omg shoes

I’m a girl.  In a nutshell that means (stereotype alert!) I like bad reality TV, Gerard Bulter and can be a little crazy-pants sometimes.  It also means I like shoe shopping – as evidenced by the 5 ½ inch pink patent slingbacks I bought for an upcoming wedding. Oh boy, are those great shoes... But when I walked into Fleet Feet this afternoon, I knew I was in over my head.

Just a few hours after getting back into the states I was eager to get going on the marathon prep.  I went for two things, a new water bottle and a new pair of shoes.  The water bottle was easy, the shoes, not so much. 

First thing first, they had me run so they could watch my gait. For the rest of the time in there the man would not stop talking about how I run.  He tells me he hasn’t seen as pronounced of a forefront striker as me in a long time.  Well shit, am I running wrong?  I don’t know what else to do.  I went from a heel-striker, which led to shin splints after a mile and a half that would leave me laid up for days if not weeks to basically tiptoeing through the run.  Since changing how I run I’ve been shin splint free and happily logging the miles.  The man tells me, its probably fine, if that’s how I am most comfortable, but that he’ll be surprised if I can keep that up for long distances. Great. I haven’t broken it to him that I’m training for a marathon. 

Next we talk about what I’m looking for in a shoe.  As little as possible is my answer.  I may not be a minimalist in all aspects of my life, but its what I want in my shoe.

He pulls a few out in my size for me to try on.  Two from Saucony – the Kinvara and Cortana.  After slipping both on the Kinvara won out.  It felt good.  It fits well.  I jog around the store a little and am quite pleased with them.  

Next up, the Brooks Green Silence.  While it may look like a skateboarding shoe from the early 90s, this shoe has more than a few things going for it.  Scott Jurek, vegan ultramarathoner extraordinaire had a hand in the design.  And it’s about as eco-friendly as you’re going to get in a running shoe.  Less energy to manufacture than the average shoe, 75% recycled materials, breaks down in a landfill in a fraction of the time.  It feels just as good as the Kinvara and makes me feel just a bit better about the environmental impact. 

I finally told him that I was training for a marathon and asked if this would be a good shoe for the task.  An emphatic no from the salesman.  I must say I was a little surprised, and a little crushed.  He told me it just wasn’t enough shoe.  That if I was going to be doing that many miles a week I really needed “more shoe.”  But I’m trying to avoid “more shoe.” More shoe = more injury in my mind.  He brings me back over to the wall and started pulling out shoes that look like they could be classified as lethal weapons and starts talking about heel stability and my over-pronation, etc etc. He starts to lose me. 

I look back over at the Green Silence. Not enough shoe? But wait a minute.  Didn’t Scott Jurek run over 165 miles in 24 hours in these shoes?  Now I’m not pretending for a second here that I’m on par with that man.  But if its enough shoe to run 165 miles in one day, and its comfortable on my feet, shouldn’t it be enough for my measly little first marathon. 

Isn't shoe shopping supposed to be more fun than this?  Overwhelmed I left without new shoes, but I’ll have to figure it out sometime soon.  I've been running in Keens for 3 months. Not exactly an ideal. My long runs are getting longer and I need to try to avoid injury in the next couple months. 

Maybe I’ll just go barefoot.  

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malaria trial field visits

The second day I spent with the Malaria Vaccine Trial was out in the field with the community health workers.  Over the course of the trial participants are required to have over thirty monthly visits, most of which take place at their homes. Field workers spend hours each day travelling by car or bicycle to reach all of the participants.  The following photos are just a small glimpse of the hard work these people do day in and day out. 

A woman sits with her child as other neighborhood children gather during a field visit.

Stagnant water near the village provides the perfect breeding ground for mosquitos, which transmit the malaria parasite.

During one of the scheduled visits field workers inspects the mosquito net that has been provided to the participants as part of the study. 

Go Blue

someone hold me to this

Dropped some serious cash today on registering for some upcoming races. If thats not incentive enough to actually keep doing this, I don't know what will be but I could probably use some encouragement along the way this fall.  And lots of good vibes/prayers/whatever you do in hopes I don't get sick or hurt before these. The schedule so far...

Carrboro 10K – October 1

Duke Medicine Ramblin' Rose Women's Half-Marathon – October 16

City of Oaks (Half) - November 6

Outer Banks Marathon – November 13

hash house harriers

I write this post, mildly intoxicated from the beers I was forced encouraged to chug. I have just come from my first hash. And am a bit sad there is only one more to go before heading back to the states.  This was the most fun I’ve head running… ever.  The group was mainly made up of Brits, South Africans, Dutch and Aussies and we were scolded more than once for our American accents.  Rightfully so. The required calls on the trail, like “on, on” and “falsie” sound so much better from everything other than American accent. It really is quite ugly. But, I digress. 

We met at the Lilongwe Wildlife Center.  And split into groups.  Walkers, a short run and a long run.  I decided that because of my recent long run accomplishments I would go with that group.  Turns out there is a difference between running long and running long and fast. And the latter I cannot do.  But I took off in the woods with a bunch of Brits.  Long story short I pretty much got my ass kicked.  But I managed to not let that show too much.  We ran through the woods, ducking under trees, climbing over fallen branches, crossing rivers, not on bridges but on huge sewage pipes, occasionally stopping to let some folks catch up. 

They try to pace the runs so all the groups meet back up around the same time and then the drinking commences.  My friend and I each grabbed a beer and chatted for a while until we were all called to circle up. Various groups were called into the middle, and the newcomers were one of those groups. We were all made to chug a beer whilst the other sang a song of encouragement.  My friend was driving so beer was stealthily poured into my cup so I would be the one drinking instead.  Then again I was called into the middle. This time for a penalty. Apparently Keens are deemed inappropriate footwear and I was scolded for not wearing socks on top of that. My punishment. More beer.  Good thing my days at Michigan paid off, eh mom? 

According to Wikipedia, the constitution of the Hash House Harriers goes like this:

·         To promote physical fitness among our members

·         To get rid of weekend hangovers

·         To acquire a good thirst and to satisfy it in beer

·         To persuade the older members that they are not as old as they feel

These things they certainly did.  I’ll be back next week for more fun, though hopefully less beer. 

born to

As if the run the night before weren’t enough for this week, I decided to go for a long run this morning.  I think this was my longest run ever in my life.  Its hard to tell what my pace is at this point because, while I think I’ve greatly improved on an easy, flat course, the hills, the higher elevation, and the smoke in the air make this a very different run than Mombasa.  But I’d say I did 8ish miles.  I’d done 10ish in one day in Mombasa but always split into 2 runs.  I ran in the heat and the hills for an hour and a half today without giving up. And I did it, mostly, with a smile.  Maybe we all were really born to run. Even the ADD, asthma ridden, weaklings like me. 

 

In the evening I went to play ultimate frisbee with a bunch of other UNC folks and expats.  Many of the players were really intense which I was a bit unprepared for. I certainly got some speed drills in in those two hours. 

The best part of all of this exercise. Eating whatever I want.  I’ll work out like that every day if it means basically doubling my food intake!

my new run here

My run tonight was not what I thought it would be when I headed out.  I was going to do a quick 3 miles. I got a little bit of a late start and wanted to get back before dark so I could talk to my parents for the first time since getting here.  Instead of turning right out of our street ,as I have every other day here, I decided to see what was to the left.  The road ended a few blocks down and I found myself on a path headed downhill.  On either side of me there were fields and in the distance I could see plumes of smoke.  The light at this time of day is stunning here.  The orange light from the sun hitting the red earth is like nothing I’ve seen before.   At the bottom of the hill I hit a small river with wooden bridges over it.  They looked a little iffy so I walked across them, each wooden cross piece bending and shifting under my weight.  As soon as I got across the shouts started. Small children chased after me yelling “azungu, azungu!!’  Men yelled at me to stop and talk to them. They said they liked talking to white women and I should come back another day and talk with them. Women outside were doing laundry or cooking dinner.  From them all I got were confused stares or the occasional laugh.  I ran through the neighborhood, with kids laughing and skipping behind me. 

As I got to the end of the neighborhood my internal compass, which apparently needs some tuning, told me I’d be hitting the main road again.  When I didn’t see that road I thought for a minute about heading back the way I came.  But I wasn’t looking forward to the same attention so I pressed on.  When I hit the next intersection I again realized that I wasn’t quite sure where I was. Again I thought about heading back but my stubborn streak started to come out.  The sun was going down quickly and the last thing I wanted was to be stuck in an area I didn’t know, in the dark. I tried to remember which direction the sun sets when I’m at the house to get my bearings. I should have stopped to ask directions a dozen times at this point.  Or turned around, though at that point I wasn’t even sure I could find my way back the way I came. 

If this had been just any run I would have stopped to walk long before this point.  I would have found my way home and taken it easy.  But when necessary the body can do things the brain doesn’t want to do. I knew I needed to get home before dark so walking was not an option.  I finally found a main intersection but the trouble is there are no street signs.  I had no idea where I was.  I had been winding for so long I didn’t know what direction to turn. Again, directions would have been good at this point.  Oops.  I ended up picking the right way and after another 20 minutes or so started to recognize the landscape.  A man stopped me to ask for the time and I finally asked if the main hospital was up this road. He confirmed and I trekked that last uphill climb, my lungs burning from the smoke that filled the air, making it home just in time to see the sun set behind the hills.  I’ll be trying that one again, maybe with a little more daylight next time.

malaria vaccine trial clinic

 I spent a day at Malaria vaccine trial clinic, offsite from the main Kamuzu Central Hospital.  Here are just a few photos of a typical day at the clinic.    

Many women walk many miles to make it to these appointments.  They are required to come to the clinic for the first several visits to be enrolled. After that, the field team visits the family once a month to follow up. A total of 35 visits are required, proving a huge amount of dedication from the participants and the field team.

 

Mothers and their children wait in the corridor, sometime for many hours for their appointments.

 A staff member gives a sensitization talk, reminding the mothers about malaria, the purpose of the study and  the rights of all of the participants.  This speech, which ends in songs and chants, will be given at every clinic appointment.

home for the next few weeks

Just wanted to give you a little tour of my home for the next few weeks while I'm in Malawi. I'm staying at the UNC guest house.  The hot water, satelite TV and full stove have been pretty great changes from my time in Mombasa.  Though I do miss the sound of the ocean and the whole being able to speak the language thing... small tradeoffs I suppose.  There's a car (which I will not drive in this traffic), a graden full of greens, full kitchen, a dog, who is very cute but very flea ridden, and well, you can just see the photos. 



never go back

“Sometimes I think I’ll never go back to the US. The words are seductive, and once in a while I play with them in my head, a tantalizing refrain: never go back, never go back. Of course it’s all drama, because what do you fill that “never” with. You still have to spend the rest of your life somewhere.”

There is a bookshelf here in the guest house with tattered, worn books that have been left here by all the students before.  I flipped open the book Someone’s Heart Is Burning to the page with that quote.  And that is exactly where my head has been for the last month or so.  A few weeks ago, after I got past the halfway funk (I’ve spared you all that post), I started to feel like I didn’t want to go home. There is too much to do and too much to see here to leave right now.  Burundi or Rwanda would be a pretty easy plane ride from here and Eastern Congo would just be a thrilling motorcycle ride from the border there.  I started to look at how much money I have sitting in my bank account and fantasizing about how long I could wander before reality would set in and I would have to start paying on school loans.  The more I have a camera in my hand the more I realize that it is all I want to do.  And the more I realize that I’m in grad school because I didn’t have to balls to just do what I wanted to do in the first place.  It’s not that I don’t love public health – I do. And you can believe I still occasionally contemplate medical school – maybe in another life.  But I’m having a hard time convincing myself that another year – and a lot more in school loans – is worth it right now.  I’ve spent hours thinking in the last couple of weeks.  Ultimately I bet I’ll cave and find my way back to Chapel Hill.  I’ll spend the year doing what I want and need to do. Focusing on my photography/journalism classes, yoga, running, rock climbing in my free time (if there is any). I’ll have plenty of other classes to do too.  And a good deal of work work in the office, but I’m going to take the advice I was given last year to heart.  Take what you need and leave the rest.  If I can manage it I’ll travel again over Christmas and then it’ll be time to look for a job abroad.  I’m a wanderer.  That much will never change. But maybe it’s time to go back to home base for a little while. 

in malawi

Got here this afternoon after more than 12 hours of travel and was brought right to the house where I’ll be living.  I’m staying at the guest house of the UNC Project.  It’s pretty nice.  Hot water. A TV?! A real stove.  Seriously living the high life here.  There are a couple of other students here. Things politically have calmed down significantly in the last couple of days.  Word is the protests will stop for a month in order to give time for their demands to be met – not going to happen.  And I’ll be back in the states when they are set to protest again.  I got a tour of the hospital grounds and met with all the people I needed to meet with to get this photography rolling.  I start shooting tomorrow.

conflicted early morning thoughts

I am now sitting in the Mombasa airport. It is 1:15am.  The place is completely deserted. In order to get back into the waiting area I have had to wake up two people from what looked like a very lovely rest.  Security guards all around are sleeping, slouched back in plastic chairs, caps placed over their faces, heads cocked in unnatural positions.  There is music faintly playing from the other side of the large room and a crow cawing above.  The loudest noise is blaring in front of me.  I plopped myself down in a chair right in front of the television.  In a room lined with glass walled shops which are filled with over produced trinkets and duty free liquor, in the middle of wood carved elephants, tusker t shirts, cloth dolls, beaded bracelets and Old Monk rum sits 42 inches of flat screen tragedy.  Al Jazeera is on and with every change of the story I want to weep even more.  Bombings, massacres, famine, disease, drug overdoses, riots, protests, economic failure.  It’s all so overwhelming.  There are images on the screen of the famine in Somalia and the refugees pouring into Ethiopia and Kenya and I can’t help but notice that they look just like images I have in the photography books sitting on my shelf in North Carolina right now.  Images from decades ago immortalized on the pages from Sebastiao Salgado and James Nachtwey and others.  The same sunken faces and hollowed eyes.  Mothers unable to feed their children, children too weak to feed themselves.  People who have walked for days only to have to wait outside already overflowing camps.  This has all happened before.  Right there.  And the medium that I love so much, the one that I claim has the power to change, well what has it changed?  Is this really the powerful tool that I claim it is?  Whats the point?

I find my career choice to be similar, in a way, to medicine or social work. You go into fields like this because you want to see something change. Doctors want to do away with disease or pain. Social workers long for stable, safe homes for kids. I want to see an end to the injustices I see all around. But the truth is, if we all got what we wanted we would all be out of a job.  Our want would no longer exist. What would we fill our time with then?

During a debate in our Swahili class about whether war is ever justifiable (a difficult enough subject in english and we had to do it in swahili), a girl arguing that was can be justified finished a rant with "we need to be realistic about reality."  In a way she is right. It is childish and idealistic of me to think that war will ever not exist. In a way that attitide feels like she has given up. But maybe she and I just have different realities.

These are thoughts I struggle with and will likely continue to struggle with daily as I devote my life’s work to photography.  Ultimately I know that we need to keep working.  Because if I throw my hands up in the air now and think that if this is happening now so it’ll happen again so what’s the point in fighting against it I’ve failed. Many photographers have come before me.  And said all of this better than I can when I’ve been up for 20 hours.  I will photograph to make others see and feel and pay attention to what is going on.  I will continue to work because if I can create photographs that make just one person want to stand up and work against violence and injustice then I will have done some good here.  

the first day home

I leave for Malawi this weekend.  I still have a few weeks before I get back to the states but with most of the girls starting to get excited about going home there has been much discussion about what people are looking forward to the most.  We all have a dream for our first days back and I am no exception.  Some are craving bagels, some can’t wait to wear shorts in public, some have schedules pedicures and haircuts. Its not that this summer hasn’t been luxurious in its own ways.  We’ve stayed at nice hotels on weekends, we’ve been served dinner every night, we have a nice house with a fantastic view.  But there are definitely certain elements of home that are just not to be found here.  Like hot water for example, or fresh water.  The water at the house is essentially pumped right from the ocean so we’ve all been bathing in salty water all summer.  My hair has a texture that I’ve never experience before.  I have no idea what Malawi will be like but right now there is a perfect day in my imagination waiting for me in Chapel Hill. 

I plan to:

Get picked up from the airport and go straight home for a hot, non-salt water shower with real conditioner and will shave my legs with a brand new razor.

Go to chipotle for a steak and black bean burrito bowl with warm, salty, yummy chips and then to weaver for a grapefruit izze and espresso cheesecake. (I’ll go back to veggie right after that, but that delicious chargrilled steak is all I want right now.) 

Curl up on a couch in my pjs and my blanket in air conditioning, with all of my delicious food and watch a movie.

Then it will be a few jam packed days of studying for comps and travelling back to Michigan to see family before schools starts up again but on that first day back I want chipotle, cheesecake and chick flick. Who’s with me?

my running route

Again the photos don't do it justice. Especially that point that you hit the water. It was truly incredible.  Starts out in a small garden/park area and then goes right onto Mama Ngina Drive - a street of mostly government buildings, keeping the traffic low.  Once you hit water the road curves to the right and goes past a golf course and heads toward another big park area.  I miss it already.

one thing I will miss

Hand washing laundry: I know that seems strange.  Washing machines are so damn convenient and the time it takes to hand wash laundry could probably be better spent on other things – like studying or working on my practicum – but I really like it.  It’s relaxing and repetitive enough to allow me to sit and contemplate life and what the hell I am doing with it.  Lets be honest, I don’t know if I will miss it enough to do it when I’m in the States but I enjoy it much more than most here.  Enough to have maybe, possibly taken 40 or so photos of my last load here. 

soundtrack to the summer

When I loaded up my computer and ipod for the trip I knew I wouldn’t have space on this computer to bring all of my music.  I was also in the mood for some new tunes.  So I took a bunch of music from my roommate and a friend.  It was a pretty small selection of music to start with and what I have actually listened to on a regular basis is an even smaller listing.  This list is the soundtrack to my summer.  There have been plenty of other tunes floating around this house but these are the songs I listened to the most.

These songs also evoke memories of the trip so far.  On the drive back from Malindi through the lush green countryside, the window of the bus open and the wind loudly blowing around me while vast fields rushed by,  I listened to Junip.  Grace Potter and Rachel Yamagata remind me of working out on the roof with Katie, the women in the house behind us lined up in their chairs on their roof confusedly watching us work on our buns, guts and thighs and use water bottles for weights as we tried to kill more time after our runs to keep ourselves from stuffing our faces before dinner came.  The National and Bowerbirds songs  will remind me of sitting on the balcony reading or journaling or drawing in the afternoons.  Bon Iver reminds me of sitting on the roof with Elizabeth’s boyfriend’s pink pig guitar playing and singing. And Colin Meloy told me that “you must bear your neighbor’s burden within reason” at times when I needed that life lesson reminder in that crazy house of girls. 

Bon Iver – Skinny Love

Rilo Kiley – Silver Lining

Camille – Mon petite vieux

The Decemberists – Don’t Carry it All

The Decemberists – January Hymn

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals – Paris (ooh la la)

The National – Bloodbuzz Ohio

Bon Iver – Blindsided

The National – England

Rachael Yamagata – 1963

Junip – Black Refuge

Bowerbirds – Northern Lights

Junip – In Every Direction

Fleet Foxes – Montezuma

The Civil Wars – Dance me to the end of love

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emotional necessity

From the window of the coffee shop I frequent here I can see into a shop across the street in which men are carving intricate decorations into wood.  Immense objects like headboards, tables and doors are covered in elaborate scroll designs or precise geometric patterns.  I see the results of the labor all over town. As you walk down the streets in Mombasa you are surrounded by wood carvings like this.  Some pieces are brand new but a lot of it has clearly been there for decades or longer.  Signs of weather and time shaping and warping it even more. 

Watching these men work has reminded me of an article in Yoga Journal in which Bo Forbes states, “spiritual initiation is like a carving knife – it cuts and pierces, but also refines and reshapes you.  Initiations allow you to reinvent yourself completely, or to give yourself over to something greater.  They are windows through which you can glimpse who you really are and what’s possible for you.  They’re not just an emotional necessity; they’re a spiritual imperative.”

When I began this new journey in the spring it very much felt like an initiation.  I threw myself into it full force and immersed my whole life in the practice. In most ways I am not a different person from who I was a few months ago. I wouldn’t say I reinvented myself completely.  I don’t know that I think that that is a possibility. But I am trying to remind myself to do good work and stay on the path I want to stay on.  The carving of this wood, like carving out the life you want, takes effort, patience and acts of love. All things I think I could still use some work on.

go blue

Even 8000 miles away, its great to be a Michigan Wolverine

i'm just going to let lamu speak for itself

safari!

Thank goodness I felt well enough finally to go on the safari.  I would have been crushed if I had to miss that opportunity.  Anyone remember that scene in Jurassic Park where they come across that vast field filled with huge, lumbering brontosauri (is that a word) and other cool dinos running around.  It’s pretty much like that.  Seeing giraffe or elephants that close up is incredible. 

We went to two different game parks, Tsavo and Amboseli.  I recognized Tsavo from a really terrible 1990-something Val Kilmer, Michael Douglas movie about man eating lions. Ghost and the Darkness is a supposed-to-be-scary-but-really-is-comical adaptation of the story.  In the 1898, during the building of a railway these two lions killed a bunch of workers in Tsavo.  Theories about why these two lions started hunting men vary but they managed to kill 135ish people before they were eventually taken down. Now you can go visit them at the Field Museum in Chicago.  When I heard we were going to Tsavo, I made some of the girls watch the movie with me right before we left.  (I don’t know why I find it so amusing to scare yourself before a trip like this.  I watched The Descent the night before I went caving too, makes it more interesting.)  

We got up early and piled in our safari cars to head to Tsavo.  When we got in the park we did a short game drive. It was the middle of the day so we weren’t expecting to see much but it was a really overcast day so the animals were actually out and about.  The drivers in the park all have radios and talk to each other when they find something cool. Someone had somehow spotted a lion in a bush and we rushed there to find it too.  We could only see its face and some movement in the shadows at first.  We stayed for a while hoping it would come out but eventually decided to just come back in the evening. 

We headed for the lodge. We were told we were camping but when we checked in we quickly realized this was not like any camping we had done before.  The permanent tent structures had electricity and hot water and comfy beds and each one had its own patio and pool!  Yeah, this is camping.  We ate a delicious lunch full of fresh veggies and yummy soup.  For the first time in a long time there wasn’t anything fried on my plate.  We got to rest a little bit before heading out for the second game drive.  As soon as we got in the car the drivers starting booking it.  I knew we were in search of something but they wouldn’t tell us what.  We came up to a place where a ton of other safari vans were.  Everyone was looking in one direction but it took us a while to find out what they were looking at.  When we were getting ready for the safari I thought, no way would we see a cheetah. Lions, probably, cheetah, no way.  But there it was.  Hanging out in the grass.  We watched it sit there for a while then walk away into the trees and out of sight.  Of course a cheetah sighting just wasn’t good enough for one night so we drive back to the spot we saw the lion in the brush earlier. It had come out and was lazily hanging out in the grass.  I just wanted to get out and scratch its belly.  We say and watched it roll around for a while but had to get out of the park by 6 so we drive back to the lodge. 

The next morning I woke up and saw some shadows out on the field behind our tent.  Went out and just hanging out, eating breakfast we a herd of elephants.  Can’t really beat waking up next to a herd of elephants.  We made the long drive to Amboseli.  Same deal as Tsavo, morning drive through the park to get to the lodge.  Ambosli was completely different than Tsavo.  Tsavo had a lot more forest and brushland and while we saw a lot of animals, we saw them in small groups, and much closer to our vehicles.  Amboseli had immense open areas and much larger herds of animals.

Our lodging in Amboseli was not quite the luxury it was in Tsavo.  No private pool.  Shucks.  But the food was again fantastic.  We went on a drive in the evening as well.  Again, part way through the drivers picked up speed and in the distance I could see a dozen or so other safari vans.  When we got there I could not for the life of me figure out what everyone was looking at.  All I saw was this huge grassland.  A few minutes later I saw a head pop out of the grass. Then another. Then another.  Eventually we saw eight female lions walking along and playing in the grass!

Back at the lodge that night we watched a Masai dance around a fire and turned in early for a long ride home the next day.  It was one of the coolest weekends I've ever had.  There are a few photos below but you can see more here.

kuzungukazunguka

Say that ten times fast.  It's my new favorite Swahili word.  This language has an incredible ability to confuse  me constantly and and amaze me at the same time.  Kuzunguka is a verb meaning to walk around.  Nothing quite so special there.  Ninapenda kuzunguka barabara wa Old Town = I like to walk around the streets of Old Town.  But when you start to double up on words in this language meanings start to shift.  Joto, for example, means hot.  Jotojoto can mean really, really hot, or warmish.  (Doesn’t make sense to me either. But it’s all about context.)

When you double zunguka things morph a little bit more.  Kuzungukazunguka doesn’t mean to walk around and around.  Now it means something much more special.  It means to wander with a purpose.  When I first heard that definition, I thought it didn’t make any sense. To wander, to me, seems aimless, mindless.  To feel lost, either in space or in your mind.  How could that be purposeful? 

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized, that wandering is kind of what we’re all doing here.  There is no manual for how to live your life.  Some might cite a big old book or two but I’d say the interpretation is a little too wide for that to count.  So we wander.  We navigate this life the best we know how.  We make plans. Sometimes we stick to them, most of the time something inevitably puts us off course, leaving us to find our own way back.  I definitely feel like a wanderer most of the time.  But I like that. Truth is, sometimes, as much as I feel like I don’t know how to get there, I feel that I have a purpose, and am more or less on that path. 

I woke up yesterday and for the first time in weeks felt better.  I had completely forgotten what that felt like.  I started a post right after my first hospital visit but didn’t get around to finishing in time for my next hospital visit.  This whole experience went from kind of funny to really annoying to pretty scary and back again. 

If there is one event that has happened so far that I regret not having my camera it was during my little visit to the Mombasa Hospital.  The photos would have been hilarious.  Through all the pain I was in and the tears from that there was a lot laughter about the ridiculousness that was going on. 

I went to bed with stomach pain.  Not nausea, not gross travelers-illness type symptoms.  Just a lot of pain.  When I went to bed I thought I had a little heartburn from the platefuls of fried food that had just been consumed so I popped a Pepcid and tried to go to bed.   Enter six hours of continued severe pain.  Still trying to convince myself it was just a little upset stomach I took some pepto, I drank some water, I walked around a little.  Nothing worked.  I feel asleep occasionally and would wake up in crazy, wild, delirious fever ridden dreams.  By 5am I decided that this just wasn’t normal.  This was not heartburn, this was not something to be remedied by some pepto.  I went into Katies room and through some sobs woke her up and asked her to go to the hospital with me.  I wanted someone there to watch my back with meds and needles and the like.  We took a terribly overpriced tuk tuk and checked in, got some grief for not knowing my address here.  My professor has been running the program out of this house for 10 years and even she doesn’t know the address.  There is no address. 

I got triaged right away.  Got weighed on a scale that was in kilograms, tried not to do the math in my head (again, fried food left and right here people), had a mercury thermometer stuck under my armpit for the first time since I was about 9 (didn’t even know how to do that math in my head) and got shuffled right into one of the doctor’s offices. Told the man what was going on and what I had taken.  They laid me down on a table and he pushed on my stomach.  Through some tears told him, yup that’s where it hurts. 

They wanted to start an IV and take some blood.  Katie had my back through the whole thing.  But we both missed the fact that when the doctor come over to start my IV (because there is no way the bumbling nurse could have done it) he wasn’t wearing any gloves.  At least the needle was new.  There was a cap on the IV that they didn’t screw on tightly enough.  When it started gushing blood the nurse came over and yelled at me for messing it up. Great. This is where it all gets a little fuzzy for me. They pushed some pain meds so I was a little groggy the rest of the visit.  But not groggy enough

Let me tell you, there is no way to tell who is who at this hospital.  Everyone, from doctors to nurses to the person cleaning out the bathroom wears the same style and length white coat.  People kept popping in and out of the room, looking at me and walking out. All I really know is I never saw the doctor again. They told me they were running blood tests. I was getting moved from room to room every half hour or so.  Someone would come up to me and point down the hallway and tell us to go there.  Sure make the girl hopped up on pain meds and still writing in pain walk down the hallway a bunch of times.  After repeated inquiries into the results of my blood tests I was finally told they were ready and for me to go sit in the waiting room. 

Another half hour later I was ushered into the same doctors office I started in, but this time with another doctor. (I’m making that assumtion here but really it could have been anyone.)  She looked at me and said, “So, you’re feeling better.”  Um, no, actually I feel exactly the same. I most certainly do not feel better and if anyone would have checked in on me instead of just shuffling me around you might know that.  She told me my bloodwork (which was scribbled on a notepad in front of her) showed a bacterial infection. Sure enough that is exactly what the bloodwork said, but I could not figure out how this bacterial infection was manifesting and severe pain and not some of the other symptoms one might associate with a stomach bug.  When I told them I wanted a copy of the lab results she looked at me like I was insane and said she’d have to have someone type them up and that might take a while.  Heaven forbid lab results get typed up.  You just handed me a typed up receipt for this hospital bill, I know there are computers in this place somewhere.  I can wait.   While I was waiting they pushed some more pain meds, told me they might make me a little dizzy, and then told me to walk down the hallway to wait.  Awesome. 

I made it home with a bunch of meds that I had to google because I’d never heard of and I spent the next few days in slightly less pain than I had been in, then spent a few days actually feeling pretty good, then started to feel terrible again.  Within a week of the first hospital trip I was getting talked back into going again.  I was insistent on not going back to the first place so my Kenyan professor took me to the other private hospital so he could do the talking to move things along. 

Again, got triaged right away and was seen by a doctor not too long after that.  I brought along my blood work from the week before and they repeated the same tests.  I was then put back out into the waiting room.  At first this system of getting shuffled around and put back out in a waiting room seemed terribly inefficient to me but then I started to realize that it makes a sense.  I’m not so sick that I need to be in a hospital bed hooked up to anything.  I’m going to feel just as terrible whether I am sitting in a bed or sitting in the waiting room so they may as well free up that bed for someone else to use. 

When the results came back I was saw that they were even worse than the first week indicating that the antibiotics they put me on initially were not the right ones.  She was going to put me on something more broad spectrum and hope that that cleared it up.  It was a lot of waiting around there but I felt well taken of and had some hope when I left that I would start to feel better soon.

Within a few days of that I did start to feel a little better and then I crashed again.  I started to feel really groggy and exhausted and achy.  I went to bed early one night and woke up from crazy-delirious dreams, drenched in sweat and shaking with a 102.5 degree fever.  Thought I was going to die. Called my mother. She told me I wasn’t going to die.  It’s funny how much of a baby I turn into when I’m sick.  I love infectious diseases.  I’m fascinated by the body’s reaction to disease. But when something is ravaging my own body I’m terrified.  The next day my fever was gone but I felt exhausted.  Two more nights of waking up with fevers and just feeling generally terrible.  Every bit of knowledge I had about infectious diseases was screaming at me tell me I had malaria but I was sure the doctors at both hospital visits said I didn’t.  But the stomach pain had subsided and these were entirely new symptoms.  I went back to my lab results and turns out they didn’t run a malaria test the second time I went to the hospital. Idiots.  So I decided that since most of the malaria here is P. falciparum, and that is treated with the same meds I was using to try to prevent it, I would just treat myself.  Sure enough, 48 hours after I started treatment, I felt 100% better.  Now I can’t say for sure because I refused to set foot in another hospital for all of this but I’m pretty darn sure I was right about that. 

I do hope this is it for illnesses for me for the remainder of this trip.  I don’t know that I have the energy for all of that again and I’ve been missing my workouts too much lately.  Back to running again tomorrow!