It's been almost 2 weeks now, and we're finally starting to feel settled and get a little bit of a routine.  We usually have breakfast with our housemates, Diane and Anna, every morning.   This is what our little home looks like.  On weekdays Anna and I do rounds with Dr. Hardison and Diane in the hospital, or attend HIV support groups or clinics.  On Wednesdays we go to a nearby support group through the hospital.  This group also makes crafts and teaches new members craft skills to raise an income.  Although most kenyans we have encountered so far will tell you there is no stigma associated with AIDS, we have seen differently.  There is a noticeable "need to please" with the white medical staff, even if it means a flat out lie.  For example, Phoebe was a woman treated at Maseno hospital and diagnosed with AIDS.  One of her sons was also found to be positive.  She came back to the hospital shortly after discharge because when she went home she found her grave already dug in the front yard and her husband refused to let her or the HIV positive son back in the house.  That sounds like a little stigma to me.

This little darling came to the wednesday support group and of course, she wanted me to hold her right away.  She must have sensed I was a baby-whisperer :)  

  This is me teaching some kids a song about how you grow strong if you pray everyday, but you shrink and get weak if you ignore God.  We are in the shrink stage of the song right here :)

The maternity ward here is sadly under-staffed, and I've been asked to help out there as well.  Right now there is often one nurse on a shift, who is supposed to cover the ante-partum room, the delivery room(which can have 2-3 women in labor at a time) and the post-partum ward.  Call me crazy, but that seems like a recipe for disaster.  I mean with only 2 hands, you can only catch so many babies at a time.

I will be teaching CPR to the nursing students, and let the principle know that I might be able to teach a few other seminars depending on how my schedule works out.  In true Kenyan fashion, he told Diane is passing that he would like me to teach the entire ENT (ears, nose and throat) course.  Hmmm.......not what I had in mind.  Not to mention it is miles away from pediatrics or oncology, the things I told him I specialized in.  Needless to say, we're going to have a little talk today :)

We have been getting lots of rain right now, even though it's not the rainy season.   I have decided there is nothing better than the sound of rain on a tin roof at night.  Yesterday I found that I did not have those feelings for hail  on a tin roof as I nearly went deaf.  The combination of sunshine and rain seems to be common here and I like it.  It can make things like support group meeting difficult however, as many of them just gatherings in the shade under a tree, as homes are not usually big enough or close enough for things like that.

That's all the news I have for you right now!

Jessie