Our days usually begin around 06:50 with breakfast in the old house (eggs or granola and a speedy cup of instant coffee if I'm lucky) followed by the muddy, humid, uphill trek to the hospital. Entering the hospital grounds through the red, white, and blue metal gate, we are greeted by the chirping of bright yellow male weaver birds building their elaborate nests and the scent of yellow guava fallen from the trees. We head straight to the ER for morning handoff at 07:30, when the night clinical officer (CO) discusses all of the patients he/she evaluated overnight with the morning staff. Then, it is upstairs to the library where the mud boots come off and we set up shop for the day to work on lectures, research, or other online activities (such as blogging...). By about 10:30, the COs are ready for rounds in both the ER and wards.
On average, we round on about 25-30 patients. We begin with the "high dependency unit" and pediatric patients in the ER, then move onto the private ward upstairs, followed by maternity, female ward, pediatric ward, and male ward. This takes until nearly 12:00-13:00. Then we lunch in the canteen! The post-lunch routine is variable -- sometimes we give lectures for medical students/COs, the fellows have meetings, or we continue to work in the library as in the morning. We end our work day around 16:00 and walk back to the "compound." Shoes get kicked off on the shoe porch, sandals go on, and then it is leisure time. Usually for me this means exercise (running, yoga, Nike Training Club), reading, and playing games. We take turns cooking dinner each night for the "family" and plan out our meals in advance. Last week, Aparna and I made a "tamale pie" although I did not have cornmeal to make the topping so I made up a mixture of corn, breadcrumbs, spices, baking powder, chapati flour, and milk and created my own cornbread. Lance makes some sort of bread it seems almost daily, and he makes his recipe "by feel" which is impressive -- my favorite bread variations so far are the caramel rolls and pizza that we made over the weekend. Cooking together is a nice way to wind down after the day and it is fun to creatively plan meals with the foods we have available. After dinner, we all sit down in the living room to watch pirated movies (Jeffery buys movies from someone in Kisumu, who will put movies on a flash drive for between 0.30-0.50 USD) or play card games (I taught people to play "Chinese Bridge" and learned how to play "Euchre") before bed.
Weekends are less structured and the fellows are only responsible for rounds. The cool weather in the early mornings is perfect for running, so Aparna and I set out for a 6 mile run Saturday morning. Our route was challenging but beautiful -- the rocky, uneven, dirt roads are lined with blooming bushes with multicolored flowers, quiet farms, and little kids in oversized mud boots. During runs or walks, we are frequently greeted by passerby most often in English ("How are you?, "Fine"), especially the kids, who also love to give high-fives. This area of Kenya is punctuated by rolling hills, making our run particularly exhausting. I spent the remainder of the day recovering in the hammock with a book.
Saturday evening we went out to celebrate Fred's 30th birthday. All seven of us, plus Fred (who was as usual driving), and three more friends from the hospital packed into a 5 passenger SUV and made the mercifully short trek to Luanda, about 6 km away. We pulled up to a pink building, home to a restaurant/bar called Oasis. Climbing at least 4 flights of stairs, we passed rooms filled with people eating and drinking at each level, to reach the top floor overlooking the tiny main street in Luanda where there was a pool table, TVs broadcasting the Manchester United game, and people sitting at plastic tables eating fried fish, chips, and drinking Tusker beer. We pushed three tables together and ordered food and drinks -- including an entire bottle of Jameson for Fred, which he shared with some of the guys. As a result, after dinner Fred started dancing and convinced everyone to join him. Somehow we managed to get our entire raucous group back into the car and home without any problems. Poa kichizi kama ndizi!
Weaver bird nests
Library Work Room
Canteen
"The Container" (meeting space)
Wards
Emergency Room
Entrance
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