Life State Side... and How I Got Here

It has been 7 months since my last post and so much has changed since July that I don't really know where to start, so I guess I'll start where I left off. My last post was about work and what things were like for me over in Africa and the post before that was about my spider bites which was a very long process of getting better.

SPIDER BITES

So when I got the second round of spider bites I thought the treatment would be easier than the first time because I thought I could just take the medicine and things would be better without them having to cute my face again. Oh boy was I wrong... so I started out taking oral antibiotics, however those were not working so the next week I had to go to the doctor every morning to get IV antibiotics, not so bad compared to the next week when I had to go in twice a day because the one dose a day was not strong enough. So my day consisted of waking up, taking my mom to work, going to get an IV then trying to go to work but my boss would always send me home to rest. I was going stir crazy but then in the afternoon I would go back to the doctor to get another IV, then go pick up my mom, it got every old very quick. At one point the nurse told me my veins were going on strike... eventually I stopped getting IVs because I just couldn't take it anymore and I went back on oral medication which I took until September when everything finally cleared up and now I have seen multiple doctors in Kenya and here in the US and I am healthy once again!

GRANDMA

So on August 3rd I got a very upsetting phone call from home saying my grandmother was sick and not doing well and that I should probably come home. I booked a flight for the next day to come back to the States, when I left Kenya she was actually doing better but when I landed at Sea-Tac my dad and sister were there to tell me the devastating news, she had passed a few hours before I got home. I lost it, I just couldn't believe it and I was so overwhelmed with everything else about coming back to the US after being in Africa for almost a year. Even before I saw my dad and sister I was overwhelmed and on the verge of crying, when the customs officer said "welcome home" I could barely spit out the words to say thank you. I was only in the States 10 days and those days went by very fast and it was a huge emotional roller coaster. My grandma was a wonderful woman and she was a big part of my life and I will always be grateful for that. She had an amazing ability to bring people together and thats exactly what happened, people came from everywhere to celebrate her life with us, so it was a week full of family and friends and I was just very thankful that I could at least be home for that even though it was one of the hardest weeks of my life. I miss her very much but know she is in a better place.

FRIENDS COME TO KENYA

The same day I left to go back to Africa so did 2 of my friends, Jenn and Ali had a trip planned to come visit me, so we all took the 36 hour journey and headed east. It was a good way to transition back to life in Africa, having some friends from home around that knew my grandma and could understand some of the stories was a huge blessing. Also they came for holiday so it was a laid back couple of weeks of Safari and the coast. We spent 3 nights in the Maasai Mara on safari, when I planned the trip I really wanted them to see different parts of Kenya and have somewhat of a "rustic" experience without taking them into the slums or other extreme places, so we camped in a tent in the Mara. When I talked with our safari guide who I had met from a previous safari trip he made it sound like we were camping near other people in some sort of a camp group with either a fence or lots of guards... however when we arrived we found an open field, a small structure which they cooked in. The building was maybe 12 X 12 and there was also a small wooden outhouse over looking a field where tons of animals were. This set up was a shock to me but it was even more shocking to Jenn and Ali, they took it all in stride, even the pit latrine and were great sports about all of it. The no shower for 3 days, the very cramped tent, the thought that at any minute a lion could come especially the nights we could hear them roar near by... I thought it was great and very exciting but I think they might of had some fear either way it was a great experience and good times with great friends! We also went to the coast for a few days, we took the bus which is an experience all on its own, I've explained driving in Kenya before but on a giant bus it is even scarier, Jenn was not a fan! Overall it was an amazing trip and really fun for me to get to show them my life aboard and for them to understand a little bit more about why I was doing what I was doing, thanks Ali and Jenn, love you guys!

BACK TO WORK

So now it is September and I have not worked much because of being sick and all the traveling, it felt good to be productive again and to have routine. My mom went back to the US for a few months at the beginning of September and our English friend Tamsin moved in. At this point I had to make a decision about going back to Sudan or stating in Kenya for a while and eventually moving back the the States. This was not an easy decision and it took me a long time to come to my conclusion which was not go back to Sudan and to finish my work in Kenya then head home and be home by Christmas. The doctor suggested that I not go back to Sudan, he said if I got sick again it could take up to a year to get well again because I was becoming very resistant to the medication. So between the doctors suggestion and me realizing that while I loved my work and loved Africa I missed my family and a 36 hour flight was too far for me to be.

The next 3 months went by amazingly fast, I really enjoyed my time in Nairobi and think it was good to spend time there before coming back to the US. I made some really good friends while I was there that I might not have known as well if I was constantly traveling in and out of Sudan. It was hard because I couldn't go back and say goodbye to people in Sudan but thats just how it goes I guess. In the last few months I was in Kenya I got to do some really fun things, I went to a off road rally car race out in the bush. It was amazing, they had dirt bikes, 4 wheelers, buggies and jeeps that raced around what they called a farm but it was more like a ranch. This ranch was massive and they had all the wild animals that the Maasai Mara has so we got to spend the weekend once again camping in a tent in the bush. This time I felt a bit safer because there were probably 150 people all camped in one big field. It was a great weekend and a great way to see another part of Kenya. The last few months in Kenya were great but as the time got closer for me to come home, I knew I made the right choice and so here I am back in America!

My Work!

So today I was talking with one of my cousins on facebook and she was asking me about my work andthings in general. After talking with her I realized that I have never fully explained what it is I do for work and how things run here in Kenya and in Sudan. So I will try to explain a little bit about everyday life, hopefully without it being too boring.

Work

I work foran organizationcalled World Concern, it is a non-profit christian organization based out of Seattle, Wa. World Concern (WC) works all over the world doing many different development and relief projects. I work in the Sudan program and I am the Child Development Officer. Our head office is in Wau (wow) South Sudan which is about and hour and 15 minute flightnorth of Juba. Our head Africa office isin Nairobi Kenya and I come to Kenya often for work and I am currently in Nairobi for all the medical stuff I have been dealing with. So I am in charge of thechild health projects we have in Sudan, which are Kids clubs and de-worming/vitamin A distribution. Our kids clubs meet once a week for about 2 hours and the kids learn about hygiene, malaria, HIV/AIDS, etc and they also learn some life skills and basic school skills like the ABCs and counting. Most of the clubs are supposed to meet at 3 pm butusually the teachers

show upat 4 pm and the kids show up at 5 pm so I spend about 2 hours before each club sitting under a mango tree chatting with whoever comes by. This is very typical of Sudan, they are not used to keeping track of time. Back in March we held a training teaching the club teachers about all of these things plus child development and how children learn. It was very successful and the teachers asked for more training which we will do in September. I am also rewriting the curriculum for the teachers to use when teaching the children and a training manual for people like me to use when training the teachers. So whenI am in Sudan in the afternoons I go to a different club Monday - Saturday and during the day I work on curriculum and attend different kinds of meetings.

Then with the de-worming/vitamin A, we have about 5 million tablets between the 2 so we are working with the Department of Health and UNICEF to distribute these medicines. In addition I have been working on written material about de-worming/vitamin A to hand out to the community and teachers to educate them about worms and vitamins. So basically thats a quick summery of my job and I really enjoy it. I feel like what I leaned in college is perfect for what I am doing which is kind of amazing to me because half the time I was in school I though "what am I doing and will I ever use this...". Anyway check out WC website to see more about what we do worldwide, www.worldconcern.org

Random Things

The internet: Here in the Nairobi office we have a network and our internetis pretty fast, that is why I usually blog from here, it uploads pictures much faster than at home or in Sudan. I can stream videos here and download music. However downloading a movie from itunes usually takes 6 hours so I either start in the morning or leave it to download over night. At home we have a little modem that goes into our USB port, it is from the cellphone company and it is pretty slow. However I can sometimes skype and download short videos (I downloaded a 4 minute video of my favorite Yankee player and it took me and hour and a half...) but at least we have internet at home. In Sudan however.... the internet is worse than dial up from back in the day when AOL IM-ing was cool! It is the same kind of modem we use at home in Nairobi but I can't even facebook chat there, so annoying but hopefully by the time I get back we will have a satellite set up. Because we partner with UNICEF we can go to their office and use their fast internet whenever we need but we usually only do that for urgent work stuff.

TV: In both Sudan and here in Kenya we have satellite t.v., we get normal channels that you would get in the US but many of the shows are old or a season behind. Because we are 10 hours ahead of the west coast we get last nights news the next morning and on ESPN I watch baseball games the next day or at 2am.

Cars and driving: Well I posted pictures ofmy transportation in an earlier post so you can get the picture. I don't think I can even begin to describe how crazy people drive in both Kenya and Sudan and I am not surewhich one is worse. In Sudan they are just now building roads and when I say building roads I mean they are clearing land mines and bush to get a dirt path. So people have not been driving in Sudan for long, therefor they have absolutely NO IDEA how to drive, its always interesting to say the least. Here in Kenya well mainly in Nairobi, driving is chaotic, there are very few rules. I think I have seen 3 stop signs in almost a year, there are no lanes, its just as many cars can fit across the road. They have roundabouts and some have stop lights which people don't know how to use or they ignore them so it is always about you doing whatever you need to get to where you are going. Also the power is very unreliable, half the time the stop lights are not working. People pull out in front of traffic to turn and end up blocking the road for 5 minutes, this is normal and I think it only bothers westerners because it seems so rude but that is how people learned to drive here. I have learned to deal with it, I try to keep my road rage to a minimum but I am definitely nervous to drive in the States again. I feel like I will be speeding everywhere and driving on sidewalks to get around traffic...

Food: Here in Nairobi they have great restaurants and you can pretty much get anything in the grocery stores. However, things do not stick around for long, so when we see something we like we buy multiple because you may never see them again, like Dr. Pepper! In Sudan things are very different, we don't have a refrigerator, microwave or a proper stove/over. Everything is cooked in pots over a little charcoal pot which they call a giko. So it takes a long time to prepare food, which is usually rice, boiled potatoes and boiled meat. I no longer eat the meat there because I saw how many flies where on it at the market, you couldn't even see the beef, it was completely covered in flies! Occasionally I eat chicken and now there is pasta noodles. Its amazing to me that I can eat all carbs 3 times a day and still lose weight. Between the heat, walking everywhere and playing with the kids almost everyday the carbs are very necessary for energy. I also bring some food from Nairobi like dried fruit, granola bars stuff like that for when I am in the field and need a quick snack. When I come back to Nairobi I am so overwhelmed by the choices of food and all I want it salads, cheese and sweets! One thing I miss the most is hot wings and a good beer at a sports bar! Good thing I will be home for the end of Football season!!!

Kenya has great tea and coffee so my caffeine intake has definitely increased. Here in the Nairobi office there are 2 tea breaks a day, one at 9:30 am and one at 2 pm. It is a very important part of the day. Most African cultures are very social, tea time is a place where people come to spend time with each other and catch up on the news. In the beginning I would always skip tea time but then I was told it is very rude so now I go and enjoy it. In Sudan there is no set tea time, mainly because our office and house is all in one. We have tea in the morning and at night and whenever people come for meetings so basically all day!

Weather: Well you all know Sudan is very hot but somehow I still where jeans or other long pants some days and long sleeve shirts occasionally. I think I have adjusted to the climate relatively fast. Here in Nairobi it is the winter and it is actually pretty cold. I am not sure if it is because I am used to Sudan or what but the other day I had a long sleeve shirt on and 2 fleeces... It gets down into the 40s which seems much colder.

So that is a little bit about life here, I had some friends over last weekend for a dinner party and games. I am teaching them how to play poker and it is pretty funny! Jenn and her sister Ali are coming from Seattle at the end of the month, we are going on Safari and to the coast so there will be some good pictures to come!

Moon face and some daily sights!

So here are some pictures of what is going on with these spider bites or whatever they are. They first picture is of the Nile river in Juba, the next couple are of a Raksha which is how I get around in Wau! Then there are a few pictures of the Wau airport where I spent many hours lately, then the whip I drive in Nairobi!









Here are a few pictures from my second round of bites... in the picture below you can see the scar from the first one where I had to have in cut open then the second one which we are just treating with antibiotics and steroids. So much better than having some Chinese doctor cut open my face, there will probably be a sweet scar but it won't be too bad. The doctor says I have "moon face" from the steroids and it will last a few more weeks! The next couple pictures are of the UN Chinese hospital I was at in May and the first bite and hole it left in my face...

A Sad Day

6/25/2010

So this post I started a while ago but I really didn't know how to write about it. The brother of a coworker of mine passed away. Here in Kenya everything is about family and community, my coworker was out of the country when this happened. He was in Haiti doing disaster response and then because of the volcano he could not get back to Kenya for his oldest brothers funeral. I cannot imagine ever going to a funeral of someone I had never met unless I was with someone that knew that person. However here it is really important to represent people so a group of us from the office went to the funeral in place of the brother who could not attend. We drove about an hour outside of Nairobi to his home village, when we arrived the service had just started. My mom and I were the only white people there... so of course everyone was staring at us and moving to give us the best seats even though we did not know this man. This is something I have a very hard time with, whenever there is an event people move seats for me because I am white. It is an honor to them to have us as guests so thats why they do it but either way I feel uncomfortable. I am a lucky compared to my mom who got called on the spot to give a speech... scary. It was a very good service and an experience I will never forget. So here are a few pictures of the day... one of the really crazy things to me was that they buried him on his home property and they actually shovel all the dirt while people stand around and watch. All the men take turns covering the casket and creating a mound that they place flowers on. In about a year the mound will have gone down and they will do it again...

Battle-wounds... Honestly where am I? I thought I was in Africa but I think this might be China?

WARNING: The following pictures are a bit graphic and of course this is a long story... sorry I don't know how to make them short!

Where to begin... well a week ago Wednesday is when it all began. It was just a typical day for my life in Sudan, nothing out of the ordinary except I noticed I had a small bump on my lower right jaw line. At first I just thought it was a pimple deep under the skin but as the day went on it was getting a bit bigger and had a small scab on the top of it. I asked my co-workers what they thought and they all thought it was a boil or an abscess...GROSS! I was thinking how could I possibly get one of these on my face but knowing how dirty I get in Sudan and how many little kids I touch a day I knew there was a possibility, either way I was grossed out. I have a book called Where There is No Doctor so I looked up what to do with a boil or abscess. The book says to put a warm wash cloth and compression on the spot for a few days and then it should drain on its own. It also said if it becomes very painful to seek a doctor because they would need to cut it open to drain it... scary right? Yes very scary especially while I am living in Sudan. However at the time I was not having any pain and it was not red so I thought I would be fine with the washcloth deal....WOW was I wrong. Thursday came and went but the pain was increasing and I felt like I had a fever. It is very hard to tell if you have a fever when it is 100 degrees outside. So on Friday my "boil" was starting to open a bit more, everyone was telling me to just squeeze it because that is what a doctor would do anyway, so I tried that... not a good idea. So painful I was bawling and it only seemed to be getting worse. So finally I had to admit that I needed to go to the hospital... also a very scary thought. We don't go to the town hospital, there is a UN Peacekeeping Mission in Wau and they have 2 clinics that we go to. So we headed up there, the first clinic I went to was the Kenyan Battalion clinic mainly because I am familiar with Kenyans, Kenya doctors and they all speak english. The doctor told me that it was a boil and that I would need to have it cut open to drain, at this point it was looking awful and all the people in the clinic where pretty concerned. It was hard to keep it together, the thought of having someone cut my face was terrifying on so many different levels. The worst part was that this Kenyan doctor said he could not do it because they are a level 1 clinic, they don't admit people and he didn't have any kind of pain medicine besides strong IB Profane and he didn't think I could stand the pain of the incision without meds. So at this point I was getting pretty nervous and scared but there is a level 2 clinic on the UN base and it is run by the Chinese Battalion, which I was ok with but not super stoked. When we got to the Chinese clinic they tried to tell me that I need to get a referral from the Wau town hospital, there was no way I was going there so my only other option was to beg them to help me or be flown to Nairobi the next day, In the end I should have just gone to Nairobi the next day but I was in a ton of pain and thought this clinic was the best option. After jumping many hoops they agreed to help me. When I went into the clinic part there were about 5 Chinese men and one woman all starring at me touching my face, speaking very fast and loud in Chinese. I was thinking what have I got myself into, none of them speak more than 10 words of english. They asked me where I was from and once I told them I was an American the chatter really started. One guy told me that Americans are destroying the world, another guy asked me if I liked basketball then proceeded to jump up and down pretending to shoot a basketball and carrying on about how much he liked basketball...random. At this point they were making me laugh, every Chinese stereotype I have ever thought of came to light at this moment, it was very weird but it was also calming me down a bit. So with the broken english they told me that they would need to cut open the "boil" to drain it and that I would need an IV of antibiotics, I took this relatively well because it is what the Kenyan doctor had told me and what the book had said. So at this point I think I am going to get an IV of antibiotics then go home then come back in the morning for the little procedure, the lady motions for me to follow her to get my IV but then we go into a "room" that says Ward 5... a ward... why am I going into a ward? Well after about 5 minutes of trying to understand one another I come to the conclusion that I am staying the night... well ok I guess I don't really have a choice so I just roll with it. She tells me to get into this bed, I have been walking around all day in sandals, me feet are filthy and I am wearing jeans... no hot hospital gown? What is that about? Anyway then she stabbed me and gives me the IV. The reason I put "room" is because all UN bases are made up of fabricated containers, its what they live in, what their offices are and what their hospitals are apparently. There is a pic below to help understand, oh and the ward I was put in had 10 beds and I was the only one in there... also a bit creepy. So these containers have paper thin walls, so half the time the nurses would just start yelling at one another in the container instead of going to the next room to tell them something... it was yelling in Chinese at a piercing level, so painful. There was a Canadian guy in the container next to me and boy was he struggling with communication.... he would say "you....not....under....standing....me.... " then the Chinese nurse would say "me understand!" then the Canadian guy would ask him what he had said and the nurse would have no idea.... this went on everyday every night for the whole time I was there, sometimes it was entertaining and other times I just wanted to yell shut up! At this point I had an IV in, they gave me some pain meds and things were going ok. They allowed Florence my co-worker to stay the night with me, clearly they had extra beds! At about 11:15 pm I was having excruciating pain so I went do to the nurse and asked for some more pain medicine. Here the nurses never check on you or ask you questions it is up to you to seek help. They agreed to give me an injection on some kind of pain med because the tablets were not working. About 10 minutes later the doctor came in and said because I was in so much pain they wanted to do the procedure right then, I was terrified but knew that I had to do it. They took me to the operating container lol and told me to get on the operating table, when I saw it I just started to laugh... it was tiny and clearly meant for a small Chinese person! They said it would not take more than 15 minutes and they were right it was very short but also very painful. Because it was an infection there wasn't much they could do to prevent pain when cutting, they put a local anesthetic around the "boil" but it didn't do much.

Well I survived the procedure and was very relieved when it was over, I went back to my room and crashed, I was so exhausted. The next day they came in very early to drain the "boil" again and I think this was even more painful than the actually procedure because I had zero pain meds. They also gave me another round of antibiotics. Right after the procedure the night before they told me I would need to stay for 3 days to make sure it was all draining properly, so in the morning I asked again and the guy told me I would have to stay 6-7 days... what? This is when I really started considering my options. I knew that if I had to, I could survive in this place for a week but it would be very challenging. The bathrooms alone were something to overcome. I have never seen such a dirty bathroom and I have been in a lot of scary bathrooms, once one of my co-workers saw the bathroom thats when they decided to have me flown to Nairobi, it was just too dirty to spend a week there. However the next flight to Nairobi wasn't until Monday so I would have to survive until then.

Well I survived the weekend and Monday morning I was on the first flight to Nairobi, I had a 6 hour layover in the Juba airport because flights are never on time and we didn't want to risk me missing a flight. While being at the airport many interesting things happen, the major one being a Sudanese guy with a gun shot wound... Soon after I arrived at the Juba airport this man came in and I could clearly tell he was in a lot of pain and as he sat in a chair for a bit you could see the blood coming through his shirt in his shoulder. They eventually moved him to a mat on the floor near a fan, I was there all day watching flights come and go to many different places most of which would have decent hospitals but this guy never got on a flight. When I left on one of the last flights of the day he was still there.... as the day went on more and more people came to visit him, security is kinda lax in the Juba airport. Late in the afternoon these old men in white robe like outfits and white turban things came to see this guy. I really couldn't tell what was happening, people where fanning him, wiping sweat of of him and it seemed like they were trying to keep him alive....but what was he doing in the airport not getting on a flight? Did they bring him here to die? Honestly by the time I left there were about 25 people there to see him.... I just couldn't and still can't wrap my head around this whole situation, I thought maybe they were hiding him from someone who was after him, but then I thought he is going to die here if they don't get them help... so confusing and sad to me. I was just thinking how lucky I am to be able to get medical treatment and be able to come here to Nairobi and rest. It is amazing the things I see in Sudan, sometimes they don't bother me in a way I guess I am used to it, if I let it all bother me I wouldn't make it through the day but other things like this really get me thinking. Life is short and precious, I am thankful for all the opportunities I have been given in my life and for all the loving people in my life, I am very blessed!

So here I am in Nairobi, I went to the doctor here, he gave me some different medicine because he said it was a spider bite not an abscess, which makes way more sense. He says I am now recovering better than he expected and the scar will be small! It was a bit of a traumatic event but it is somewhat expected to have these weird random trying events in my life when I live in Sudan. I am doing well, I feel good and I will go back to Sudan next week!

Oh Nairobi How Great Thou Are!

I was in Nairobi for a few weeks last month, I was on R&R and I had a training for work. So I just wanted to post a few pictures of life in Nairobi so you can see the difference between Kenya and Sudan! My mom and I also went to Mombasa which is the south coast of Kenya. It was beautiful and very relaxing! So the pictures are of our house in Nairobi and just some buildings around the city

.