Rainforests, Home Health and Hemispheres

News, news. We spent the weekend in Kakamega rainforest hiking up mountains and sneaking photos of unsuspecting monkeys. We started our sunrise trek at 5 am to make it to the top of a mountain (just a small one) before the sun (see picture above). Very pretty and breathtaking of course. Some of us even braved the bat cave and managed not to scream like little girls when we woke them up and they started swirling all around us.

Not only was this a true rainforest, but it is also mid-rainy season right now.....needless to say our rain jackets got to see some action. We arrived in Maseno last night happily exhausted and ready to crawl into our bunk beds (or double-deckers, as they are called here).

We've now spent one day in Maseno and the students have jumped in with both feet. One gave immunizations in the MCH (mother child health) clinic, some went out on home visits with HIV adherence counselors, and others rounded on the wards. We started off our first day with some great experiences. We had planned on sitting in on a surgery to repair a tib-fib fracture (broken leg) but the patient couldn't come up with the money so the surgeon didn't come. He's already been waiting in the wards for 2 weeks, so I'm sure the surgeon thought, what's one more day anyway? We at least replaced the scraptacular cardboard and gauze splint with a somewhat more legitimate one, so he seems a bit more comfortable. We're hoping he'll get in to the OR tomorrow.

We also snuck a little walk in before darkness took us prisoner in the house until tomorrow morning. We walked down to the marker on the equator and did the little north-south hemisphere dance, and all other hemisphere-related activities. It isn't often after all, that one can lean over and have their nose in a different hemisphere as their toes.

We took the long way back to go through the Maseno University campus. I am really enjoying getting to introduce my students to Maseno and show them around, despite the fact that a group of 10 wazungu (white people) looks nothing short of a parade around here, and typically attracts about an equal amount of attention. Tomorrow we will me going on more home health visits, helping with a mobile satellite clinic, rounding on the wards, and meeting with an HIV support group. Should be quite an interesting day.

Jessie