Back in Boston

I safely returned on Sunday after leaving Zanzibar 30 hours earlier! Thanks again to all of you who have followed along and commented! It was so nice to know that so many of you were interested in what I was doing in Kenya.

The Sun!

The sun has come out in Zanzibar! Its a beautiful place! I have now been to all the oceans in the world, and swam in all the swimmable ones!

Masai Mara

My trip to the Masai Mara did not go exactly as anticipated, there were a few bumps along the road, both literally and figuratively. But what would a trip to Africa be without a few unplanned adventures?!

The drive to the Mara took about 4 hours from Kijabe, about half the time is on “paved” roads and the other half is on dirt roads. The second half of the drive was very cool in that there were lots of Masai villages and camps along the sides of the road. They are very beautiful as you drive by, you see the bright colours of the Masai clothing along the sides of the roads. The homes tended to be very primitive, most were mud huts, some had tin roofs held down with stones, but many were made of mud as well. In the center of each group of houses was a fenced in circle for their animals.

Arriving at our lodge in the Mara was quite a change from life in Kijabe, we were greeted with warm cloths to wash our faces, fresh mango juice and of course tonnes of food on the buffet! I unfortunately got sick the night we arrived so I didn’t get a chance to enjoy much of the food. It also meant I missed two of the four games drives, which was really disappointing. I was thankful that I had gone to Lake Nakuru the weekend before as we had been able to see so many different animals there. The Mara is also such a big game park, so the safari experience was very different from Nakuru, in that we would drive for long periods of time without seeing any animals.

What I did experience in the Mara on one of the game drives I was able to go on, I will likely never forget. It was the first elephant we had seen, he was a large male, all alone eating grass. We were able to get quite close to him and were taking pictures and watching him, when all of sudden he became very agitated and upset. His ears came out and he turned and began to charge our van. To make matters worse, the van would not start as we had been having problems with the battery all day. We all really thought we were going to be trampled to death by an elephant that day. Fortunately he stopped about 6 feet from the van, watched us for a while longer while we cowered on the floor of the van, and then slowly began to walk away. It was probably one of the scariest moments of my life. And has changed my perspective on elephants entirely. The next day when I was sick, the girls did see more elephants in a heard and had a much more positive experience, I’m sorry I missed that. I was feeling better the last morning, and was able to go on our last game drive. We saw lots of giraffes that morning as the sun rose, it was very beautiful.

the elephant right before he started after us

I’m now in the not so sunny Zanzibar, with fingers crossed that the weather will improve. It can’t rain for 3 days straight, right?

Last Day in Kijabe!

Its hard to believe today was my last day at CURE. Before I arrived, two weeks seemed like a relatively good length of time to visit. But these two weeks have flown by! I have learned a lot about Kenyan culture, disability and disability services as well as being again reminded how fortunate I am to live and work in North America. I also have a great list compiled of what to bring the next time I come! =)

This is the rehab team, Elvis the OT on the left and David the rehab assistant on the right.

I am now on a week of "vacation", three days in the Masai Mara and then five days in Zanzibar! I can't wait!

Disability Services in Kenya

Yesterday I had the opportunity to travel to Nairobi with a team from the hospital to see what other hospitals are offering with respect to rehab and what equipment they have. CURE has been invited to put together a proposal for a therapeutic play room and so we went to do some research.

We were gone for over 12 hours, so it was a very long day. But I really enjoyed it and learned a lot! I love learning about disability services, and it was great to see what Kenya is doing. We visited three different facilities, as well as a bunch of shops to pick up hospital supplies and to price items for our proposal.

First stop was the Association for Physically Disabled in Kenya. They had a very modern rehab department that looked very similar to anything you might find in North America, if not nicer. The funnest part for me was their wheelchair workshop. They manufacture all of the custom wheelchairs for Kenya. For all you wheelchair people out there, check out the front castors on this chair! They know how to make chairs for rough terrain!

We also visited Gertrude's Children's Hospital, very nice also with a great rehab department and very friendly staff. I was very popular yesterday with all the Kenyan OTs we met! I love meeting other OTs, no matter where I am in the world!

Our third stop was a private hospital that looked like a 5 star resort from the outside. It had marble floors, balconies. Very chi chi! However, besides their hydrotherapy pool, they don't really have any OT services. Overall, a GREAT day!

I'm not usually a flower picture taker, but this is a real life poinsettia tree! They grow everywhere around here and apparently are always flowering, not like us at Christmas!

Lake Nakuru National Park!

On Saturday I traveled to Lake Nakuru National Park with some friends who are working at Kijabe Hospital. It is about a 2 hour drive from Kijabe and is a small game park, home to both black and white rhinos as well as flamingos. Here are a few pictures of some of the many animals that we saw! We had a fantastic day and we fortunate to see so much more than just that, even our driver agreed we had a very lucky day!

a rare black rhino, it crossed the road right infront of us!

a pride of female lions

a family of white rhinos

hyenas

cape buffalo and antelope

the lake of flamingos (the picture doesn't do it justice, it was so beautiful!)

Clubfoot Clinic

Today was my first clubfoot clinic! We literally saw about 25 kids in a few hours. Most of their current caseload have finished with the casting portion and are now on the maintenance part in which they wear special shoes to maintain the correct foot position. At first its all the time, then its only at night as to not limit motor development. I also was able to watch a few tendon release procedures which was hard because the babies were screaming and in some cases the parents were crying too.

One of the coolest parts of today was that we had a few babies come in who are at part of the Masai tribe. It was like I had stepped into National Geographic. I wish I could take pictures, but we are not allowed and it would be quite unprofessional. It took everything I had not to stare the whole time! Its amazing what they can make their ears do. I really didn't know it was possible.

Tomorrow I am headed to Lake Nakuru National Park in hopes of spotting some rhinos! (and other animals of course)!