Arrival at Tenwek

Just arrived at Tenwek Hospital a couple of hours ago! I managed to get a grand total of two hours of sleep during my 22 hour plane saga, and was picked up by a driver from the guest house I was staying at in Nairobi from the airport. He said he knew I was his person to pick up immediately because I was smiling, and his "missionaries are always smiling." That was super cool to hear; just to know that I was still appearing to be happy and awake after all of that traveling, and to remember that I am a missionary here (and everywhere). Driving in Kenya is a bit crazy; there aren't any stop lights and people are constantly battling to squeeze several lanes into a narrow street or merge in and out of the roads, but no one uses their horn or seems to be rude about it. Traffic in Nairobi is not bad at night, but horrific in the morning. Also, nearly everyone speaks English in the city and all of the ad's, menus, etc. are in English. I know it's much less common in rural areas (they speak their tribal languages and sometimes Swahili around Tenwek), but it made getting around Nairobi really easy. Anyways, I slept for about four hours last night at the guest house and am only now seriously feeling exhausted from all of my traveling. But Carol, the surgeon I'm working with, picked me up from the guest house and took me out to breakfast at a local cafe. We then went to the baby elephant orphanage to see almost twenty elephants between the ages of four months and three years be fed and talked about by the reserve managers. It was so so awesome! The elephants were almost always within touching distance, and they were really playful, intelligent, and had distinct personalities. Definitely my favorite animal. The reserve managers have to spend the nights with them in order to prevent stress from the lack of parents, which have usually been killed by poachers and the babies are found wandering alone. On the reserve, I also spotted several baboon climbing in the trees, warthogs, and gazelles.

Next, we went to the giraffe preserve, where there was a sixteen foot tall mother and her two children at the gate, as well as numerous scattered around the preserve. And I got to kiss two of the giraffes! I know, so so exciting! People put a food pellet on their lips and then the giraffes come up and snatch it away with their tongue. The mother had a super long tongue, so that was kinda disgusting, but still really cool!

After that, we drove the 3.5 hours to Tenwek Hospital. On the way, we passed by Rift Valley, which is this huge sunken expanse of land that's absolutely gorgeous and inspired the Pride Rock scene of the Lion King...so obviously, I was incredibly excited to see it. We drove through so many diverse parts of Kenya; Nairobi has some incredibly rich neighborhoods, but also has one of the largest slums in the world. We drove past herds of cattle, baboons sitting on the side of the road, numerous small villages full of local shops and patched-together homes, and both plains and tree-covered hills. Tenwek is in the latter type of geography; it is so beautiful here. I arrived at the guest house with all of my stuff just in time for the communal dinner with twenty or so of the other hospital workers. There are three PA students from UK (I'm rooming with one of them) and our house mom is from Wilmore, which is awesome! So I'm getting ready to unpack and crash before I have to wake up early tomorrow to get a tour of the hospital and hopefully start some shadowing!