In which I apologize for neglecting you, and go to Limuru

I’ve been neglecting you! L It’s been a long time, I’m very sorry!

So while I’ve been absent from here, I finished up at Naivasha, spent Easter weekend in Nairobi with all the missionaries, and came to Limuru.
Clinic: there was a kid with a fungal infection in 2 fingernails, apparently he needs to be on the antifungal for three months! That’s a long time!
that day another kid came in with classic malaria symptoms…other things led the doctor to believe he might be HIV+. We had HIV tests but no malaria tests, so he took the kid to the back, we gave him an HIV test and told him it was a malaria test. The HIV was negative but we told him the malaria test was positive, and gave him anti-malarials.
I was laughing to think how this would NEVER go over in the US. You need specific consent to test for HIV, and to lie about test results is so illegal it’s not even funny. But this is Kenya. In the end, the patient was happy and the doctor was happy, so it worked out, however unethical it was.
We saw a 20-something guy with alopecia (hair loss) but it didn’t fit into any cause…it wasn’t a fungal infection because he’d been treated with antifungals and it didn’t grow back. The skin that was hairless looked perfect, not infected. But it was only in patches and only on his head, his eyebrows and eyelashes were still there, so he got another antifungal and left. Great, I’m sure that’ll help him…….

Have I told you about how I kill mosquitoes at night now? I wait until I hear the buzzing around my head, then I turn on the flashlight on my phone, and shine it at the wall. Mosquito comes to the light, and I kill it. Then I go back to sleep. It’s very nice knowing you’ve gotten all the mosquitoes out of the room. J

Friday morning I said my very sad good-byes to the girls, who had spent the night before enjoying the fact that when you comb my hair it gets all static with the comb. I left Naivasha and went back to Nairobi. I spent the day with the Basses and friends at the pool. Saturday all the missionary kids and a couple of the parents went ice skating at the only rink in Africa probably, except maybe in South Africa. It was square. It was a good time though, we were about 20 people and the vast majority of the people there, and we played keep-away with one of the kid’s hats. I had a lot of bruises after that but it was worth it for the fun. :-P
Sunday we went to church and had a big lunch, then went to one of the missionary’s houses for a giant egg hunt for the MKs. There were 22 eggs for each of 20 kids, hidden among 3 interconnected backyards, so it was a lot of fun for them. We hung out and talked and when I got back to the Bass house I spent 2 hours on the video chat with my family, who was gathered at my house for Easter. It was AWESOME to talk to them all for so long, I made them show me the food on their plates, thankful that for once I couldn’t smell the seafood salad, and even greeted some people as they came in, surprised to see me there. I sat on my Grandpa’s lap and chilled out on the table and just watched people wander in and out of the living room for a while, it was really good. J

Monday was a lazy day, I woke up on the couch because one of the dogs thought it’d be fun to pee on my bed in the evening, and by the time I went to bed and realized it, it was too late to do anything about it. WHY do I keep having to sleep on couches!? At least this one was really comfortable and long enough for my legs to be straight. :-P I made chocolate-covered strawberries with Anna, using frozen strawberries which was an adventure, but the chocolate solidified really fast! For dinner I MADE CALZONE and it was SO GOOD to taste that combination of smells and spices that is Italian food. There was no ricotta but we used mozzarella and pepperoni and it was delicious!

This morning we drove to Limuru. The elevation is about 8000ft and it’s gorgeous here. Everything is GREEN but it’s also kind of COLD. When the wind blows, if you’re not standing in the sun it’s too cold. So that’s unfortunate but this is supposed to be the busiest of the clinics so it will be good in that sense. I’m living in an orphanage that houses 7 girls and 9 boys, and they even have overhead showers with a WATER HEATER that was apparently broken but supposedly it’s been fixed today in honor of my coming. J There’s even a desktop computer with windows XP on it that the kids use to play games and listen to music. They’re currently playing a FIFA World Cup game on it. I didn’t even know you could play that on the computer?

The clinic is a converted 20-ft container. There’s a very small exam room with an exam table, a TINY pharmacy that is basically just a closet in the isthmus that leads to the very small lab room. But it’s busy, they say, and they have a lab technician, which is always good. The compound also has a farm, a couple greenhouses, and barn/stable/whatever you call them structures (not really even buildings) that house several cows, some chickens, and even some rabbits. I don’t know what they would do with rabbits other than eat them, so maybe I’ll try rabbit for the first time while I’m here! :-D

I have informed the caretaker, I don’t know her actual name but she goes by “Mama Alice” (it’s quite common to call a woman “Mama *insert name of first born child here*”) that I don’t eat a lot and I don’t want any special treatment. We’ll see how that goes, because I’ve just been served a thermos of tea, and I don’t think the kids have had any. :-P BUT she did let me stand right there and say “that’s good” when she was serving lunch to me. I surprised her by saying that I was perfectly fine eating rice and ugali and sukumawiki (big leafy vegetable) just like them, so I may or may not get special dinner, depending on if she listens to me. Of course I’ll keep you updated about THAT.

I’m currently sharing a room with one other bed…there’s a girl who will be here but the schools are still closed for vacation here and she’s not back from visiting family.
I spent the per-lunch afternoon hanging around the house talking to some of the kids and people who work around, dispelling the myth that in the US it’s required that you have 3 jobs (what!?) and helping throw out the rotten kernels of maize from a weevil-infested bag that had gotten wet and was being spread out in the sun to dry and make the weevils leave.
It’s getting dark, so I turned on the light in my room to see better…it’s about 5 watts. Even after it had time to warm up. So I turned it off because the only time it would be helpful is in PITCH black, maybe I could avoid bumping into the other bed and find the door, but that’s about it. Note to self: do everything that requires seeing before the sun goes down. Got it.

Okay well I’m gonna go out into the hall and try and make friends with some kids! I promise the next blog post will be much less than one week away!

Pictures are up on Facebook, even if you don't have facebook you should be able to see it by clicking on this link:
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/fbx/?set=a.971909453505.2523324.428882&l=5f33e43b44