27th july

27^th JULY

DAY TWO IN KENYA OOO NA NA!

The journey to Siaya began at 5pm this morning the hour at which I was required to awake to be driven to the bus station.

Kenya at night is quite intimidating, all lights are turned off so as to conserve electricity , which means that we must use our torches to get around. I have a wind up torch and in just two days I have found it to be invaluable.

For some reason I have been convinced that I would suffer pure diarriahoea on this trip, my luggage is brimming with diarylte and rehydration tablets, BUT AT THIS VERY MOMENT IN TIME I NEED A LAXATIVE. I have stuffed my face with African food. The two girls that were looking after me in the Nairobi house are brilliant cooks. Last night after managing to stuff my face with chocolate, cereal and other such western foods, i was served a delicious, and I mean totally scrummy yummy meal of, perfectly boiled fluffy rice, pepper stew, spinach stew, with smoked fish and chicken. I finished my plate in record time and then set to work on the left overs. Well, after that gluttenous affair, needless to say im fat with food and unable to poo. Yikes.

Nairobi bus centre was busy, and the weather was rubbish, grey clouds and cold. Thanking the lord I packed my fleece and a few jumpers cos as soon as the sun goes down the temp follows. I am writing this on the long journey to Siaya, the journey is as long as the plane ride to Kenya!

I cannot even begin to describe the landscape! Breathtaking. There have been times in London when things have just got too much for me and I dreamt of escaping to Africa and running through savanna. I can do exactly that in Siaya. So far I have seen Zebra, Flamingos, sheep, and cows!

We have been stopping at various points along the way, for restroom use and snack buying. Man alive the rest rooms are grim, the toilets are long drops. One must hover over a hole, holding tight to your body all your clothing, so they don’t touch the floor or walls, and at the same time, accurately aim for the hole and pray that ya don’t piss on ya self. Success so far!!! And never have i been so glad that i over packed my bag with wet wipes not only for the obvious, but I am pretty sure that there are more germs on the soap provided for washing hands with than on our actual hands.

Umm Im not happy it appears that my smiley, happy, lets talk to everyone, is getting me ripped of big time! The tender here is shillings. To give ya an idea about the cost of things I bought a phone for 2000 shillings, three boxes of ribena for 135 shillings, popcorn for 50 which should have been 30. Actually I dono if I have the tender sorted out correctly in my head. Frieda actually said that she suspects that I will be ripped off cos im too nice. Lol. Also as an aside the Kenyan people use the term bob to describe money also. So funny to hear this expression over the radio when its a bloody cockney term. Lol. Right, im bored of typing and will complete this laters.

Oh god the bus ride to the orphanage was scary, I thought that I was gonna DIE!! As I said in my earlier blog there are no traffic lights or road markings of any sort in Kenya and in conjunction with the lack of level road surfaces, the ride was bumpy, long and involved a lot of beeping. I had a window seat and was convinced that the bus driver was too close to the curb and we were going to tip over into the irrigation system. Also my seat beat didn’t work, my seat didnt go back and I was so afraid of needing to wee that I have become dehyradrated.

We arrived at our destination –the children’s orphanage at about 5 pm after setting off at 10am this morning. The place was full of children!! They all ran up to the bus, screaming ‘how are you’ and waving furiously at us. The orphanage holds a total of about 37 children, the youngest being 3 and the oldest children about 20 years of age. I was supremely overwhelmed by the whole experience, I was ushered into an office and told to rest. But i wanted to see the children so i left the office and ventured into the main play area where every child made the point of asking me how I was, what my name was, what their name was and their gender. Believe it or not all the children boys and girls are pretty much smaller versions of myself. Lol. Gal feels welcome!!!!!!!

So i spent about 2 hours, after playing with the kids, chilling with a nun. Who managed to get out my whole life story out of me in under half an hour, -them religious folk –lol.

An hour later I was whisked off with a fellow medical student called Mo, to the house of one of the orphanage workers whose second wife had had a baby. Again at this village I was swamped by children! All seeming only know the phase ‘how are u’ lol. I single handedly managed to get them to form a circle and we played ring o roses.

Last stop for the day was to my to be home in Siaya. Man alive, when I said back to basics, the charity took me seriously. I live in a four roomed house. I share my room with another medic Una and we wash and urinate in a small out shed. The first time that I had to wee in this room I cried, I had to use my wound up torch to first of all check that there wernt any lizards, cockroaches or any other insects in and around the loo. I then had to wipe the loo down , then i had to angle the torch so that it was giving me light and then i wee-ed in the long drop, really trying hard not to fall into the 6 foot hole. This whole process took about 15 minutes. Showering was special, the water is kept in a tank above the toilet and is warmed by the sun. At 7 oclock at night, the water is no longer warm, actually its freezing, and so I had to wash my bits, my hair, and my face in freezing freezing cold water all the time thinking, -what the fuck am i doing this for. Anyhow, I DID it and managed to use the loo a futher 4 times.. Yay. Still bloody constipated thou.

Insects here are a nightmare, ive watched a lizard crawl over my luggage, ive killed two cockroaches and run away from countless mozzies. Everything has to be covered and even my luggage has to be sipped shut just incase a lizard makes home in amongst my primark goodies.

Ah man im beat, gonna go to bed. Tomo I start at the Dophil clinic and

GUESS WHAT

WAIT FOR IT

IM BEING TAKEN TO MEET OBAMAS GRANDMA who resides deep into western Kenya wooop. Gonna try get some pictures! wicked

Felt a bit homesick in the shower but all will be ok. Im sure.