It's official: I'm going on SAFARI!

I'm so excited to leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow with my fellow med students and pharmacy friends to head to the Masai Mara for Safari!

http://www.game-reserve.com/kenya_masai-mara.html

We will be going on an afternoon ride Friday evening, followed by an all-day Saturday tour, and one final Sunday morning drive. In between our rides, we'll be staying at Fig Tree Camp:

http://www.madahotels.com/figtree/index.php

I'll post my pics (and video if internet allows) ASAP upon my return :)

Transportation around Kenya

I've been wanting to post this on my blog for a while, but needed the pictures to supplement! (I will be adding them in as I can capture them with my camera!) The ways people find to get around never cease to amaze me, and in Kenya, where resources are so low, people have been especially creative (and brave!) with their transportation.

Let's start with walking. Have a load to carry, why not put it on your head and walk gracefully through crowds? I tried this down the hallway at the hostel, and it didn't go well . . .

If you're lucky to still be a kiddo, your mom might snuggle you close to her back and carry you around with her.

Now we've come to the many splendored activity of bicycling. You can ride by yourself, with a lady sitting sideways on your back cushion, 3-deep, or carrying wood, generators, hundred-pound bags of feed, whatever you fancy!

Add a motor to your two-wheeled friend and you've got an even speedier, and more dangerous, mode of transport. The scariest thing I've seen is a man driving a motorcycle with a lady holding on behind him and a toddler smushed in between them on the seat - all with no helmets! (I'm not sure how they got this motorcycle on top of the bus!)

I'm not sure what they call this next step up from a motorbike, a motor-trike? These things are mostly out in the country, and they get pretty good speed on those dirt roads.

Now we're getting to the boring but necessary for completeness simple automobiles. You can drive one of these if you are lucky enough to own one, or just decide to drive others around as a taxi. The names of cars over here are great, the Toyota "Corona" is my personal fave.

Finally we come to the Kenyan classic, matatu's. These are in-between a taxi and a greyhound. They are personally-owned small vans that seat anywhere from 1-30 passengers (11 actual seats) and have great names like, " " or " ". Some are tricked out with neon flashing lights and decals, while others keep it simple. We are not allowed to ride matatus by rule from IU because their drivers are notoriously awful, but some students have snuck onto a few here and there. The rule is, it isn't a matatu ride if (1) there isn't at least one chicken in one person's lap and (2) there aren't at least 15 people squeezed into 10 seats. Bonus if you're on the matatu so full that the extra passengers hang on with the sliding door open (see above picture closely).

Emerging Trends for Reproductive Health in Africa Student Conference

Please excuse this non-chronologically correct journal entry: in my haste to publish my giraffe pictures, I forgot to first to talk about my activities earlier in the week! The Moi University School of Medicine students hosted and planned a wonderful conference titled, "Emerging Trends for Reproductive Health in Africa" and invited students from Kenya and beyond to attend.

The event began with a grand opening ceremony on Wednesday night, which I attended and enjoyed. All of the keynote speakers gave a small, welcoming speech and the students also participated through song, poetry, and dance before the eating and dancing began! I greatly enjoy the Kenyan tradition of opening an event with a dance (see video), and found I really like East African band music, too.

I even got to hang out with my new Kenyan friend, Leon, who is close acquaintances with the chair of the ENT department at Indiana University, Dr. Miyamoto. Leon was sponsored by an American family to come to IU to see Dr. Miyamoto to receive cochlear implants a few years ago.

The conference consisted of many great discussions and presentations, all related to reproductive health issues facing the continent, especially Kenyans. I wish I wouldn't have gotten sick during the middle of it, as I found the sessions I did attend very interesting and informative. Congrats go out to all of my Kenyan medical student friends who worked so hard orchestrating the entire event - well done!

Kruger Farms

So last week was a pretty low-key week for me, since I was knocked-down from Wednesday until Saturday with a nasty-bout of gastroenteritis/flu symptoms that I was told is inevitable when coming to Kenya. Thank goodness my turn is over with!

On Saturday, I was feeling MUCH better and decided to re-enter the world with a trip to Kruger farms with my good friends, the Purdue pharmacy bunch and my new medical school peers, Abe, Kaitlin, and Chris. The farm is an 8,000 acre piece of land in the Rift Valley province of Kenya, which is absolutely stunning as we found out! The farm is owned and operated by white Kenyans (which I didn't know existed) - the current owners were 3rd generation farmers of this land. Adopted giraffes have 1,000 of those 8,000 dedicated to them, and they are left free to wander and graze with occasional curious tourists like ourselves visiting for a peek at them :) We also caught some glimpses of a couple oryx's (small antelope/deer-like animals) as they sprinted away from us. Supposedly this farm has the largest single population of oryx's in the world, but I don't know how anyone figured that out since they move so fast and are so frightened by humans getting anywhere in visual range of them.

We first hiked up a very large hill to gain an awesome vantage point over the entire farm and much more! From our eagle-eyed view we could spot the giraffes in a field below grazing next to cows - that's right, regular old dairy cows! Just another realization that though this scene of agriculture could possibly come from somewhere in the Midwest, the addition of a giraffe or two reminds you you're not in Indiana anymore :)

After enjoying the fruit of our labor by cooling off and taking pictures in the breeze at the top of the hill, we began our descent down towards the giraffes. In no time, we were walking up the dirt trail towards these graceful and gentle animals, that simply stared at us as we approached. I really wish I could know what they were thinking as our group of students stood there staring at those giraffes staring right back at us! No sooner had we finished our photos with the group of giraffes we'd spotted from the hill did we spot a few extra giraffes behind us, peeking from between the trees to see who was making all of that noise (can you see the giraffe in this picture?)

After this lovely hike on such a beautiful African day, we began our journey back to the car to Eldoret. This was perfect for me, because in this short afternoon I'd moved more than I had in the last 3 days prior!