Just to lighten things up a bit:

Warthogs!!!

(it's an older picture from Tsavo West, but still fun)

Butterflies Aren't Always Beautiful

I don’t know if I’m just becoming more and more like my Dad, or if I’m becoming more aware of myself as time goes on.  Likely it’s a bit of both.  In the past year I’ve realized just how introverted I am.  This isn’t to say that I don’t interact with others, I’m just selective about how many and which people I interact with; when I venture outside of that – which I do sometimes – it just happens to be painful.  Some may call it snobbish, but I maintain that the difference isn’t in choice, the difference is in level of comfort. 

This tendency is only amplified when moving to a country in which I’m always different, and then of all things selecting a town where I’m nye on famous because I’m so widely recognized by the local citizenry.  I should probably stop here to explain that this isn’t a complaint.  I’m not bemoaning the attention that I get, or the situation that I’m in.  I love it here and I’m very happy, but I’m also coming to terms with the forces that exist within me.  It’s possible that it’s not the interaction with others that I find painful.  I think that it might actually be the anticipation of interacting with others.

My mother used to talk about my father with such wonder.  He never wanted to go out and do anything, but whenever he begrudgingly went out and got involved he always had a good time.  I COMPLETELY UNDERSTAND.   – another side note, I’m sure that right now as my parents read this they’re both denying it, and my dad is at least on some level suddenly concerned for me.  Perhaps I should have prefaced this by saying that it’s my experience, and even if I misunderstood all of what they say (which I doubt), I still identified with it.  I love hanging out with friends.  I really enjoy seeing people that I haven’t seen for a long time, sharing stories, and taking the time to catch up … once I’ve already started.  However, the days or hours leading up to it are usually filled with doubt, conjuring of possible escape plans, and peripheral emotions that add anxiety to what should be pure excitement.

Now, take that tendency and change it to a new context.  I truly enjoy being abroad and learning new languages, instigating bizarre exchanges of culture, and making friends all around the world.  I have a few friends here in Voi, and I like nothing more than to sit around, chat, drink a beer or make some tasty food.  However, on a daily basis, I have to face the world.  I have to engage in simple tasks like grocery shopping, interacting with the housekeeper of the place where I live, and chat with school children who are extraordinarily excited to use their English with the foreigner.  Today I stuttered.  I managed to laugh it off, and have a conversation with the check-out lady in the market, but for 3 horrendous seconds I froze, staring at her, knowing what the answer to her question was, and even knowing it in Swahili, but there was no movement, no speech, no force on earth that could have moved me during those three seconds. 

Oh well.  Nothing else on my list of errands was truly vital.  You’ll have to excuse the late posting of this email though … purchasing more airtime for my modem was on the list after the grocery store, and that had to wait for another day.

Today I learned:

Today I learned ....

... that I'm the most predictable unpredictable cat around.

... that I have more seniority in the hospital than one of the other doctors I've been working with. Sweet!

... Gunshots of unknown origin or trajectory scared the crap out of me.

... the word for a fear of the number 13 ... but I forgot it again

... that Cadbury Top Deck chocolate is good, but Whole nut is better (let the jokes commence!)

... perhaps re-learned how very much I love the 4th of July.

... how to use my stethescope properly. I'm such a dork.

... that the Barclays' loan advertisement is a total rip off of the Old Spice man comercials. Hillarious, and the UK is fallin' down on their copyright enforcement job.

... that Kenyan funerals are generally on Saturday.

... 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.