Jambo!

You would not believe where I have just been and what I have seen!  Kenya has about 42 tribes--the Kikuyus predominate in Kijabe and Nairobi but in the Rift Valley here, the Maasai tribe predominates and has ownership of a 700 square mile plot of land called the Mara (literally means "spotted"  and comes from the plains being spotted with only occasional acacia trees).   You might have some idea of what they mean when you see the plains from the mountain:

We stopped by a Masaai village during one of our game drives.  I was told that you don't mess with these dudes--they'll go after lions that mess with their cattle and are circumcised without flinching at the age of 16 (if they show emotion, they're considered weak and become outcasts, unfit for marriage).  Thankfully they like technology and seeing themselves in pictures:


 I drove to the Mara on Friday (miraculously made it--the roads to get there are amazingly bad.  At more than one point the hood of the little Toyota that my driver was using was submerged in water.  How it made it, I have no idea--he assured me that "I do this all the time").  When I finally made it to the safari camp (Fairmont), I was surprised by the luxury of it.  You're greeted with a warm face towel and some tasty mango juice and the staff...good grief, the staff were amazingly good at anticipating your wishes.  It really felt strange after spending 4 hours on cratered roads to get to the remote location.  After all of the recommendations to go to this safari camp, I arranged to go to Fairmont through a coordinator at Tenwek mission hospital.  It turns out that that was a very good thing because I received the "Tenwek" price which they give to medical missionaries...$150/night.  That includes 3 meals and two game drives each day.  Amazing!  Normally it's $500/night.  The other benefit of going through the Tenwek coordinator was that she inadvertently introduced me to an anesthesiologist and his son from Indiana (Magdy and Mina--Egyptian names) and a gastroenterologist and his wife from Alabama (Chris and Lois).  Being so like-minded in medicine and faith made it a lot of fun and an even more enjoyable experience--a lot of great stories going around.  Magdy and I read Scriptures in the early morning before our game drives.  It was a fantastic Easter.

White rhinos are apparently pretty docile and this one was kind enough to let me take his picture.  Shortly thereafter the little guy made after me thanks to the cackle of one of the girls in our Land Rover. 

Tomorrow morning I am lecturing before chapel to the nurse anesthetists on perioperative thermoregulation and shivering.  One of the head anesthetists asked me to lecture on something tomorrow morning (at the end of the day today), so they're not getting anything new from me!  I presented this material in Puerto Rico a few years ago and dug up a powerpoint from the e-mail archives.  This last week I am walking around the operating theater with a camera slung about my neck taking pictures at whim of people, patients and equipment.  I don't want to leave without a ton of pictures to journal my experiences here.  Speaking of pictures, I have taken over a thousand and will probably take a thousand more before I am home.  I will likely post a link to a Picasa website with my uploaded pictures, once I am in a country with more robust internet activity.  For now, these will have to do.