My day starts around 6:30am just as the sun is coming up. Christy and I go for a morning running. We just started this a few days ago. For Kenyans it is a jaw dropping phenomenon. Everyone stops what they are doing and stares. People come out of their house just to watch us run by. Children walking to school think it is amusing to run along side of us. They run for a good while considering they are carrying heavy backpacks. The scenery is beautiful but every once in awhile we are slowed down by a heard of cows crossing the street, and all the loose goats roaming around.
After a quick shower I head to breakfast. It’s a light meal consisting of tea (not like American tea though, they use boiling milk instead of water), bread and biscuits (thin cookies).
My morning commute is a two minute walk. It’s nice not having to worry about the heavy traffic on I-471 in the morning! My co workers, Ernest and Sam, roll in between 8:30 and 10:00. They are definitely on “Kenyan time.” Throughout the day inpatients, out patients, and HIV clinic patients come by for their x-ray and ultrasounds. Nobody has appointments, its first come first serve. Usually five people all show up at one time, then after they are done we don’t do anything for the next hour. Lunch is from 12:30 to 2:00. Pretty much the whole hospital shuts down except for a few nurses. I go back home and have some lunch then come back around 2:00. I’m enjoying the 90 minute lunch break! The work days concludes at 5pm. X-ray staff is “on call” for the rest of the evening, but since I have been here we’ve never been called in.
After work I head to the orphanage, Dala Kiye. It’s just down the road from the hospital. Over sixty kids from about four years and older live there. They all are HIV positive, and have lost patients due to the AIDS epidemic. With that being said these are the happiest group of kids I have ever seen. They are always running around, playing and laughing. After being at the hospital all day seeing so much suffering, it is good to see the kids who are so hope filled. All the kids are on antiretrovirals and go to school. These kids are the highlight of my day, we usually end up playing soccer of reading books.
Around 7:00 I head home. I arrive just in time to see the sun set. It is stunning every single night. Its just this huge orange ball dropping into Lake Victoria.
I wash the days dirt off my feet and head to dinner around 8:00. Dinner is an international affair. The dinner table consists of two Italian priest, one Kenyan priest, one Kenyan brother, one Hungarian surgeon, two long-term Italian volunteers, Christy, and me. Everyone speaks English for the most part but language barriers definitely exist. After dinner we read the newspaper, play cards, of just hang out and chat.
I’m exhausted by the end of the day and crash early. I tuck myself into my mosquito net and call it a day!
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