Tuesday 28 August 2012

Words Cannot Even Describe-August 24-25th, 2012

Today was our last days of being in Mombasa. We spent the day taking in the whole being in Africa feeling. We had to go out with a bang and have one last meal at Cafe Mocha where we pretty much ate almost every day. On Saturday, we all had to pack our bags and hoped that they weren't going to be over weight. Then came the worse part, saying good-bye. I had such a bittersweet feeling, I was excited to be going home, but then very sad that our trip was over. I never thought that being with a group of people for only 3 short weeks you would get to know them as we all did. To Joel our British friend, I don't even know where to start. Joel taught us everything, if it weren't for him I would have never learned or got the hands on experience that I did. I would have doubted myself and would have never even tried. He even let me practice putting an IV in on him. It was my first time, he had more faith in me than I had in myself, and to my surprise, I got it in on the first try. He also gave us a reason to try out our British accents, to compare differences in name of things, and for him to make fun of our "accents".

I learned more in 3 weeks here than I could have ever imagined. Their culture is much different than ours, which I think was one thing that took the most to get used to. One thing is their emotions toward death and life don't have much difference like they do for us. As I mentioned in a few of my previous blogs I saw 2 stillborn births and after each of the babies were born, the deaths didn't even phase the mothers. I am not completely sure if that was because they are just acustomed to the kinds of hardships because their whole lifes have been hard or because they just don't show their emotion. Another is that when the mothers give birth to their babies, the fathers are not present. They give birth all alone with no epidurals or any pain medications to sooth the pain. They are the toughest women I have ever seen.
I have never been to a place before where the people are so friendly and amused by bluntly speaking whites. Everywhere you walk people are always looking at you, saying "Jambo!" and asking "How are you?" They also tend to be very friendly by whistling or yelling. Also when approaching the orphanages the children were always so eager to grab your hands and take pictures with you. The children always had a bright outlook regardless of what they have been through.
As for the hospitals, I can't even explain how "rundown" I feel it is. They have the minimal amount of supplies and somethings don't even exist like an MRI machine. The patients don't recieve the best quality care that they should and many things are not very sterile. This was another aspect that I couldn't get used to because we are so used to the clean, sterile hospitals here at home.

After a long 30 or so hours on an airplane and in airports, I have made it home. I couldn't believe it that we were back in the US and I cried seeing my parents and boyfriend. This trip was an experience of a lifetime. It made me really realize how much we take for granted living in the US and bottomline how much I take for granted. After taking a cold shower everyday, handwashing clothes, brushing my teeth with bottled water, eating potatoes, rice and pasta everyday and not having clean water, I have realized that the little things we have matter and to not take them for granted because literally somewhere in the world, someone has it worse off.

No words can explain the things I seen and the things I experienced here in Africa. I will treasure these memories for the rest of my life and hope that I can experience something like this again. I never thought that I would have ever made it to somewhere like Africa. I owe a huge thank you to my wonderful, loving, caring and supportive parents for making this dream come true. I would have never got here without them and their support. Thanks to everyone for reading my blog, I hope that it gave you a little perspective on what I saw and learned. I enjoyed sharing it with you! Also to see pictures of the trip please go to my facebook page.


Friday 24 August 2012

Once last time-August 23rd, 2012


Today I decided to head to minor theater once I arrived at the hospital. Once there, not much was going on but shortly there were many people who needed to be seen. The first patient that we seen was there to get a suprapubic catheter change. A suprapubic catheter is one that is placed through the pelvis into the bladder instead up through the urethra. I have never got the chance to change a catheter so I just stood by and learned how because even after yesterday I didn’t feel very comfortable doing it. On the end of the catheter tube there is a branch, one tube end goes to the catheter bag and the other is capped off. You have to first take a syringe and drain the tube that is capped off. Once there is no more saline coming out, the catheter is able to just be pulled out.  The new catheter is prepared by adding a little lube and inserting it back into the hole. You know that it is far enough in once the tube starts slipping out again. You then take about 10 mL of saline and enter it into the capped end of the catheter. Once that is inserted, the urine bag is added to the other open end of the catheter and the patient is all done. Shortly after the catheter, we had another man come in that needed a catheter change, but this one was a little more complicated because where the catheter entered the pelvis, there were stitches. In order to change it the stitches had to be removed and the same procedure was followed. While this was going on, I and another student helped a man get a dressing changed after he had hit his finger on a fan. The man had a slight fracture on his right index finger, but had a big wound. The wound had to be cleaned and dressed. Once the wound is completely healed, which will take a while, the man will have to go see an orthopedic surgeon and find out what they will do about the fracture.  We then got a man that came in on a gurney who had been in a motorcycle accident. He had broken his femur, got his pinky cut almost off, his lip was cut open and his eye was swollen shut. When he arrived his lip was already sutured and his face was ok, so the doctors had to first start by using Lidocaine to numb the finger and then they started to cut rest of the finger tip off, since it was just hanging on by a little piece of skin. Once they had cut the skin the blood started to squirt (just like in a movie), I literally had to jump back to not be in the line of fire. I missed being squirted by the blood, thankfully. Once the blood was stopped, the doctors had to suture the wound up. They then had to move onto the leg where the bone had poked through the skin. After this excitement, an young boy had come in with a cut on his toe. He had dislocated his toe playing football (known as soccer to us) and he has a small cut underneath. We were just able to clean it and dress it until he was able to see an orthopedic surgeon about a plan on fixing his toe. The last patient we saw in minor was a middle-aged man who had a huge lump between his neck and his shoulder. We used a syringe to see what was inside. Once we put the syringe in and pulled some fluid out, we confirmed that it was puss. The next plan of action was to make an incision and drain out the whole lump. The doctor that was to perform this surgery was called over to casuality. At first, we did not really know what was going on so we just waited. Another one of the students that had been over there came and proceeded to tell us that there was a women who had been attacked in a massacre.
Last night when I had spoke to my parents on Skype, my mom had mentioned that there was a massacre that had happen about 200km away from Mombasa and if we had heard anything about it. I said that we didn’t and that we hadn’t had any patients from their either. Well today right before we were leaving we had heard about the woman who was attacked in the massacre the morning before. Her whole family had been killed and someone had luckily found her. The massacre happened in retaliation from another attack. Two different tribes have been fighting over pasture and swamp land. Women and children were unfortunately the major target, 48 total were killed 31 of them being women and 11 being children. When I first approached the women that had been attacked I didn’t really know what to expect, but I felt like I was hit with a train. Her face and arm were mutilated, with what I believe was a machete or something similar. She had a huge gash in her right cheek, so deep that her teeth had started to come out of the wound and her mouth was leaning to the left. She had a huge gash on her head that was accompanied by a huge lump. I wasn’t able to see what had happened to her arm at first until the doctors had removed the wrap. Once exposed, her arm was cut so deep that her hand been only hanging on slightly. You could see the ends of her arm bones and part of her wrist bones. The doctors had said that she only has about a 20% chance of keeping her hand. Once I had seen it, I met up with a couple other students because it was time for us to leave. I left the hospital today feeling like I did not help enough people and felt terrible. I was really torn up after seeing the woman who had been attacked and knowing that there was a ton more patients that needed to be seen.

Once we left, we decided to grab some lunch and then we headed back to Old Town. We spent about two and half hours shopping and finishing our last minute souvenir shopping. I feel like I spent a lot of money, but in reality it was reasonable. We spent rest of the night hanging out and celebrating being in Kenya for the last time before we have to head home.

Inked!-August 22nd, 2012

Today we arrived at the hospital and I went to minor theater. When we arrived nothing was going on, but we were going to wait it out since it normally didn't start getting busy until around 9 am. A while later our first patient came in who needed a suprapubic catheter change. A suprapubic catheter is one that is placed through the pelvis into the bladder instead up through the urethra. I have never got the chance to change a catheter so I just observed. On the end of the catheter tube there is a branch, one tube end goes to the catheter bag and the other is capped off. You have to first take a syringe and drain the tube that is capped off. Once there is no more saline coming out, the catheter is able to just be pulled out. The new catheter is prepared by adding a little lube and inserting it back into the hole. You know that it is far enough in once the tube starts slipping out again. You then take about 10 mL of saline and enter it into the capped end of the catheter. Once that is inserted, the urine bag is added to the other open end of the catheter and the patient is all done. Our next two patients that came in were a young man and woman who had been in an accident. They weren't terribly hurt, but the woman had skin lesions on her foot, hand, knee and thigh. Another student and I had to clean the wounds and dress them. Once the woman was finished, the man came in and he only had a skin lesion on his knee. We again had to clean and dress the wound. Shortly after they left another patient came in. He was older, but was being escorted by about 6 guards with guns. He was obviously from the prision ward. The man had a quarter sized lump on the left side of his skull. The doctors examined him and confrimed that it was a cyst. They had to use Lidocaine to numb the area. Once it was numb, the doctor made an incision until the cyst was reached. White and yellow pus started coming out and they pushed around the incision to insure all of the pus got out. They then had to clean the wound, suture it up and dress it. The last patient we saw today was a man who had come in after he had been cut by an iron sheet, while roofing. The cut got infected and had eaten away almost the entire surface of the top of his foot and had had another big hole on the side of his ankle. He had to get them both debrided so the old, dead tissue could be removed and to promote the new tissue to heal. Before he was finished up another student and I left to go get a tattoo. A henna tattoo that is. A group of the girls her had talked to one of the doctors we had been working with in minor since we arrived here. She is from India and their religious culture includes having henna tattoos, so the girls had asked her where we could get some and she helped us get in contact with her aunt. We all got one on our hand and on our foot. They turned out really cool and I am happy I decided to get one, since they do only last a couple weeks.

Once we returned back to the compound we relaxed and ate some lunch. Shortly after four of us decided to go to the beach on last time before we left. Once we got there me and another girl decided to ride a camel! It was a lot of fun and worth the experience. We then layed on the beach to get a tan. While laying there a guy had somehow fell on my face. I was shocked and say the least a little mad because my face was now hurting. He repeatedly said sorry and that he was exercising. After he walked away I kind of laughed because I don't know how anyone exercising could not see four people laying there on the beach. But I only walked away with a small bruise and a little cut, so it  didn't turn out as bad as I thought. Once home, we got to relax for the night.

Wednesday 22 August 2012

Lazy!-August 21st, 2012

Today we returned to the hospital. I didn't make it there until about 9:30am, but I instantly went up to major theater to see what the procedures were today. The first one I was was a little baby who had hydrospadius, which is where the urethra hole on the penis is in the wrong spot. The hole was on the underside and was farther down than normal. The surgeons opened up the head and and to move the urethra into place and stitch the tissue around it back so that it would heal normally. They also did a circumcision, which I am not sure if is normal in Africa or not. When they finished they sutured the incisions back up and dressed the wound. They had to leave a small tube in the urethra to allow urine out without disturbing the wound. After finishing with this surgery not much was going on and it was already 11 am. We decided to make our way to minor theater.

Once we arrived in minor they didn't have much going on either, but I was able to clean a huge wound that a man had got from a road accident. His hand was severely swollen, so I cleaned it and had Omar take a look. He said that we needed to test the feeling in his hand so we took a needle and poked in different places on the hand. He was luckily able to feel everything, but he couldn't move his hand. We had to redress the wound and send him off to a doctor to get his hand looked at since he had loss muscle control. Shortly after he left, another man came in and needed a stitch removed. I got to remove his stitch, which wasn't hard. The wound was all healed up and he only had one stitch left so I cut it out and he didn't even need to be bandaged up. We saw another patient who had two huge wounds on his foot. He had gotten a cut from a iron sheet and it had gotten infected. It was a terrible wound and one of the other students had to clean it and debride it to get rid of all the dead tissue. Right before we left the hospital, there was a woman that had fainted and we had to go help her get to casuality. One of the ladies that was with her informed us that she has been having episodes where she faints, fights and then comes out of it about ten minutes later. She needed to get a CT to see if anything in the brain was causing it, but we had to get her checked out first from fainting. On our way to find a wheelchair for her I came across a gurny that had a body on it covered by a sheet. I knew instantly that the person was dead. It was distrubing, but I had to move on becasue here that was normal.

At about 1230pm we left the hospital and came back to the compound for lunch. We have been relaxing, reading and swimming. Another group decided to go to the beach, but I honestly was too lazy to walk there so I opted to stay here and update my blog. Later in the night we went to the city mall, which was very nice. When we were inside it didn't even feel like we were in Africa. We then ate some dinner and dessert at Cafesserie and went shopping at the Nakumatt.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

The Beauty of Nature-August 16th-20th, 2012

Today (August 16th) was the day we left to make a long journey to Masai Mara, where we would go on a real African safari! We had to take our vans to the bus stop where they dropped us off and we loaded a coach bus. It was really nice, just like one back home, and it had air conditioning! Once aboard the bus we started driving and let's just say at first we were all a little scared because the road was nicer than we expected, but it wasn't completely level. So this caused the bus to lean quite a bit to each side. Along the way we made several stops to pick people up and to drop others off. We made one stop to get lunch, but with how my stomach has been I didn't chance it by getting anything. We started again and after about an 8-9 hours bus ride we finally made it to Nairobi's bus station. Nairobi is the capital of Kenya. We boarded these other vans and were taken to the "hotel" where we would be staying for the night. I was very impressed with how developed Nairobi was compared to Mombasa, it was like we were in a whole new world being there. Once we got to our "hotel" we were all a little shocked to find that it was like a camp instead. They had separate buildings with many bunk beds in them. They at least had showers with hot water and flushing toilets. We all got to our rooms, settled in and freshened up. By then it was probably around 6:30 pm and we were all starving. We decided to go to this Italian restaurant that was suppose to be really good. At the restaurant they served us a lot of buns and brochette. We all ordered and received our food. I got this tortilini pasta that was stuffed with a cheese and spinach mix topped with a creamy mushroom sauce. There wasn't much to the meal for how expensive it was, but with all the buns and everything we were all stuffed by the time we left. After we got back I wasn't feeling very good so I decided to lay down, rest and read a book.

The next morning (August 17th) we had to be up bright and early at 7 am. Our safari vans got there and we all loaded up. We drove to Masai Mara, which we originally thought was only 2 hours away, little did we know it was a lot longer. We drove for about 4 hours before reaching a place where we ate lunch, the infamous rice and noodles as always. Along the way we also got to see the Great Rift Valley, which was HUGE, but it was beautiful. We boarded the vans again and proceeded to make our way closer to Masai Mara. Soliman, our driver, informed us that the road head was going to be not so pleasant. He was right, we were bouncing up, down, left and right. I lost count on how many times I either hit my head or something else. We had to drive on this road for about 2 hours before we reached our camp. We stayed in these tents that contained 2-4 beds in each and the tent was then connected to a small concrete building that contained a toilet and shower. Once we dropped our stuff off we had a cup of Kenyan tea and we were off to our first look at the safari life. Our camp was very close to the entrance to Masai Mara. We started our safari and right off the bat we seen a ton of animals! We saw zebras, wildebeests, gazelles, vultures, giraffes, elephants, lions and African Buffalo's. After about 2 hours on the safari we returned to the camp and were served a wonderful dinner! I hadn't had that good of food in a long time since being here! We then lounged in our rooms and me and the 2 other girls I stayed with all read books until ten when the electricity goes out. We only get electricity in the morning from 5:30 to 7am and at night from 6:30 to 10pm. It was a bit inconvenient, but it made us go to bed early.

The next morning (August 18th) we woke up and again had an amazing breakfast. We then went on safari all day! It seemed like a long time, but the time went by pretty fast. We saw many of the same animals, but we saw a cheetah, a rino, hippos, crocs, hyenas, wort hogs and ostriches. The only thing we missed was a leopard, but they said those are really hard to find along with the rinos, but we were lucky and saw one. We had a picnic lunch in the grass under some trees and then proceeded on the safari. We saw a lot more animals and then made it back to camp. We all decided that we wanted to see this village not far of the Masai people. We had to pay to go, but the money goes to helping them, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I was shocked to see the village, it was a big circle of mud/ wood houses. The ground was covered by dirt and animal poop. We learned that the women do the cooking, cleaning and building of the houses. The houses last for 9 years and then they have to move because they get infested with termites and the wood starts to give way. The houses are very tiny and they normally have about 7 people that live in it. There is a room for the parents, a "living room", and a children's room. It is also very dark because they only have these small holes in the sides for windows. The men are responsible for keeping the village safe. When a lion enters their circle they have to kill it and the one to kill it keeps the skin and wears it. The men pay for their wife's with cows and they have competitions to see who jumps higher. The one to jump higher pays less cows for their wife. If they can pay for more than one, than they are allowed to have multiple wives, but they have to live in separate houses. We then got to see a welcome dance from the men and women and we all got our chance in joining in. They also make their own fires, so they showed us how and they also tattoo themselves with the stick that they heat up. They opened the invitation to us to get tattoos and a handful of people decided to get one. It was just a little circle burn, but it just wasn't for me, so don't worry mom! We all got to look at all the stuff they wanted to sell and each of us walked away with something. We finally made our way back and had another delicious meal. Again tonight we enjoyed reading, with lights out at ten.

The next morning (August 19th) we woke up extra early at 6 am and were on the road shortly after. The van I was in had to pick up an extra person that we were giving a ride back to Nairobi. It was a little awkward, he didn't talk much. We went on safari for another 3 or so hours and we got to see an African sunrise while on safari! Something not a lot of people get to see so I feel pretty privileged to have the opportunity. We then had to go back to camp, pack our stuff, and make our way on the bumpy road again. Before we got on the road we had to pass some game wardens and Soliman told us that we had to tell them that we were only on safari for one night and we stayed at some other camp. He proceeded to tell us that yesterday when we saw the rino, there were a lot of vans on the grass, which is a big no no and you can get a huge fine if you are caught. Well the game wardens had gotten our licence plates, so we had to lie so they would think it wasn't us. Luckily we weren't asked, but another one of our group vans was. We finally made it back to Nairobi and we stayed at the same place as the last time. We had a reservation at this restaurant called Carnivore, similar to Carnival in Sioux Falls, SD. We had an amazing meal, we started by having little pizza bites and corn cobs. We then had a bowl of soup and some salad. Then came the meat! They had a ton of meat and they served it to you on a samurai sword! I tried pork, chicken, beef, turkey, ostrich, croc, but passed on the ox balls. By the time we were done, I was stuffed, but then found out we got a dessert that was included in the price of the meal. I ended up getting the chocolate chip blondie brownie with a scoop of ice cream. It was so delicious! My stomach felt a lot better today, but it took a little while for it to get used to having meat since I haven't had it in over a week. We returned to our hotel, relaxed in the kitchen/bar and then went to bed.

On August 20th, we had to make our journey back to Mombasa. The bus ride seemed to take forever and we ended up not getting back to the compound until about 6pm. We were all hungry, but were disappointed by they choice in dinner. A group of us decided to head to Cafe Mocha to have dinner and use the Internet. I again had pizza :) We had a relaxing night, which was nice since we had to return back to the hospital tomorrow.

Hold My Hand And Things Will Get Better-August 15th, 2012

Today I got to sleep in! It sounds nuts that I am that excited, but normally only on the weekends do we really get to sleep in. Unfortunately, I haven't been feeling the greatest for a couple days so I didn't really feel like doing a whole lot today except sit hunched over (only position that made my stomach not hurt). I managed to get up and get ready to go to the orphanage, since I made it on time to go today :). The small group of us that were going were all ready to go by 10 am, then Issac, our coordinator, informed us that we wouldn't be going until 11:45 am. I was thinking man I wish I knew that before I woke up before 10. We all decided that we wanted to go get some lunch and that if we left soon then we would make it back before we had to go. At about 10:30 or 10:45am we made our way to the market and decided we were going to eat at the usual, Cafe Mocha. Instead, the cafe was closed so we ate at this Italian resturant called Roberto's. They weren't quite all set up by the time we got there so it took them a while to get us seated, our food ordered, and our meals delivered. Let's just say we were a little late getting back to go to the orphanage. When Issac found us he had said that we would wait about another hour before going. This made us all a little more lazy and we didn't want to go, plus my stomach was still upset. When the time came we all got up and walked to the orphanage since this one wasn't that far from where we are staying. When we got close some of the kids saw us coming and greeted us instantly by grabbing our hands. We arrived at the orphanage and I instantly felt my heart sink. The building was all made of mud and wood and had a tin roof. It was kind of dark in there since they don't have lights. Once we got in and sat down the guardians, teachers, and children all welcomed us. The children did skits, sang and danced. We even got our chance at the dancing and singing fun. There was one boy that was in grade 5 that had did a skit by himself that he compared stuff of his to others, but said look at me I'm just fine. It made me sad, but then I realized that all these children have been through so much, but they continue to have a bright outlook and don't for one second sit and feel sorry for themselves. They know that no matter what they have been through, they will be fine and things will get better. We had a lot of fun playing, singing and dancing with the children and before we knew it, it was time for us to leave. The guardians were very thankful and invited us to come back anytime when we were free. Joel, one of the students here from Britian, is organizing a reconstruction project for the orphange, so that they have a better place to stay. From what I understand, the construction will start next week. We made our journey back and all felt good that we went even though some of us didn't want to or didn't feel well.

For rest of the afternoon and night we didn't do much. We relaxed and had to pack our bags since we were leaving for our safari in the morning. I was really looking forward to going and getting a new experience away from the hospital. I just hoped that I would feel better in the morning.

Practice not with sympathy, but with empathy-August 14th, 2012

Today I intended to go to the orphanage, but I thought the group was leaving at 11 am like they had did the previous day. Instead they were leaving at ten, which I wasnt up in time for. So I got up had some breakfast, lounged around and took a swim. At about 130 pm I joined 3 other students and went to the hospital. They had informed me that we were getting a mentor to follow in the maternity ward. I was a little disappointed since I had been in maternity already for 3 days, but I didnt care because I was getting more experience in the hospital. We started out by seeing a woman who was had been in labor since yesterday, but she wasnt fully dilating so they had to keep giving her a drug to induce labor. The drug was administered every 6 hours for up to 24 hours. They told us that the mother was only 28 weeks along and that they couldn't get a fetal heartbeat, so I instantly knew that I was going to witness another stillborn birth. The doctor said that if they couldnt get her to fully dialate and give birth that they would have to prep her for surgery, but they didnt want to do that since it wasnt really necessary. I also learned that a the mother had a disease called eclampsia. It is a rare disease in which the mother has high blood pressure and rapid weight gain. The cause of it are uncertain, but they believe that it may be due to genes, diet, blood vessels or the nervous system. This can be a problem because it cuts off oxygen to the baby, which I am almost 100% sure why this baby didn't make it. Finally after a while the baby started emerging and they got the head out, but once it got to that part the baby got stuck. The nurses were doing everything they could to get the baby out without harming the mother. After about a 2 minute struggle the baby finally was out and the mother was relieved. They next had to remove the placenta, which also took a while to get out, but finally made it way out and everything was done. We then followed the doctor to another patient that was starting to have contractions, but he informed us that she was HIV positive. In these cases, the doctors can not break the water or do anything to help the pregnancy move along. Instead they have to feel that belly to see how the baby is sitting and to see how far the head is in the pelvis. They are also able to use their fingers to see how far along the baby is. This mother was roughly 34-35 weeks along. If they are not able to have the mother give birth naturally, since they can't help her she will have to do a C-section. They said that they have a good rate of not spreading HIV to the baby from the mother. The mother has to recieve a shot right before birth and the baby recieves on right after birth to help insure the disease is not spread.

After finishing in the maternity ward since not much was going on, we made our way to minor theater. There wasn't much going on, but there was one patient in the room that we seen that had a huge mass on her breast. The woman was a 37 year old and the diagnosis was breast cancer, which they were sure had spread to her lymphnodes. The woman was not really all there, she didn't talk and couldn't really comprehend what was going on. We found out that the woman had been treated for malaria 2 weeks previously and ever since then she started not responding. The doctor said that they would get a biopsy to make sure that it was cancerous and to see what to do from there. I don't have a very good feeling about what will happen since the cancer had spread to the lymphnodes.

You could say today was a pretty somber day. I felt pretty emotionally drained because each of the patients we seen today all had a not so good diagnosis. It did make me feel better that when we were with the mother giving birth to the still born, one of the really nice nurses turned to all of our shocked and sad faces and said, "You need to practice not with sympathy, but with empathy because you are sympathetic, but can also give good care to your patient." I thought that sentence really put it in perspective, since we are not used to seeing this much pain and death that these people see. It is their way of life and it has been hard for me to adapt to it.

Tuesday 14 August 2012

Just one of those days-August 13th, 2012

Let's just say today was one of those days. It was quite a rough day at the hospital. The day started off when we left the compound at about 830 am to head to the hospital. When we arrived we werent really sure where we were going to end up today. We started by checking out minor, like we do everyday. There were quite a few students down there already so we decided that we should go see what surgeries were going on in the main theater upstairs. 5 of us headed up and went to the changing rooms where you change your scrubs and get a pair of rubber boots to wear. Once changed, we all met out in the hall and checked out the surgeries going on for the day. We then passed by the theaters to see which ones were going on. One of the guys went down to an ear, nose and throat surgery in theater 4, while the rest of us were going to see what the general surgery was in theater 2. When we walked in we were instantly interrogated. We explained to the nurse that we were pre med students there to shadow and on the first day we were given these letters signed by a head doctor stating that it was ok for us to shadow in any ward we wanted and that they were to allow us to. We were told to leave and find a nurse outside. We then found someone and asked them and they said we had to find a head nurse who was suppose to be in theater 2 (where we just came from and were told to find someone else). We then went to the front desk and asked a lady there, she got up and left. When she returned she proceeded to tell us that we needed to go down to the admin office and have the doctor who signed our papers call up there and say it was ok for us to watch. At this point I was frustrated because the purpose of the letters were to let them know we were able to shadow and to avoid these problems, but for some reason some of the surgeons think too highly of themselves. So we werent sure what to do. The other 2 guys went down to the ear, nose and throat surgery, which just left Megan and me. We decided to go back downstairs and see if there was anything else we could see.

When we arrived at minor theater again, we saw Omar, the Russian medical student. We talked to him and we decided that we wanted to take a look in the plaster room, where they put casts on people. Omar showed us the room and Megan and I entered. There was a man in there that had 2 broken legs, which was the same guy we had seen in casuality last week. The doctor was pulling back some gauze that was covering an open wound. Once the gauze was removed a very bad smell filled the room and the wound was exposed. We were startled to see that there were maggots on the mans leg. The doctor had said that his wound was infected and thats why there were maggots. He cleaned the wound with iodine and was going to just wrap it up around the cast, but then he noticed that the cast was broke underneath where it was open for the wound. So he cut the cast off and exposed rest of his leg. We then saw another huge strip of maggots still on the mans leg. The doctor then cleaned it again and wrapped the wound up and put his leg on a brace. He told us that they were just casting his legs until he is able to have surgery because the wound was from the bone poking through the skin. After the doctor was done with him, we were at a dead end again. We decided to run back up to the main theater because we were told that there was an orthopedic surgery about to happen.

We arrived back up at the main theater and were able to observe the surgeon fixing a patella (kneecap) that had broke in 2. They made an incision right down the front of the knee and cut through the tissues until they were able to reach the bones. The surgeon then cut away some of what I believe was fatty tissue and also removed some of the bone. They then drilled 2 holes through both parts of the bone and hammered a pin in each hole. They then made a few smaller incisions on either side of the patella and strung a wire through the holes, kind of like a connect the dot puzzle. They then twisted the wires together and cut it shorter. They also cut the remaining ends on the pins. After they were finished they proceeded by suturing up the knee. I found that this was a strange way to repair a patella. I do not quite understand how the knee will be able to fully function with the wire wrapped around because it went around some of the outer tissue too. I have never seen a surgery like this in the US so I dont really have anything to compare it to. After we finished with this surgery we left the hospital and went to this resturant called Karibu, which is Swahili means welcome. We then went home and relaxed until dinner.

After dinner, a group of us went to Cafe Mocha and then decided to go to the hospital again. We arrived at the hospital around 9 pm. There were quite a few patients in casuality, so we jumped in right away to see what we could do. We first saw a baby that had a tummy that was extended out and was pretty hard. We werent sure what was wrong, but I later found out that the baby had an obstruction in its bowel and they had to remove over half of the large intestine. We then saw a man that had been stabbed in the side. They first started by changing the dressing to observe the wound, then we had to get an IV in him so we could draw blood. I am proud to say that I successfully put the IV in on my first try again :) We then had a woman who was in there because she had a terrible headache and needed a vaginal exam. She proceeded to tell us she was under stress because her husband had recently been seeing other women and then came home to her and forced her to have intercourse with him. She was in there to have an exam because I think she might have had a miscarriage because he forced her. Our last patient in casuality was a man who had been brought in from the ward (jail) and he looked very frail and weak. We found out that he was anemic and he wasnt getting much circulation to his fingers because his hands were cold and his fingertips were white. We had a very difficult time getting an IV in him so we could start getting fluids in him asap. We were able to get a line in him, but it took several tries. Before we left there was a patient that we saw in minor, who had a cut on his finger. We had to first get him an xray to make sure nothing was broken and when we found out nothing was we proceeded to suture him up. We only got 2 stitches in him because the flap of skin was so thin that the thread would just come out. That ended our night and we finally got home around 1 am.

more relaxing time-August 12th, 2012

Today I slept in till about 1030 am. I feel like it is luxury being able to sleep that long because of all the early mornings going to the hospital. We all got up and lounged around watching TV and ate some lunch. We then decided to make another trip to the beach despite that  it wasn't really to hot and it was windy. We walked the 15 minute trek to the beach and found a good spot to lay our towels out. A group of us decided to go play volleyball on the court, and you know me I never turn down a game of volleyball. We had a really relaxing day suntanning, swimming and reading even though the wind kept blowing sand all over and no matter what you did it always seemed that it got stuck to you or got in your eyes. After a few hours we all decided to go up to the aquabar at the resort right there on the beach and had some drinks. A group of us then decided to head back to the compound to shower off and relax before dinner. Once we got home we went swimming yet again in the pool we have. It was refreshing since it got hotter as the day went on; maybe a little to hot, most of us got burnt, while I just got darker (if you can believe that). We then enjoyed supper and had a really relaxing quiet night. It wasn't too eventful today.

Sunday 12 August 2012

Sketchy!-August 11th, 2012

Today was a pretty lazy day. We all got to sleep in and I woke up around 10:30 am. We all relaxed watching the same episodes of Keeping Up With The Kardashians that we have been since I got here. Not my choice to watch, but not much to choose from when you only have 5 channels. After we all ate some lunch we decided that we wanted to go to this place called Old Town, which is where you can see some old buildings and there are many shops there that you can get souveniers for pretty cheap. So we called Bernard (our personal driver) to come pick us up. It was about 12:45 pm when we left the compound and we proceeded on the drive. When we got closer to Old Town we started to all get sketched out because we looked out the windows and all we saw were tons and tons of people swarming around, beaten down streets, tight squeezes to walk through etc. We did not feel that being dropped off here would be very safe. We kept driving and came to the sign that says Old Town, once we were there it seemed a lot nicer than what we had been seeing and also Bernard told us he would wait there for us so we could leave whenever we wanted. This made me feel a lot better. When we all got out of the car it started raining, but when it rains here it doesn't last very long.

We started to walk and we had several people approach us and wanted to give us tours, for a price of course. We nicely declined their offer and again started walking and then a man came to us and started talking and he told us he was a security officer for Old Town and we started following him. He took us and showed us some places around. We all started thinking, we are proabably going to have to pay for this even though we didnt want a tour. We just kept getting deeper and deeper into the sketchy parts where we didnt want to be. We kept telling the man we wanted to go back and finally after about the third time we told him he took us back to where we started. He then demanded to have money and we all told him we didnt want and tour and werent going to pay him and he said that it was a good price etc. So we all gave him 100 shillings (little over a dollar) and sent him on his way. We then were able to go into the affordable and more cheap shops that we were looking for in the first place. We spent a couple hours there and decided we wanted to head back home. While on our little journey we had been stared at a lot, whistled at, talked to, and many of the men would say sexual things to us. Let's just say I had my guard up because we definately are not used to that since in the U.S. guys don't do that. We made it back to Bernard and made our way home. I was pretty happy with all the stuff I got and am excited to give them to my friends and family back home so they can enjoy a little piece of Africa. The rest of the night was relaxing and we all crowded in the living to watch Anchorman off of one of the girl's laptops.

A touch of kindness-August 10th, 2012

Today I didn't go to the hospital, but instead I had to privilege to join a group of students with the organization Internation Medical Aid in going to the St. Patience's Orphanage. On our way we got to see a new part of Mombasa that we hadn't seen before. It was pretty run down and the road up to the orphanage was a mess. It had rained last night and the whole road was muddy and we managed to get our 2 vans stuck. We ended up walking part of the way and luckily the vans were unstuck by the time we left the orphanage. When we arrived at the orphanage, we were instantly swarmed by some of the kids. They were egar to hold our hands and get their pictures taken. We then made it to this small little building and when a group of us entered I was surprised to see how many kids were in there! They instantly started singing in Swahili to welcome us in their home. After they were finished we made our way back outside and I found out that the little building we were in was their school. The teacher, Patience, informed up that she schools 88 kids and that they do have to pay for their schooling. Many of the kids that attend school have guardians or parents, who were in attendance today. The main purpose that we visited the orphanage today was to conduct a mobile hygiene clinic. We were equipped with a large number of toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap films, and we were all able to show the children how to properly brush their teeth and wash their hands. Some of the students had a chance to practice their skills and did a great job at it. We also spent time playing with the children and they sang for us some more.

Being able to come here with the International Medical Aid organization was amazing. In the U. S. brushing our teeth and washing our hands come naturally. Here it was different. Many of teh children did not know how to do either of these tasks. I learned that many of the kids use sticks without toothpaste to brush their teeth, while others don't brush at all. Many of the kids who used toothbrushes (sticks) quite using them because their gums would bleed.

It was a wonderful experience to come here. The kids, parents and caretakers were all grateful for us coming to homes. They were all so egar to take pictures with us and the kids loved getting their pictures taken. They would all swarm you and any chance they got they would hold your hand, your arm, or even just your shirt. I would say that the feeling I had was bittersweet by the time I left. It was sad that most of these kids don't have parents, but it was also warming to see that these kids still had a light in their eye and a smile on their face.

black men can't swim & white men can't dance-August 9th, 2012

Today I decided to go to the main/major theater where the major surgeries take place. I was with 5 other students awaiting to see a surgery. Once we seen the patient be wheeled by we all jumped up with excitement and followed the gurny to the operating room. The patient was a 37 year old male who had been in a motorcyle accident and broke his femur pretty bad. We saw an xray and the break was jagged and was completely broke through. While the surgical techs were preparing the room for surgery and the anestesiologist was applying a spinal tap to the patient, one of the surgeons was chatting with us and we were talking about good places to go out at night and he was saying isnt it true that a black man can't swim, but a white man can't dance? And we all laughed and agreed with him. Once the patient was ready the surgeons scrubbed in and started the surgery. They first had to cover a big wound that was on the outside of the man's leg from when he fell. They did this by taking a cloth and sewing it to the skin, to keep it covered, I thought it was pretty strange. They then made an incision on the man's knee and put a rod through it. One of the surgeons was putting his whole body into it to get the rod up his leg. Once they had it where they wanted it, they made a pretty big incision on the side of the man's thigh. The surgeons started cutting at the tissue until they were able to reach the bone. You could see the bone and where it was seperated at. The surgeons were pulling, pushing and proading the bone until they were able to get it in place. Then all of a sudden the power goes out and we are all standing there in the darkness. One surgeon goes anyone got a phone light. A few seconds passed and the power came back on. They then hammered a rod down the bone and got it set. They pulled and pushed more on the leg and bone until it was set, they even had to cut part of the bone of that was jagged. Let's just say it wasn't the best sound to hear. They then placed 3 screws into the bone to hold it together so it could heal properly. Just to point out the whole time this was going on, we all heard noises that are unexplainable unless you actually are there and these surgeons were literally putting their whole body into moving the leg around. Then the power proceeds to go out once again. But was just a quick one because before anyone could say anything the lights came back on. Also keep in mind that the patient only had a spinal tap so he was concious while that was going on. I point this out because I don't know how I would have reacted to the noises and movements if that was my leg. The man did stay calm the whole time so cudos to him. Once the screws were in place the surgeons placed the muscle and tissue back in place and started suturing him up, before I knew it they had him closed up and started cleaning up.

Once the surgery was complete we had little over an hour before we were going to leave for lunch. A couple people went to minor theater and a couple of us stayed to go find another surgery to watch. We walked into another theater (there are 4 total) and there was a boy laying on the operating table. He was probably about 6 or 7 years old and we found out that he had an obstruction in his larynx (in his throat) so the doctors had to place a breathing tube in his throat to keep the child breathing by machine while they removed the obstruction. We didn't stay to watch the whole thing because it was really hard to observe since the working area was so small. We then walked down the hall to the last theater and walked in. To our surprise, a man was getting a suprapubic catheter put in. For this, the surgeon has to make an incision in the pelvic region right about the bladder. This is where they place the catheter tube. They then have to enter a scope and tool through the urethra. The surgeon was having a lot of diffuculty seeing anything once he had the scope inside. They have to put the scope inside in order to find the balloon of the catheter and make sure it is set right. We also did not get to finish this surgery because it was already time to leave for lunch.

We all went back to the compound, relaxed and had dinner. A group of us decided to go back to the hospital at around 9:30 pm. We split up between casuality and minor theater. I was in minor theater and shortly after we arrived, a mother brought in her 4 and 1/2 year old son who had fallen and cut his head open. We examined the cut and it was deep, we could see his skull. We first sterilized the cut, shaved the hair around it, removed the hair in the cut so it wouldn't get infected, and then Homyan and Mia proceeded to put Lidocane in. While in this process, the Lidocane shot up and squirted them both in the face. Homyan got it in his eye and Mia got it on her cheek and lips. Nothing serious happened, they just felt a little tingling where it hit them at. Once that was done, Mia started suturing and put 2 stitches in the boys head. We cleaned the wound and put a dressing on it. The boy did cry out a few times, but for how young he was he handled the situation very well. For the rest of the time until we left at 12:30 am, we didnt have anymore patients.

Saturday 11 August 2012

A little discouraged-August 8th, 2012

Today was my last day in the maternity ward and I saw my first natural birth. . Once the mother started pushing you saw the babies head and then the shoulders and before I knew it the baby was completely out. This one unfortunately didn't have the result I wanted for my first experience. The mother was only 32 weeks along and when the baby was born, it was stillborn. It was pretty traumatic and sad for me to see for my first natural birth. Once the baby was removed the midwife removed the placenta by wrapping the umbilical cord around a pair of forceps and pulling it out gently. After all of that, me and the 2 other girls were hoping to see another one with a better outcome. We tried see another woman who was in labor, but some of the people in that ward aren't very helpful and nice to let you watch so we all decided to move to another area of the hospital. We first stopped in minor theater, which is where they do minor things like changing a catheter, sutures or changing a dressing. Not much was going on so we went to casuality, which is similar to the E.R. We ended up meeting this med student named Omar, who was from Russia and just comes here to work without pay. He was very informative and helpful. He explained what happened and what was going on with all the patients that were in there. There was one patient that had been drugged and robbed so they had him hooked to an IV to flush out the drugs. Another patient had 2 broken legs wrapped in casts after he was in an automobile accident. The last patient was a 3 year old girl who had TB and hadn't been taking her medicine, so her case became complicated. She was very frail and looked malnutritioned. After we talked to Omar for a while, other med students showed up and it became crowded so we decided to go back to minor theater.

When we got there a couple of the other students were working on a little 2 year old boys finger. The boy had previously had his finger tip amputated and the students were trying to remove his stitches, but the stitches had grown into his skin so in order for them to get the stitches out they had to cut some of the skin off. Once they had finished they dressed the wound and sent him on his way. The next patient that came in was a 25 year old male who had a wound on his ankle that had got infected. He was there to have a dbridement done, which is where the dead tissue is removed to get a fresh bleed so the body can heal itself. Joel did this procedure and started by giving him some Lidocane, which is what they use as a local anestetic. Once the area was numbed, Joel started by wiping the dead tissue away and then had to use a blade to cut the tissue around the wound. He had only about 2 cm left and the guy started being a baby about the whole situation and wanted more pain killers cause it just hurt way to bad. He was really putting on a show the whole time we were working with him. Finally after arguing with him Joel added more Lidocane and proceeded until he was done. I then cleaned the wound up and dressed it. Once he was out of the room he was trying to get Joel to write him a pain killer prescription, so we suspected that he might have just been putting on a show to get pain killers because he might have been addicted to them. Our last  patient we had came in with a cut on his cheek that needed to be sutured. I found out that he had been there the day before, but the doctors had told the students that there werent any suture kits and to just dress the wound and have him on his way. But, the doctor had lied because the patient was from a tribe and he didnt want to treat him. So we waited around for a woman with a key to the suture kits to come so we could treat the man. 45 minutes went past and we still didnt see her and by that time it was time for us to leave so we talked to another man to make sure the patient would get care. The highlight of my day was that I got to skype Adam, my mom and dad and my grandma, which made me feel less homesick since I had to wait quite awhile until I got my internet completely working.

Friday 10 August 2012

More and more babies born-August 7th, 2012

Today I was in the maternity ward again. I and another student also named Megan arrived at the operating room and changed into our clean scrubs. The staff informed us that today would be a busy day as they had 4 C-sections on the agenda. After we got changed we talked with the surgeon for about a half hour about random things. He was very nice and seemed very fond of us. Not long after the first mother was ready for surgery, so we jumped up and proceeded into the operating room. Once we were in the anesthesiologist prepared the drugs needed for the surgery. Here when they do a C-section they put the mother under full anesthesia, whereas back in the U.S. they don't do this. The surgeon scrubbed in and got prepared and the surgical techs prepared the tools. The surgery began when the surgeon made an incision horizontally in the pelvic region. He proceeded by cutting into the tissue layers until he finally reached the uterus. He then made an incision in the uterus, reached in and pulled the baby out. Once the baby was out, they cut and umbilical cord and took the baby to another room. The surgeon then placed the uterus outside the body cleaned it out, sutured it back up and put it back in place. He then made sure all the blood and everything was clean inside before he began suturing the tissue back together. Once he finished the suturing he applied pressure to the abdomen and finished cleaning out the uterus. The mom was cleaned up and so was the surgery area.

During the surgery I was able to watch the anesthesiologist closer than I ever had before. She was very informative and broke things down. She gave me and the other Megan nicknames since we have the same name; I am Maggie S and the other Megan is Maggie T. The S stands for short and the T stands for tall. At the beginning of the surgery she allowed me to inject the anesthesia to the patient and then we gave her a muscle relaxant. Once she was asleep we placed a breathing tube down her throat because once someone is under, their lungs wont function for themselves so the machine is hooked up to keep the lungs working and the patient alive. We also kept a constant flow of saline solution through an IV to help replenish the blood loss during the procedure. They also had a vital machine hooked up that constantly keep readings on the mothers blood pressure, oxygen concentration and pulse. Once the surgery was complete the anesthesiologist had to reverse the effects of the drugs we gave her to knock her out. Once the drugs were administered it only took a few minutes for her to come out of it. The anesthesiologist had to keep an eye on her until she knew the mother was breathing on her own and then she removed the breathing tube. After the surgery the mother was placed out in the hall because they don't have recovery rooms for the patients.

We took a short break and then proceeded with another C-section. The procedure went much like the last, but when it came time to get the baby out the surgeon was struggling to get in through the small hole. Once the baby was safely removed, they again pulled the uterus out to clean it. But this time when they went to put it back it, it didn't want to budge so they had to make the incision just a little bit bigger and were able to put the uterus back. It is amazing how huge a uterus can stretch compared to the size of it normally. We were talking to one of the surgical techs and she was explaining to us that C-section mostly have to be done because there is a complication with the pregnancy. In the first case today I am not sure why she had to have the procedure done, but the second on had to have it done because her baby was too big. She said the baby weighed over 4 kg, which is about a 9 pound baby. I think that they aren't able to handle a mother giving birth to a larger baby in case complications could arise while giving birth. Once this procedure was over it was time for us to leave for lunch so we didn't see the other 2 C-sections.

A baby was born!-August 6th, 2012

Today we left for the hospital at about 8 am, it took about 45 minutes for us get to there because the traffic is terrible in the mornings. There are quite a few traffic jams all over, we took some off roads that were gravel, and they were very bumpy! Once we got there we had to wait for a couple hours, while the administration took our fee and got us some letters that allowed us to work in any ward that we wanted. My group started in the maternity ward. For about 2 hours there weren’t any women that came in and the staff said this was really unusual because normally all of their rooms are full. At about 11 am we finally got our first patient. When she first got their they took her in for an examination and checked to see how far she was dilated. They then moved her to a labor room. When she entered, she striped down and all they have for privacy is a curtain that is hanging up and half the time it doesn’t get shut all the way. The doctors kept checking how far dilated the woman was, she was about 8 cm so we just waited. We went in to check on her and they were trying to get her water to break and when they got it too, a bunch of bright green/yellow stuff came out, which is not normal, the baby had a bowel movement and later we found out the mother was over her due date. Since that happened the doctors decided to move her to an emergency room, where women are put when they have complicated pregnancies. While we waited for her to fully dilated to push, one of the midwives was looking over her files and saw a letter from another hospital. On the letter it said that when they saw her, the cord was wrapped around the babies neck. After a long debate and blood was drawn for testing, they decided to take her for a C-section. It took about 2 hours for them to get her up to surgery and started. This was hard for me to handle because in the U.S. the mother would have been rushed right away and had an emergency C-section right away especially after the bowel movement happened. I thought that the baby wasn’t going to have a chance. They started by applying anesthetic drugs to put the mother to sleep. They then made a horizontal incision right in the pelvic region. They had to cut through many layers to get the uterus. The doctors pulled open the opening to make it bigger, which looked gruesome. They then reached the uterus, made an incision, reached in, and pulled the baby out. The baby was covered in the fecal matter and didn’t cry, so I had for sure thought the baby wasn’t ok. We later found out the baby was living and was ok. The doctors then pulled out the uterus and cleaned it out and also cleaned out the blood inside the abdominal cavity. They then proceeded to suture up the uterus and put it back in. They then sutured up the muscles and the abdominal cavity, once complete they sutured up the outer skin layer. They finished up by cleaning up the mess and wiping the blood off the mother. Surgeries here are pretty different compared to the U.S.  The surgeons are pretty much the only ones that are really sterile. The others in the room don’t have to scrub in, they just have to be wearing protective clothing such as scrubs, boots, caps, gloves and a face mask. They have the bare minimum they need for the surgery to take place such as the  surgical tools, a monitor/respirator, a small operating table, lights above the table, some sterile towels to cover the patient and a bucket they dispose the used gauze and other things in. It doesn’t look very sterile; some people don’t wear gloves and everyone in the room is allowed to go in and out of the room as they please. It will definately take a little getting used to after shadowing doctors in the U.S.

Running like a Kenyan-August 5th, 2012

Today was a relaxing day. I woke up around 9 am and showered. We were expecting the doctor to come and tell us about the hospital and what to expect when we go tomorrow, but he never showed up. We later found out that we were to go to the hospital later that night for orientation. I decided to go back to bed for a bit and I slept until about noon. I got up and ate a little and then a group of us decided to go to the beach. We spent all afternoon there and saw some Kenyan kids having races on the beach. A couple of us took a shot at competing against them, but I guess no one can run faster than a Kenyan! A group of the kids decided to get dressed up and do a dance for us. They then proceeded to hound us about money, but finally left us alone. We decided to head back to the compound and didn't want to walk to so we took a Tuk Tuk car, which is a 3 wheeled cart/buggy that is pretty cheap to ride. Most people here that sell things will bargain with you, so needless to say I have become pretty good at negotiating prices. We got back home and hung out until dinner, which we had tortillas with rice and a creamy dish. After dinner, we went to the hospital at about 7:30 pm to have orientation. When we first got to the hospital we had seen a man being wheeled out a an old gurny who had a cast on his leg and a big bandage across his head, he also had blood running down him and it was dripping on the sidewalk. We walked all over the hospital and were showing all the different wards. It was a pretty big hospital, but it wasn't a very nice one. I was a little disturbed by the condition of the hospital and seeing how many people were in need of help. The hospitals here are definately different compared to the hospitals in the U.S. I am excited but also scared for what tomorrow will bring.

It's just a short walk away-August 4th, 2012

Today was the offical day that we arrived in Mombasa. We drove vans to our compound where we were staying. We arrived at about 3 am and not shortly after we got here we met some of the other people that were staying hrer, Joel, Mia and Homyan. We all stayed up late talking to them about their experiences at the hospital and with everything else. I got a little scared because they said that at the hospital you kind of just get thrown in there and you can pretty much perform anything you are comfortable doing. We finally went to bed and it was about 5 am and we all slept in pretty late. I woke up around 2 pm. Today was our orientation so we took a "short walk" to the nakumatt, which is the market (comparable to a walmart) you can pretty much get anything you need there. We all were able to get money exchanged and get minutes for our phones and internet. We then took another "short walk" to the beach. The Kenyans walk everywhere, so they think that things are close and in reality it takes like 20 minutes to walk somewhere. When we arrived it was amazing! The sand was so white and soft and the water was so blue. We stayed there until about 6:30pm and decided to head back as it gets dark at 7 pm. We then had our first Swahilli dish that was very good! It was like Jambalia rice with cut up meat and potatoes in it. They served it with some vegetables and fruit. We then decided to head to this cafe that has free wifi. It was a really nice place and we all order some drinks and enjoyed having internet! Later in the night we made our way to this outdoor bar/dance club called Bob's. It was pretty crazy, but we all had fun and didn't make it home until 2:30 am.

They are my babies!-August 3rd, 2012

Today we woke up early, packed our bags and were out of the hotel by 8 am. We made our way down the street and to the train station. On our way we passed a strange man who had these animals, at first it startled Trisha and she was like "OMG!What is that!?" and the man seemed a little irritated and said "It's a Farret!" "I have another one in my bag" "They're my babies!" We all walked away laughing and couldn't quit repeating the conversation. We arrived at the train station and found the train we needed to be on. Once we made it to the airport we unloaded the train and made our way to our gate. We had plenty of time so we looked around and ate before we had to board. After we departed we had a 5 hour flight to Sudan where we made a quick stop to let people off and then we continuted to Addis Abeba, Ethiopia. We got off to make our connecting flight. The plane wasn't at a terminal so we had to get on the runway and board a bus to take us to the terminals. Well some how a group of us girls got on the wrong bus and it took us to baggage claim and we tried to walk to the terminal after realizing we werent suppose to be there. But this lady stopped us and we were all worried we werent going to make it because we had less than an hour to get to our plane. After about ten minutes a bus finally picked us up and took us to the right terminal, we felt reliefed. The airport was a little different than we were used to because the airport wasn't as spacy as the other ones and seemed a little run down. We sat and relaxed for a bit, but before we knew it we were on our last plane to Mombasa! After we landed we collected our bags and were met at the airport by some of the Elective Africa staff. We met Issac, who was our program coordinator and helps us when things go wrong. By this time it was about 2 am.

Since when was Texas it's own country-August 2nd, 2012

Today we slept in a bit, but decided to try and take a double decker bus tour where we could get off and on whenever we wanted. We walked again to the Green line tour place and asked about the tours and the guy rushed us to get to the next street becasue one was leaving. The tour guide was a bit grumpy to us and was not impressed that we were holding everyone up, when it only took about 5 minutes for each of us to pay and board. Once aboard we started driving and the tour guide was talking, I caught him say that the U.S. was boardered by 3 countries, Canada, Mexico and Texas. We all looked at each other and were like since when did Texas become its own country? At one of the stops we got off and we were in the City Centre, where there are many shops so we did some shopping and spent quite a bit of time there. While walking around we saw some protestors and weren't sure what they were protesting, but we later found out that they were protesting their troops being in Egypt..they didnt want them there. We finally made our way back and took a little nap before we made our way to Mario's again. He promised to make us a huge real German meal. Mario is originally from Bulgaria and was in Frankfurt because his daughter is sick. He started the meal by making us a Bulgarian salad that was made of cut up cucumbers and tomatoes topped with cheese. It was the best cheese in the world! It just melted in your mouth! We next had a schnitzel and fries, which is basically deep fat fried pork. We then proceeded to have a real Bratwurst, which I surprisingly found delicious. I normally don't like brats, so it was a surprise. Mario wasn't going to charge us, but we felt we owed him something for slaving away to make us this huge meal. So he came out with the bill and we all almost died because it was 218 Euros! We were scrounging for money to complete the bill and when we finally did we said our goodbyes to Mario and left. We went home and did some packing and decided to go and have one last drink together in Germany before leaving. We made it home at a decent time because we had to leave early to fly out in the morning.

Thursday 9 August 2012

It's a big texas one!-August 1st, 2012

Today we got up at around 10 am and left the hotel at about 10:45 am. We went to this Green line tour place where we left to go on a Rhine River tour. The tour lasted about 8 hours total, but we did not spend all our time on the river.  Our tour guide was a little nutty, but he made the tour fun and unpredictable about what he was going to say next. We started by driving a bus to a nearby town where we were going to have lunch. We first made a pit stop and rode a chair lift down this hill where we could oversee some castles, a village of homes, and the countryside. They have a ton of grape vines planted pretty much wherever they can find room, even on steep parts of hills. We all were wondering how they were able to plant them and even pick them when the grapes were ready. After the ride we went to the restaurant and at roasted chicken and fries. We then boarded the boat and began our river tour. The river was amazing, it had a fast current so the boat didn’t have to even work that hard. There were many castles along the way and small towns. The boat was pretty full and the sun got pretty hot so some of us went down below to get some shade. After the ride, we got off and road the bus to Rudesteim where we got to do a little shopping. We then went back to the restaurant for some wine tasting. They had 4 different kinds of wines. There were 2 sweet wines that I really liked, especially this wine called Ice Wine. They call it that because it is made from frozen grapes, which have to be picked at a certain time of the year when it is 8 below Celsius outside. Only a hand full of countries produce this wine. One bottle costed 42 Euros, which is cheap compared to getting it in Frankfurt or somewhere else because the locals get it directly from the vineyard (makes it cheaper since they don't have to ship it).  The tour guide said the bottle is a BIG TEXAS bottle, when the bottle was comparable to a smaller bottle of wine. It was pretty comical. After returning from the tour we went out again, but a few of us came back early. Jenna and I went out to find water and food for the morning and while out a weird man approached us and tried to touch my leg. I don’t think he was all there, but we got away from him as fast as we could. We finally found water and some bread and went back to the hotel and watched a movie.

Mario!-July 31st, 2012


Today we arrived in Frankfurt! We got our bags and proceeded to find our way to a train that would take us close to our hotel. In this process we got lost, confused and couldn’t read the train map at all. After about 45 minutes of frustration, we finally got some real help and were able to get on the right train. We made it to the Hauptbahnhof, which is the main train station in Frankfurt and is a few blocks from our hotel. We then had a hard time finding the street our hotel was on and when we finally found it, we felt a little awkward because we were hauling a bunch of suitcases down the middle of the Red Light District. The Red Light District is where a bunch of prostitutes/strip clubs are. Our hotel was very nice, but it was not in a very good location. The room was small and they had 4 twin beds in there instead of 2 queens. After we all got freshened up and settled in we went and did some exploring of the city. While we were out we went into one bar and the owner/bartender’s name was Mario, he really liked us and enjoyed our company. I experienced my first German beer. At about midnight, I called it a night and went back to the hotel. It wasn’t too hard to fall asleep with all the noise outside because I was extremely tired.


Here we go!-July 30th, 2012


Today was our first day of our excursion. We drove from Brookings to Sioux Falls and arrived at the airport around 5pm. At 5:30pm we had checked our bags, said goodbye, and made our way to our gate. We were scheduled to leave at 6:50 pm, but the plane we were waiting for had to go around a storm in Denver and was late arriving. We didn’t leave the airport until about an hour later. We were finally in the air and it was a short flight to Chicago. When we arrived at the Chicago airport we had to wait on the runway for about 45 minutes for a terminal to open up so we could get off the plane. The majority of the people flying with us missed their connecting flight. Once we got off we had to rush to get to our next gate which was on a completely different side of the airport. We made it just in time to get our tickets and passports checked. We then boarded a huge Lufthansa plane. There were mini TV screens on the back of everyone’s chair so we could all watch our own movie, TV show, or listen to music. We were fed well on the plane, but I also didn’t get much sleep because it was very uncomfortable. The flight was roughly 8 hours long and we didn’t arrive to Frankfurt until the middle of the afternoon the next day.