Days 6-8

I am finally back to being better! I spent Thursday in the hotel again, not because I felt really sick but just because I didn’t want to outdo myself or spread whatever I had to other people if it was contagious. So I and a few other girls stayed, watched movies, did our laundry (by hand, mind you), and just relaxed. Even though being sick sucked, it was good for me since now I finally feel like my body has caught up to all of the craziness that my trip has been! I swear since I left home last Thursday I haven’t stopped, so it was nice to take a few days as a break. Friday I returned to the hospital but it wasn’t all too exciting; I followed around the physical therapists here and realized that I think physical therapy is pretty dull. The rest of the day I just went to the market and spent the night in playing cards and reading, since I still was a little hesitant to push myself too much.

Saturday morning I finally went for my first run since coming to Kenya (sorry dad… the uphill is training me well though)! I swear I was the town of Migori’s entertainment this morning since seeing a white girl run is probably not all too common here. There was lots of waving, laughing, and then some school boys decided to join me to have a chat. Not easy when you’re huffing and puffing and on a rocky dirt road. After my run, I started packing in preparation for finally moving into the house, but in the middle of that we got word from the hospital that a surgery for an ectopic pregnancy was happening shortly. In an ectopic pregnancy, the fetus is not growing inside of the uterus like it normally should and luckily for this particular woman the fetus was hardly developed and growing in her uterine tubes. Sometimes the baby can start growing in the abdominal cavity, which is even worse, and rupture, which is the worst possible thing, causing a lot of pain and bleeding. The surgery we saw was really simple and took under an hour to complete. There were nine of the volunteers packed into the OR along with four or five doctors and nurses, so without air conditioning it was hot as all get out but we all were so eager to get in on our first surgery! It was pretty anticlimactic as far as surgeries go I thought, but still exciting to finally see one! I feel like it’s hard for me to compare the surgery I saw to the way surgeries are typically run in America since I haven’t sat in on very many in either country, but it seems like it’s much harder to remain sanitary in Kenya as opposed to back home. There’s no air conditioning in the hospital, so windows are always kept open in every ward, including the OR. It’s also pretty open to the outside rooms, but again given the conditions it would be pretty hard to be as sterile as in the US. 

 View of Migori from the town

We were meant to go on the safari this weekend but unfortunately due to some electrical difficulties at the lodge we were meant to stay at, we put it off until next weekend and stayed back in Migori and had to find something else to fill our time! Josh decided a good quick trip for the afternoon would be to drive over to Tanzania, which is probably 20-30 minutes away. We didn’t really do that much over there, just drove over the border and stopped at a restaurant for a drink, but it was still pretty cool to say I visited Tanzania (which when they pronounce it sounds a lot like lasagna). The drive over was probably the best part. Everywhere around here is so beautiful, an driving through is always entertaining.

Welcome to Tanzania!

 

After getting back, I finally moved over to our official Medics to Africa house and settled in! Pictures soon to come