kapsowar

our house is beside the red roof between the tall trees in the top right of this picture

as previously mentioned we have arrived safely in kapsowar, kenya. it is a small village on the western edge of kenya, just past the great rift valley and 60 km from the ugandan border. the local people are called the marakwet, a part of a larger cultural group that speaks kalenjin. swahili is the local trade tongue and people who have completed high school can usually speak some english. the marakwet are an agricultural people and the hills around kapsowar are lined with terraced fields of maize and millet. kapsowar is ~8000 feet elevation which provides a very mild climate. so far it has been ~27 C every day and 12-15 C every night. it is extremely sunny but we have not been burnt yet.

our house here is much nicer than we expected and even more than we had hoped for. it is a very simple, small, brick and cement house with 3 small bedrooms, a nice little kitchen, an indoor toilet and a shower that actually has hot water! as posted previously, the view is amazing. the kitchen windows and the back door look out onto a steep valley that runs all the way to the rift valley. right now the walls are bare, but our fridge (yes we even have a small fridge!) and our wardrobe door are covered with pictures from home. many of those who read this blog are represented there. we are planning to pick up some wall hangings soon and then we will feel more moved in.



i started working for real in the hospital today after a 1 day orientation (read - a brief but comprehensive tour followed by me wandering around talking to whoever i ran into). it is a little overwhelming learning a new medical system, different drugs, different illness and presentations and 2 languages (kalenjin and swahili) all at the same time, but the hospital moves quite slowly compared to the ERs i have become used to, so i feel like i will have had time to grapple with things. some things really scare me, such as obstetrics (if a woman actually comes to the hospital there is most likely a problem) and peds (same deal, the kids are usually brought in after they have been sick for a week and are comatose or close to it) but i will not have to deal with those until i am on call for the first time next week. there are 3 other general practitioners here and one surgeon but a different one of the GPs (or medical officers in the case of the 2 kenyan docs) will be almost always be on holidays while we are here so i will be doing 1 in 3 call and working every 3rd weekend. the other western doc is a missionary from the US who is here with his wife and 2 fantastic daughters (5 + 3). they had us over for supper last night and i think we will become very good friends. the other 2 docs are both kenyan, 1 male and 1 female... i have just started to get to know them but they are both very friendly and quite knowledgable. the medical director of the hospital is also from the US and his family has been quite welcoming as well.

kylie has been busy already setting up our house and getting to know our surroundings. today she walked an hour to visit an orphanage outside the village. it seems that she will have lots to keep her busy; she has already volunteered to run a day program for the local primary school kids out of the local library (i have not yet seen it, but kylie was impressed with their small collection) and has established several connections with local schools and is looking at doing some much needed organization at the hospital. if she is not careful she will be busier than me!

i suppose that is enough news for now. there is much more to tell but i know how intimidating big blocks of text can be to the multimedia generation. other than really missing niko we are doing about as well as could be expected. i will try to put up some pics of the hospital and surrounding area soon, but our internet connection has been almost nonexistent thus far. there has been one time since we have arrived that we got speeds in the kB/sec range, but often it does not work at all and if it does the data trickles in at 50-500 B/sec. aargh! often our mail program will identify 4 new emails but disconnect after downloading half of the first one. apparently this is currently a nationwide problem, so hopefully it gets fixed soon!