Photos have Moved

In response to some difficulties people were having in accessing the photos on Snapfish, I have moved the photos to a page on Shutterfly. This will allow you to view the photos without entering any personal information or an email address. They are password protected (just to make me feel better) but, as a Valued Blog Reader, you receive unlimited access to the password :)

All you have to do is go to:www.nelliestravels.shutterfly.com
The password is: zippy

Enjoy!

(Here's a Preview)

Photos are UP!!!!!

All of them.

So, ideally, I'd have a site that I could link you to directly and you could go view the photos. Unfortunately, I'm not that savvy just yet. The next best thing is that I've loaded them to Snapfish and you can view them there. Some of you have expressed your dislike of having to enter an email address to "sign up" for Snapfish, so I've created an email address and password that you can use if you don't already have a Snapfish account. Like I said, it's the next best thing.

So. Check these out. Let me know what you think, questions, etc.

The Site: Nellie's Africa Photos on Snapfish
Use this for the Sign-In Email Address: nelliesphotos@hotmail.com
Password: Kenya2007

Enjoy!!!

Photos!

I've loaded my photos (well, half of them) onto Snapfish for easy viewing. Click on THIS LINK to go to the album of photos from my time in Kijabe. I'm still working on the photos from safari; they'll be posted soon!!!

Finally Home

I have arrived. A day later than planned and exhausted, but home, nonetheless. Everything went smoothly (even breakfast in London!) all the way through customs and baggage claim in Chicago. Then I rechecked my bags for my onward flight to Charlotte, only to arrive at the gate and learn my flight had been cancelled. Three frustrating hours later, I left the airport to go to my cousin's house for the night. I got a flight out Saturday morning to Greenville (via Dallas!) and arrived Saturday afternoon. My bags didn't arrive with me, but they came a few hours later all in tact and I am thankful. All in all, I slept a total of about 8 interrupted hours over the 3 days (70 hours), so I'm pretty beat, but I am happy to be home. Phoebe was WELL taken care of (thank you Molly, Eli, Marcia and Scott!) and I'm so happy to have her back. Mom and Wil have been here and are getting ready to depart. Thank you ALL for your love and encouragment and prayers and support. I could not have done it without God's blessing me through you!

More very soon . . . including photos!

Love,
Nellie

HomeComing*

Well, folks. It seems my time at Kijabe is drawing to a close. I leave for Carolina tomorrow (Thursday) night. I'll have over 24 hours of travel and arrive in Charlotte on Friday night, where Mom and Wil will pick me up. I love the flying process. I don't love long flights, but I love airports and baggage checks and the eye shades & socks that British Air gives you and the whole bustling of terminals . . especially international ones. Thankfully, my trip is broken into manageable blocks (7 hours to London and 7 hours to Chicago), so it's not so dreadful as far as the flight goes. I even have a long enough layover in London that I'm going to try to leave the airport for breakfast. (Nobody panic, I've got research and a plan and I will be careful with my time so as to not miss my flight.) Because how can I pass up ENGLAND??????

I am ready to be home, this is for sure. But I will miss many of the people here. They have been so kind and welcoming. I have had a good time. It has been hard in ways I wasn't expecting and good in ways I wasn't expecting. I still have a lot to process. As I reflect, I've come up with some lists**:

Things I Am Looking Forward to on Returning Home:
1. My People (all of you!)
2. My Pup
3. Community Group
4. A Fresh Green Salad with Black Beans and Hummus and no worries about what microbes I may have missed in sterilizing the lettuce
5. Diet Coke
6. Some time at my beloved PCJ
7. Being able to order tests that tell me more of what I'm treating
8. Not having random creatures appear in my house and not having to listen to the lizard or mouse scamper on the ceiling every night.
9. Easily accessible communication (see #9 below)

Things I Will Miss as I Leave Kijabe:
1. The People here. Especially the nurses in the ICU who have been so fun to work with.
2. Bible study. Y'all. This has been such a blessing to me. I went every week, except for one and was blown away every week. I never would have imagined that a Bible study on Deuteronomy, that I came in the middle of, with a group of Kenyans that I didn't know, would really be all that challenging. But, oh was I wrong. It has been really really challenging and encouraging and refining. Sweet stuff there in Deuteronomy that I never slowed down to think about. And such insight from the Kenyan residents and students here. So good. I will miss it.
3. The beauty of the outdoors here
4. Falling asleep with the African wind whistling outside
5. Chocolate for lunch (somehow, that has felt okay here, but I'm going to have to cut it out when I get back)
6. The International-ness of everything here
7. Samosas***
8. The Letchfords
9. Limited access to communication (see # 9 above)

So. There you have it. I'm coming home. I'm ready. I hope to see you all soon!

Thank you for your encouragement and prayers and love during this time. You have all been a blessing to me.

For those who are interested in sticking around, I will plan to post either pictures or links to a picture-viewing location once I return and get them organized. So, check back!!!

Love from Africa,
Nellie

*Title borrowed from a Rebecca email. (Thanks!)
**By no means completely comprehensive and not necessarily in order of importance
***Which, apparently, according to one Prashanth Kamath, are actually Indian in origin.

Moments

I went out yesterday with one of the doctors here (a Brit!) to see some of the patients who are on hospice in their homes. . . .

Funny Moment: We were visiting with an elderly man and his family. Despite his cancer of the tongue and his recent stroke, he was outside on the shamba (land) pulling up roots and working. We finally convinced him to sit down in a chair outside and visit with us for a moment. Dr. Besley and the nurse asked his son and daughter-in-law about how he was doing, pain control, etc. After a few minutes, I was startled by vigorous moo-ing as the family cow appeared around the corner to chime in his opinion.

Surreal Moment: Sitting in the vehicle with Dr. Besley and Nurse Margaret and Driver Moses trying to figure out where we were going. We were in the middle of a dirt road junction behind a tea factory asking a lady for directions in Kikuyu while the radio blared Randy Travis singing "Like a Rose" (?originally recorded by Michael W. Smith).

Country music in Africa is really amusing to me.

Sweet moment: Barrelling down the "highway" in the "ambulance" (which is a Land Cruiser) and Dr. Besley, Margaret, Moses and I all simulataneously burst into song with the radio singing "He has Made Me Glad".

I'm Definitely Not at Home Moment: Stopping for lunch in Kamende at a place called "Sunshine Cafe" that has a big thing of raw meat hanging in the window and they brought us a board with a couple pounds of roasted meat - all the parts - and cut it up in random pieces and all 4 of us just ate the pieces off the board with our hands. Add some oujey (?sp) which is kindof like creamofwheat that is a little more dry and that you eat with your hands and that was the meal.

All in all, a good day. I got to see more of Kenya, maybe a little more rural/typical than here in Kijabe which is considered "urban". And I got to listen to Dr. Besley's brilliant accent all day. And I got to do some more exciting "off-roading". And we got to visit some patients, which, actually, meant a GREAT deal to them.

Taking Calls

I'm on call tonight. It's my last time on call in Kenya. Also my last call as a resident. Except that I'm functioning as the attending, really. So I don't know if that counts. In any case, I already celebrated my last call on MTS in the States back a couple months ago, so I'll go with that.

I've learned some new lingo here that I thought you'd all like to know. It's very important in medicine to be able to ask patients questions in terms they understand, and bathroom terms are no exception. I have found the terminology here to be a little amusing at first, but then, actually quite useful. So, Kenyans . . . almost across the board . . . refer to going to the bathroom as "going for a short call" or "going for a long call". Patients always looked at me funny when I asked if their bowels were moving okay, but when I finally started asking if they were going for long call okay, they got it and answered the question appropriately. Hey, when in Rome . . . :)

One thing that I will be grateful for when I return home is being able to understand what people are saying to me from the other end of a phone call. Today, I thought I would be helpful by calling Radiology myself to request a STAT chest xray on a patient who wasn't looking well, rather than waiting for the nurse to do it since she was tied up. So, I paged the radiology tech on call and requested my stat xray. He was, apparently, then asking me if the patient was an adult or a child. But I didn't get it and thought he was telling me he couldn't come do it, so I kept asking him to repeat and he got mad and yelled a little bit. I felt really bad. I'm trying, though. At least, now, when someone calls and I answer and they say "Habari" (How are you?), I don't answer "habari". I actually say "mzuri" (well). But then sometimes they start off into Swahili or Kikuyu and I have to get someone else to come to the phone.

Alright, well, things have settled down, I'm going to see if I can go spend some time at my neighbor's barbecue. It's Kenyan Independence Day today.