Kwaheri (goodbye) and Asante Sana (thank you very much)!

Well, I'm back in the Seattle.  My time in Kijabe is over.  Jose is in Kenya now and for a few more weeks, so look for any posts from him!  I will miss my time there and hope to go back someday.  What an experience!  So much of it didn't make it on this blog.  I may post a few more of the interesting pathology cases we had later.

For my last post, I thought I would share some more daily life in the hospital and around Kenya.  While seeing the sights and adventuring is great, some of the greatest value in these sorts of experiences is just immersing yourself in the everyday life in a place half way around the world...

I'm so grateful for this opportunity to serve the people of Kenya at Kijabe Hospital!

Main patient entrance to Kijabe Hospital, also where we enter for work.

The children's hospital

Big cats stalking the parking lot

Medical records.  Massive files full of patient charts.  This is how it used to be in the U.S. before widespread adoption of electronic medical records.  Some hospitals still use paper charts in some capacity in the U.S!   As a pathologist, it makes a huge difference to have an electronic medical record to look up patient information quickly.  However, the doctors who saw the patients gave much better and more relevant clinical histories on pathology requisition sheets in Kijabe (in general) than in my experience in the U.S.

My patient's chart hadn't been filed yet, so the medical records team and I had to sort through the yet-to-be filed stack.

Home sweet home...

On one of our training hikes.  Beautiful Kijabe...

More from walking around.

Gardens

Driveway

Sunset from the Kijabe shopping street

Sunset from our balcony

Out to dinner with other volunteers at Mama Chiku's, one of about 2 local hole in the wall restaurants.  Very Kenyan food.

Cooling down chai at our favorite watering hole, Countryman Chai

This is chapati (flatbread) we made at home.  This one is sad that I have to leave...

My last day at the lab.  We had hospital catered food!  

I brought our staff some stroopwafels from Amsterdam.  These are waffle caramel sandwich cookies and are a Dutch favorite of mine.

Final pictures.

Everybody gets a soda on the house!  Except Rochelle, this Tab came all the way from Seattle.

A favorite storefront of mine down in the Rift Valley near Kijabe.

Saturday (market day) in a small, very rural village in the Great Rift Valley on the road from the Masai Mara back to Kijabe, where I will grab my stuff and head to the airport.  The poverty is evident.  This is rural Africa after all, and compared to this, Kijabe is actually relatively well off due to the economic developments that its hospitals and schools bring.  But the richness of color and the vibrancy of daily life are striking.  The challenges and disadvantages of getting by with less do not necessarily make people less happy.  I think Americans should have more first-hand experiences of how people live in much of the rest of the world.

The most Kenyan food on the menu at the Nairobi airport Java House.  My last meal before taking off for home.

A peek at a wintry afternoon on Baffin Island with a full moon.

Masai Mara Safari

On my last weekend, I went down to the Masai Mara Reserve and saw a ton of animals.  I saw almost everything I expected to see.  I did not, however, complete the "Big Five"

Tuskys - a Kenyan grocery store chain.  For those who think of "Big 5" in the U.S., no, they do not also sell safari-related sporting goods.

I saw the rhino, lion, leopard, and Cape buffalo, but missed the elephants.  They are not easy to miss! But they move around, and were no where near the area of my safari when I was there, apparently.

What is this "Big Five?" These are the 5 most dangerous big game animals that are also prized for their coats, manes, or tusks and were considered trophy animals and a true test of a hunter.  As my safari guide put it: "if you cannot kill them, they will kill you."  Of course, there was no hunting happening on my trip or any evidence of it in the area.  But as you are probably aware, poaching of these amazing animals is still a huge problem.

I will share a very small subset the pictures I took on this safari.  It was incredibly beautiful, and gave me a whole new respect for these animals, as well as the Masai people who have lived harmoniously with them for millennia.  The Masai do not hunt game for food, relying instead on their livestock, traditionally cattle.

Zebra with some friends

Cape buffalo

Eeland antelope.  Big!

A young giraffe in a hurry to join its buddies

A "tower" of giraffes.

A "journey" of giraffes

Ostriches!  Male and female.

Bones were everywhere.  The "circle of life" thing right before your eyes!

The male leopard, well camouflaged in a tree, looking fierce while resting.

A toppie antelope licking its chops

Lionesses on the hunt!

Dik dik!  The most petit and adorable of all antelopes (that I know of).

White rhinos!

Hippos of various sizes

Hippo play?

On a Masai Mara run with David and Chris - through the same area where we saw the lions hunting the previous evening!

Stopping by a Masai Village

Scenes of daily life as we drove from one game area to another

The lions lounge about

That face...

We found a mother with 3 cubs.  I have so many more pictures of this...

Awww. <3

Dramatic clouds as a storm builds behind us

The nature photographer at work!

A cheetah also enjoying some relaxation.   Big cats are only active a few hours a day.

Coming back through torrential rain, massive mud holes, washed out roads, and local traffic

Sunrise on my last morning in Kenya

Hyenas and their breakfast

Mama leopard

Cub leopard!  Looks just like a house kitten

Jackal and its breakfast

Game driver Lecoco and our trusty safari-mobile.  He drove us through some extremely rough, muddy places.  Getting around was half the fun.  He also seemed to know how to find all the big cats!  In about 15 hours, I would be on a plane to Amsterdam.