Last Thoughts

As I prepare to leave tomorrow morning to begin my journey home, I have a few final thoughts on my time here.

Random Thoughts 

With Wesley, the baby whose delivery I watched
and helped with

• One of the other students hit the nail on the head when they said that driving in Kenya is like live-action Mario Kart. There are obstacles that come out of nowhere (cars, cows, children), people driver faster than they should, lanes don't really exist, and cars pretty much play chicken when they pass. I'd say it's a miracle people don't hit each other, but I saw too many motor and pikipiki accident cases in the hospitals to know that's not true.
• I realized on safari that the first day Geoffrey taught me Swahili, the first verbs he taught me were the most important ones (for me): kula (to eat), lala (to sleep), and soma (to read).
• There were so many great and interesting things that I saw at the hospital, but the natural birth was probably my favorite. I'd been waiting the entire trip to see one and I'm so glad I managed to see one on Friday. It was just the midwife, mother and I and it was awesome. I even got to wrap up the new baby boy and hold him up the mother was ready. :D 

With Geoffrey in the lab

Things I'll Miss 

• Being able to do all the medical things I can do here, but not in the U.S... yet.
• All my friends at the hospital, especially the guys in the lab and Bobby in the pharmacy. I have some of the greatest conversations with them just waiting for patients to show up.
• Being able to just buy a delicious mango from a street vendor for 40 cents and scoop it out with a spoon for dessert that night.
• Seeing so many different kinds of animals.
• My friends in the program, and not just the other students. I'm really going to miss Helen and Judy.
• So much sunshine.
• Kenyan soap operas -They were always on in the hospital waiting room, and even in the house sometimes, and they were just so completely ridiculous. The acting, writing, and plot were always atrocious, the kind that's so bad it's good. The best were the Spanish soap operas that were dubbed into English. You could just listen to them playing in the background and start laughing.
• Helen's donuts -we sometimes called them "crack donuts" because they sort of became addicting. They're not quite Marty's, but close when they're hot.
• Walking by all the street vendors, especially the ones selling fruits or fabrics.
• Mirror dancing -one of the best parts of going to the club was watching the Migori guys dance with themselves in the mirror. Absolutely hilarious. 
• The funny English typos we see on signs all the time.

Thing I Won't Miss  

Harry, our friend who lives in the house and eats insects

• Being stared, whistled, or yelled at every time I go out.
• All the relationship questions that are usually the first or second thing people ask me. E.g. "Are you married? Why aren't you married? When will you marry? How many kids do you have? Exactly how many children will you have? When will you have children?" And, of course, the inevitable, "do you want to marry/have kids with an African?"
• Pillows that are just an inch thick.
• Slow internet -this is especially a problem when one is trying to finish their CASPA application, like me.
• The almost daily power outages -considering our computer here is a desktop one that doesn't have battery power, these power outages often strike right in the middle of a long email or photo upload and you lose everything.
• Feeling like people just see me as a big money sign, forcing me to haggle for good prices and mistrust most people I meet.

Things I'm Looking Forward To

Christian, Judy, Andrew G. and I in Maasai Mara

• Being able to just pick up my phone and call friends and family, or, for that matter, just get in a car and see many of them face to face.
• Eating vegetables other than cooked cabbage and sukuma wiki.
• Chocolate! I really craved it the first week or so. There is chocolate here, but I've found most of the chocolate bars here to be too sweet even for my taste, so I had to settle for chocolate cookies. 
• Being able to call different schools and people because I had been trying to arrange for more shadowing hours and to take a class this fall, and it has been almost impossible to do via email. 
• The new Classic Crime cd -I was a backer for their Kickstarter project which means I get to download their new album 2 weeks early which is awesome, but that also means that every time I've checked my email this week I've been reminded that the download is ready, I just can't download and listen to it here because I didn't bring my laptop. 
• Being able to read or lay outside without ten or more children pouncing on me.
• Listening to music other than Hip-Hop, R&B, and Rap -I like songs and artists from all these genres, but for an entire month this is almost the only kind of music that has been played here and I'm ready for a break. 

Swahili Word of the Post

kwaheri -goodbye