Feet On New Ground

Well, besides a couple of moments when I thought I had lost something or had left it on the plane, the trip here went off without a hitch. With my bags in hand, I was met at the airport by a man with my volunteer agency who was to take me to the home of the country coordinator. Stepping outside of the airport I was hit by the smell of pipe tobacco, strangely enough, and an amazing sense of where I was, AFRICA!! The drive to the home was in a mini-van-type vehicle, taking me through and around police roadblocks all marked with spiked cement barriers. Being late, I wasn't able to get much of an impression of the land at that point. But, the next day I was taken to the National Museum in downtown Nairobi (which was under renovation which made us divert to the snake park), and my first impression was "Holy Cow, Africa is more like Africa in my head" than I thought it would be. Smog as thick as Bangkok, people and animals roaming the streets in somewhat equal numbers, everyone kind of glancing at my skin, but everyone being so amazingly friendly. The warmth of the people that you hear about, is totally warranted.

The roads however, are an evil, evil thing. The best road is a New Orleans special. The 3 or so hour journey in a matatu (minibus with amazingly loud and amazingly bad 80's music) to my base in Nakuru was an adventure in itself. The actual paved portion was what I described above. The UNPAVED portion was like driving with no shocks across a road that had a 2x4 laid apart every 2 iches. It actually seemed to encourage the driver to speed up, as though if we hit bumps faster, they might somehow merge into fewer bumps. While Kenya can't hold a candle to Cambodia's deep crevasses which make you smack the roof of your vehicle, the sheer frequency of bumps and length of the drive easily places it number 1 on my "I need a back pill and a bottle of rum" roads to avoid.

Our arrival (there is another volunteer, but teaching in a nearby orphanage, which I will occasionally be visiting) in Nakuru was amazing. Partly because I could feel my butt again, and mostly because my host family (2 sisters, or sistah's as they say) is over-the-top nice and accommodating. I don't know if I have ever had daily maid and laundry service. But, that is certainly the case here. I am living on the 3rd floor in a building on the edge of the city. It has no running water, but thankfully a toilet. You just dump some water into the bowl after you are done, if you're wondering. Its kind of a sponge bath situation for showers. We are fed pretty well, and I had the national dish, ugali, last night for the first time. Its basically a cornmeal ball, tightly packed, that you can slice and then eat alone or with anything else. They seem to just put everything into a bowl and mix it all up. The meat is tough, but the fruit and especially the bananas are amazingly good. The boil all the drinking water and also use it to warm up our showers. Speaking of temperatures, its actually been quite cool. I was expecting temperatures ranging from 80 degrees to 2-feet-from-the-sun, but it has been in the 50's in the morning and generally cool with the wind in the evenings.

My volunteering has been awesome so far. The first day, after orientation to the facility in the morning, I gave a speech about foot care and exercise with diabetes on World Diabetes Day to about 120 Kenyans underneath a large thatch-roofed, open-air structure. I was seated at the table of honor in the front with the other speakers. I remember sitting there waiting my turn, listening to the Swahili being spoken, looking across the crowd, feeling the cool wind blow, and thinking "Wow, this is one of those truly meaningful moments in my life." I can probably name 10 or so moments in my travels where the intersection of special surroundings, things, people, feelings, and, most importantly, awareness create the most magical of moments. This moment was certainly one of them. I mean, getting to sit there, provide helpful information to a group of Kenyans in Kenya is not something I ever thought I would be doing. Until recently... Then, afterward, 3 patients came up to ask advice on a their ailments. They were so respectful and appreciative, to an extreme. These moments are what drive me to keep traveling. They are fleeting moments of pure life, invigorating me to try to do more, see more and be more.

So, today was my 2nd day at work and I got to cast a bilateral clubfooted 5 day-old baby. I guess I shouldn't have to say more about that. They are still orienting me, but it appears that it will be soon that I will be practicing full-bore.

So, wow, it seems as though so much has happened. Its only been 3 days.