.  I particularly appreciate the fact that caregivers were included in their programming, as Cancer does not only affect the individual who receives the diagnosis but also their family, and the whole community that supports them throughout the rest of their treatment and in some cases for the remainder of their lives. 

I have been directly impacted by Cancer twice in my life.  One was a member of my immediate family, who thankfully recovered quite quickly, and has been cancer free for 11 years now.  The other was Raylene Salisbury, a dear family friend, who was more like a family member than just a friend of the family.  Raylene died when I was only 14, but between spending holidays together, every weekend, as well as hanging around while she and my mom quilted and crafted several nights a week, she was like a second mom to me.  That is why I will ride this ride in her honor.  I also would like to thank her niece Shelly and her sister Charlotte for their support of my ride.

I will, I think, need to update my fundraising goal, because I'm not in the United States and therefore am unlikely to be able to hold any large fundraisers ... however, if you're able to contribute in any way, I'll greatly appreciate it.  Maybe I'll even figure out how to change the picture on the website, as it is no longer snowy.  The website is:  http://dempseychallenge2011.kintera.org/faf/donorReg/donorPledge.asp?ievent=435102&supid=322712651 I should also note that I've raised $5 more than my total indicates, and owe Celeste a great big thank you!

The website is also listed under my profile on the left hand side of this page as "my latest charity ride" or something like that.

So, now that I'm focused and preparing for the ride, I find myself in Kenya .... no problem!  I've overcome bigger obstacles I'm sure.  So I've increased my daily yoga, and added some lunges to strengthen more ... biking related muscles.  If anyone has any ideas for other ways I can prepare myself from the comfort of my room, I welcome your input.  A real difficulty is that I need to get strong, but I don't want to appear sore in public.  Sore muscles seem to confuse and worry people here.  You should have seen how worried people became when a physical therapist came limping into the office where I work the other day.  Turns out he was just sitting funny and his leg fell asleep (wuss), but people were VERY concerned for him, so I'm sure if the strange white girl from America came into work hobbling because of Yoga that would be a bit of an awkward conversation ... repeated MANY times throughout the day.  Anywho, wish me luck.

- A special thanks to Beth Dimond for making me aware of this ride. See you there October 8th &9th!

Mosquitoes and Malaria

Malaria is a very real threat and has a high prevalence in Kenya, and to my experience also in Voi.  No worries, I haven’t personally had Malaria, but listening to people here, it’s like a really big flu that just never leaves their community.  Imagine H1N1 for the next 30 years.  Everyone knows it’s serious, and they are mindful of it to a point, but they also live with the constant threat of it, which makes people a little less paranoid.  Malaria is an unfortunate fact of life.

As far as I'm concerned, I’m on malaria prophylaxis, and living in a place where medications and skilled professionals who know how to handle the disease are abundant, so I don’t worry about it that much.  That, however, does not mean that I don’t worry about mosquitoes.  Upon arrival I noted how very small these mosquitoes are.  They don’t tend to buzz around my ears and all in all they don’t really annoy me all that much.  They are quite tame compared to the mosquitoes I grew up with and have encountered in my travels.  I was even pleased when I finally got my first, second, and third mosquito bites that the bites don’t really itch all that much.  I was aware of them, but only enough to feel the need to rub my skin once or twice and then it felt better and I could ignore it again ……… unfortunately, that wore off.  I let my guard down, I wore a skirt to dinner, forgot the 100% DEET, and didn’t ask for a mosquito coil (dinner is under cover but open air, and mosquito coils do the job of citronella candles, but work more like incense).  For the gold star on this perfect night, the manager also came the next morning to apologize because he had been otherwise occupied and hadn’t sprayed my room with insecticide before I went to bed.  I told him it wasn’t a big deal, we’d do better the next time, and thanked him for letting me know.  That was before the 12 hour mark.  The bites that I had received the night before were relatively calm … between about 12-36 hours after the bites occur the itching is the worst, and they start to get inflamed.  Here is the result:

That plus an itch that made me want to literally remove my skin.  I would stress here, that quite often when people say things starting in “I would literally ….” They use it to exaggerate, and they really wouldn’t literally even want to do whatever they were saying.  No, no, if I thought removing the tops of skin off of each and every one of these bites would have helped I probably would have done it at least until the pain of those that I had completed, dulled the itch for the remaining bites.  I even sent out a text asking “Know of any remedies for mosquito bites?  …… Other than removing my legs?”  It really was that bad.  The response I received suggested salt, lemon, banana peel, vinegar, asprin, and toothpaste.  Toothpaste being the only thing I had in the room, it was the first try.  God that stuff is amazing.  So now whenever I have bites I am blue with Colgate.  Luckily I’m better at prevention now and although the reaction seems to be getting bigger, I only ever have a few at a time. 

               So when I see a whole busload of amercian tourists pile into the hotel and leave their tents & doors open, or are sitting out on their patios reading wearing shorts and either short sleeve shirts or tiny tank tops, I can’t help but cringe.  They’ll learn sooner or later.  Dinner time, which happens to be dusk or later = long pants, socks, sneakers, long sleeves and DEET, DEET, DEET.  So much for my avoidance of chemicals.  The benefits outweigh this particular risk. 

Commenting Issues

Hello All,

I thought that it was just me and my limited bandwidth preventing me from commenting in response to your comments ... however, I've heard from others that you're having issues signing in so that you can comment or comment annonymously.  I'm not actually sure how the anonymous thing works, but apparently this whole login/comment issue is a Blogger wide issue: 

I go to a blogger blog and comment, and instead of my username being there I have to pick "google account", which then takes me to the login screen, where I login (selecting remember me), and I get taken to the comment form again, and show up as anonymous, instead of as my user name. Then I type the word verification, and click post, and it takes me to the login screen again. Then after I login again it takes me to the comment, and I have to start all over again.

Sound familiar?  If so, here's the fix that I found: 

1. If a blog's comment form takes you to the log in page, UNCHECK THE BOX THAT SAYS "REMEMBER ME" and log in. It will take you back to complete your comment.

 

It worked for me when I posted a comment I've been trying to post for a while.  Hopefully that works for now, but the makers of this technology are apparently working on a better fix.  In any event I look forward to your comments, or failing that your emails.  Heck, if you want to email your comments, and I have internet to do so, I can post it if you really want. 

 

Best of Luck!

Rachel

Simba! Simba Sita!!!!

I contemplated just posting that.  The picture with a caption “Six Lions!”, but Saturday deserves more than that.  A group from the research center that I’m sort of informally attached to (my professor runs it, but for this project I’m just a visitor and work more closely with the hospital); we went to Tsavo West National Park on Saturday and despite the density of wildlife being fairly low we saw quite a range of animals.   The goal of the trip was actually to see a lion and a rhino, but I’ll take 6 lions, and save rhinos, crocodiles, and wildebeest for another day. 

These lions seem to be particularly important because they are famous.  These are the Maneating Lions of Tsavo.  Well, not these lions specifically, but there is a possibility that these lions are related to the ones that were man eaters.  The story goes that in the 1800s when the british were building the railroad from Mombasa on the coast to the fertile pastures of the northeast where most of the Europeans settled, they “had to” build their railroad right through Lion country.  I put “had to” in quotations because I am a little skeptical of how necessary it was, although I will give them the benefit of the doubt and try to remember that Lions were not inhabitants of a park at that point, but wandering wherever the heck they liked, so avoiding Lions would not be so easy as it is today.  Anyway, as they were building this railroad, they got to Voi, and one night there was a Lion attack.  A person was killed and carried off by the Lions.  The railroad workers put up their guard and stood watch, but after a while nothing happened and they stopped keeping watch. …. aaaand another person would be carried off in the middle of the night.  Somewhere along the way I got confused, but apparently whichever side they say the Lions are from is actually where the railroad workers’ camp was, and the Lions were from the opposite side.  Tsavo park has been divided by both the railroad and a major road, so those Lions are now either Tsavo East or Tsavo West Lions.  Anywho, apparently these attacks carried on for a few years before someone finally decided to put in a concerted effort, protect themselves and take down the Lions.

Moral of the story:  The Maneaters of Tsavo were actually two very specific rogue Lions who had been kicked out of their pride.  They were killing and eating people not because it is in their nature, or human is a preferred prey but because rogue lions, who are male, have little hunting experience, and much of their prey are large and fight back, so they are too dangerous for a single Lion to attempt to take down, whether the prey is young, sick, alone, or not.  So these two rogue Lions were finding the easiest meals they could, fighting to survive.  It’s true, I feel a little bad for the Lions who were demonized, and the fact that they gave the rest of the Tsavo Lions a bad rap.  Point is – this is not typical Lion behavior …. But this is!!!:

It should be mentioned that there are other animals in the park as well.  Dic dics are among my favorites.  They’re cute little miniature deer, with very different lifestyles.  So start by picturing miniature deer, then go one size smaller.  That’s the size of a deer-like creature that exist here, but it’s still not small enough, go one size smaller to the size of a large beagle … THAT’s the size of a dic dic.

Supposedly they are called dic dics because they always travel in pairs.  If you see one, there’s always a second one around.  That was true when I went to Tsavo East, but as the guide explained Saturday, dic dics are also extremely loyal.  The two dic dics are not only travel buddies, but mates (in biological, not British English for friends).  If one mate dies, the other will never take another mate.  This of course was followed up by a long string of jokes about dic dics sacrificing themselves to the lions because they’re so distraught over the loss of the first of the pair, that life just isn’t worth living.  I don’t remember seeing any lone dic dics, but we did find more than one triplet, one of the three being offspring … which makes me wonder, how are they paired off?  Is this an arranged set-up, or is the young one simply kicked out to track down their life partner?  While they aren’t ever alone, you also rarely see pairs running next to or with other pairs.  Hmmmm. 

Aside from this there were hippos, elephants, giraffe, a pregnant giraffe – which was apparently ready to give birth at any second … we waited but apparently it needed more time, so we moved on, hornbills (think Zazu from the Lion King, only black and white … Zazu’s blue right?), ostrich, cox hart beasts, baboons, monkeys, lions… LIONS!, a puff adder, river rats, zebra, water buffalo, water bucks, impala, Kudu, a leopard – okay, I only saw the back half of the same leopard twice but since leopards are super rare to spot at all I’m counting it, rainbow fish, squirrels, warthogs, and perhaps some other animals that I’m forgetting, and a goat. 

               The goat was extra special … not because it was a particularly different goat from your average run of the mill goat, but because we slaughtered it and grilled it for dinner.  Barbequing seems to be a constant staple in most cultures for which I am very pleased.  After a long day of driving through the park and checking out almost every living creature in our path, we sat down to a great meal, shared with some of the local rangers (they cooked for us while we were driving around.  They’re so sweet!), and our guide, who used to work for Kenyan Wildlife Service as well.  I’m grateful to the group for including me, to my professor for organizing, suggesting, and subsidizing, and to the goat … someone should thank the goat.

On another note, this trip has made me sort of marvel at the fact that I have never really considered working with animals as a career.  I stumbled upon being a part time veterinary assistant and boarding tech for a summer, but have never thought that animals would be a part of my long term professional life.  Strange, cause I love the crazy things.  Anywho, hope you enjoy the pictures if I can get them to load :)

Love from Africa:  Rachel.

I don't.

Today I found out I was engaged.  Well, maybe not so much actually engaged, just that I was apparently telling everyone I am engaged.  For a while now people have been asking me about my boyfriend, and asking when I am going to get married.  I thought they were just generally curious about my life and my family, and they assumed I am old, so isn’t it about time?  Today someone finally asked me, “what does your ring mean?” 

               Apparently, at least here in Voi, you don’t wear a ring just because it’s pretty.  It signifies something.  If you wear a ring, any ring, on your ring finger, regardless of which hand, it means you’re married.  Easy enough.  If you wear a ring on your middle finger it is usually your future wedding band, and it signifies an engagement (not sure how that works.  One ring would not fit both of my fingers).  Not every day, but most days I’ve been wearing a ring on my middle finger … just because I like it.  I guess I’ve been sending very mixed signals.  One day I’m engaged, the next I’m not. 

               The funny thing is, when I first started traveling/living outside of the US I purchased a ring that looked suspiciously like an engagement ring for when I was traveling.  Creapy guys tended to leave me alone, and oddly I did better bargaining as a young bride than as a single girl.  Here however I get no fewer guys lurking around the office, and twice the “when are you going to get married”.  No benefit.

               Isaac love, sorry, the engagement’s off.  The ring goes until I’m back in international airspace.

Alas poor Yorick

Alas poor Yoric 

Not to be morbid or anything, but death seems to be one of my favorite subjects.  Not that I am sort of goth who feigns love of the deep, dark abyss of nothingness … much to my father’s relief.  He was a little nervous in my youth that the black shapeless T-shirts and flannel shirts of punk/grunge would turn into black lipstick, black fingernail polish, and a cult-like following.  No, this is more of a fascination with the body and the miraculous life that it once contained.  Not only does out treatment of death say a lot about us as individuals, but it screams volumes of what it means to belong to one society or another.  Our treatment of death shows not only our value of death but that of life, as well as the current state of life in which we as societies find ourselves.  I use the plural here, because as much as I would like to think that we are a global society, and we are indeed interdependent with common values shared throughout human existence, in this case the state of the society in which an individual finds itself is greatly different from one place to another.  In some societies life is ever precious, but also fleeting and the presence of death neither surprises nor excessively offends.  In others life is thrown away carelessly or even waited out, and yet death rather than being a welcome relief is a cruelty upon this earth.  I don’t mean to negate the loss of an individual family member.  The loss of a child is in any case I can think of, a personal tragedy to the parent during the moment and remains a sadder point in life.  However, in places where children are regularly lost, the sting may be felt, but the lingering, earth crushing inconsolability is much more rare. 

               Growing up in the States, death was talked about but in hushed tones.  You could ask about someone’s demise, but it’s best to ask an acquaintance briefly rather than a friend, co-worker, or heaven forbid a family member directly and at length.  The loss of a loved one is almost a personal affront to the person who has remained behind.  It makes people uncomfortable to discuss it, and the subject is quickly changed. 

               In other places I have lived there are so many supernatural beliefs that come with death, that you do not use death’s true name.  It is improper to say “died” when referring to a human being, so other euphemisms are invented.  It is extremely upsetting to, in any way, indicate the direction of a graveyard with more than a passing glance in its direction.  However, with all of this, death is so common and unexplained that “sometimes people just die”, it is acceptable to have no clue to the cause of a death.  1^st Birthdays are the most important birthday of a person’s life because it is still assumed that until that point, it cannot be relied upon that the child will even have birthdays.

               Not to say that I entirely understand the perspective on death here … that may take more time than I currently have in Kenya to understand, but here the attitude seems to be one of matter-of-fact-ness.  It is acceptable to talk about death, whether in the past or future tense.  Even when discussing the suicide of a co-worker or friend, you might see a sadness behind the conversation, but it is not a topic that is avoided or cut short. 

               On top of the conversations that I have already had on the subject – which seem to be numerous considering my short stay so far – and a brief visit to the mortuary, the actual trigger for this blog was a chicken.  A dead chicken on the side of the road.  The first time I passed it, I wondered quickly what had killed it.  It was completely intact, and if I thought chickens slept on their sides with their legs stretched out, I might have thought it wasn’t  dead at all – but they do not, and it was.  On my return trip home that evening it was still there, exactly as I had left it.  It struck me as odd that nothing had come to claim it, but it is a busy road so perhaps whatever might have been interested was scared off.  The next morning, however, the chicken was still there only this time it appeared that another chicken had been devoured right next to the carcass of the still untouched 1^st chicken carcass.  Not a single feather was moved on the first chicken, and there weren’t even real signs of decomposition – which is a little strange now that I think of it.  Yet there was a pile of feathers, which had been violently plucked from another chicken, lying right next to it.  Disease or poison are my conjectures.  Disease because other animals would avoid a carcass that they sensed to be sick, and poison because not even the wasps or …. ANTS had started their work on it.  Oddly though, neither had people.  Plenty of local residents had passed by, and there it lay, perhaps it even still does.

               I apologize for the abrupt end of this posting, but I don’t know that these musings are or in the near future will be done.  Thanks for joining me on their meandering path, and I look forward to any and all thoughts on the subject.