No Big Deal

I really love Kenya. I do.

However I do not like the lack of health care and severely lacking communication skills.

Yesterday I made my first ever trip to a hospital. Not that I am actually sick enough to go to the hospital, but quality health care centers aren’t exactly plentiful here in Kenya (even though Nairobi is one of the medical centers of Africa- a somewhat frightening fact). Basically I paid a lot of money ( Kenyan standards which have recently become my own, not at all by American standards) to wait a long time, have my temperature taken, and to be handed a lot of medicine that I’m fairly certain won’t work. I’m pretty sure I have a worm living inside of me, and I’m pretty sure that my new Flora Norm medicine isn’t going to kill the bastard. Oh well. The uncontrollable burp fest that occurred for approximately 20 straight hours (a feat I never imagined possible, but oh it can, and it is not particularly fun), is at least under control for the time being, alleviating my classmates from having the smell the rotten eggs continuously coming out of my mouth. Gross I know; but if I had to suffer through it, so should all of you.

As far as communication skills; Our academic advisor decided to tell us TODAY that next week we are supposed to be going to our research sites to start getting ready for the actual month we are doing research. That means I don't actually have a place to live for a few days next week. In the next breath he also told us that I will not be allowed to go to the city that I had planned on going to. Fantastic. All of this info was known a little while ago, but like always- we’re not told anything because East Africans just seem to think that everyone is a mind reader.

So now I am planning on staying in Nairobi, where I can’t actually afford to live, and I don’t have a research topic. Fun.

I immediately decided that the only solution to my new problems was to take shots of whiskey. Too bad it was 9 in the morning and that would be inappropriate. Instead I’m just going to go see The Dark Night, sulk in the fact that I have a worm/amoeba eating through my intestines and doctors won’t help me, and that I am going to be homeless and stupid in a few weeks, and hope that miraculously NGOs, government agencies, and Kenyans start contacting me with the most valuable information in the world so that I can do my project.

On the upside, I found a place with fantastic smoothies and good cheese.

Oh, and tomorrow is my big Swahili test. Have I mentioned how I can't tell one word from the other.

No big deal.