Siyaipei

We just got back from dinner with a couple of the full-time missionaries here. They're from Taiwan and have been living here with their family for six years. It was nice to eat Chinese food and get lectured about how dangerous Kenya is -- Isaac and I agreed that they are typical Asian parents, except that they live in Africa. Awesome people.

We spent the day at a clinic in Siyaipei, a very small town in Maasai land. We barely had time to buy a couple ndazis (fried dough) from the cafeteria for breakfast before we were hurried into the ambulance to head out around 8am. This was the first time anything here has happened on time since we have been in Kenya.


Shortly after our hour and a half drive along the Rift Valley floor, it was already time for morning chai. Here we are in the clinic kitchen with Jeremiah, who oversees all the rural clinics, and Stephen, one of KH's nutritionists.


I kept on hearing a bell ringing the whole morning, which made more sense when I looked out the window of the exam room.


Below is a kid with all of the physical exam findings associated with rickets, like he came out of a textbook. Most of our patients were Maasai, who traditionally herd cattle and goats, and apparently when lunch time rolls around and they're thirsty they'll milk their cows for a quick drink. So brucellosis is pretty common here -- and is something I know nothing about. We saw a ton of kids today, which is understandable in a country where the average age is around twenty years.


The best part of rural clinic is always the food. Here we are with the amazing chefs.


Jason, Stephen, Dr. Swanson, me, Isaac and Jeremiah at the end of the day.


Most of today's trip ran on a new highway through Maai Mahiu and Suswa. So smooth that sleeping was actually possible.


A couple nights ago, a man wearing a blood-stained shirt ran into the casualty carrying an unconscious boy bleeding from a number of lacerations on his head. We later figured out that the man was the one who hit the boy with his motorcycle. Aside from the fact that the man runs into the casualty only to find me and Isaac, even more absurd is that after running through the ABCs a few times, there wasn't much more we could do other than watch and pray. He didn't die and it seems like he's improving in the ICU, but it makes you wonder how the boy would have done had he been brought into an ER in Chicago.

One of the new attendings has been encouraging me to take pictures of my patients who have weird pathology. It feels wrong, so I only did it once. This is a kid with Burkitt's lymphoma. It was huge. But the kid was up the next day running around the peds ward.


We're taking the next two days off. Looks like we'll be going to Givan's tomorrow (he says to bring a lot of sugar, I think it's a gift for the village) and then Nairobi to check out the Maasai market on Saturday. Should be awesome.