Recent Excitement!

we have had a little bit of excitement here in quiet kapsowar lately, although most of it actually took place outside of town:

last week i went on my first dispensary visit. our hospital provides a doctor one day a month to seven small nurse run clinics in rural areas around kapsowar. the dates of the doctor visit are well known in the local community and the nurse often books patients to return on that day. the kiplombe dispensary is pretty well stocked and actually has a basic lab with the ability to analyze blood smears for malaria, and check hemoglobins and do urinalysis and a few other things.

the guy in the white coat is our lab tech joel

some locals (i can't talk about this girl's problem, but i can tell you that it wasnt depression)


anyways, on our way back to kapsowar we went through eldoret (the nearest major centre to kapsowar) to run some quick errands. after picking up some meds at the local chemist we were driving up the main street where micah, the nurse who came along to the dispensary, had to drop off some drycleaning. there was no parking available, so jonathan, our local nurse/optician/driver, stopped briefly on the side of the road. Micah jumped out of the passenger seat, leaving Gemma (a scottish medical student) and me in the back of the hospital land cruiser and jonathan in the driver's seat. about 10 seconds elapsed and suddenly a police officer jumped in the passenger seat and began berating jonathan. we tried to explain that our friend was coming right back but the police officer began yelling, so we started driving up the street assuming that he just wanted a ride. after a couple blocks he made us pull over and we breathed a sigh of relief... however he then demanded the keys to the vehicle. when jonathan initially refused he got physical and ripped them out of his hand. he then jumped out and walked away. jonathan apologized to gemma and i and then hurried after him. 5 minutes later they returned together and we began driving again. after a few blocks there was an explosion of swahili and gemma, micah and i were ordered out of the truck. the police officer was arresting jonathan and taking him to the station to book him!

to make a long story slightly shorter, we waited over 2 hours while it got dark for jonathan to return. we met a lady on the street who knew micah and also knew a local cop, so she phoned him and micah and the cop went to the police station to find out what had happened to jonathan. eventually he was able to post bail and return to collect us and bring us back to kapsowar, but now he has a court date in eldoret. for what, double parking? with the vehicle running? kenya is a lot different than canada! we figure the cop saw gemma and i in the back of a land cruiser and thought he could shake down our "driver" for some quick cash. too bad for him, as well as the rest of us.

kylie already mentioned our trip to eldoret on the weekend. we took a matatu there on good friday and got prime seats in the cab of the truck.
our view on the way there, a catholic march on good friday

on saturday we did some grocery shopping and then lugged our supplies to the matatu park to catch a ride back to kapsowar. unfortunately there was a conspiracy of circumstance rendering matatus extremely scarce. it was a long weekend, so many people were travelling home, and many matatus had been booked privately for weddings and other functions. also (like in canada) the police were out in force on the long weekend and many matatus were not driving b/c they did not want to risk a ticket or worse. so instead of the usual controlled chaos of the matatu park there was actual chaos. 50 people waiting and no matatus to be seen!

i was just on the phone with our medical director explaining that our return may be delayed when a truck pulled up and got mobbed. we figured this might be our only chance to get home but the whole truck filled immediately. luckily 2 local guys had taken pity on us mildly retarded muzungus (ie. slow) and jumped in the back to save us 2 seats. somewhat reluctantly we surrendered our backpacks to be tied on the roof and jammed ourselves into the back of the rusty toyota truck with our grocery bags. initially i counted 19 adults and their luggage in the back of the truck (think 19 people jammed into the back of fraser's truck with the topper on). after we passed the police checks (i guess 19 people is the legal limit) we stopped and let one lady out with her baby, only to admit 3 more!!! by this time there were also 4 or 5 people on the roof and we couldnt even see how many were in the cab. i literally could not move and kylie was jammed right in the back corner of the box. the saving grace was a window right by our faces for fresh air and a possible exit for projectile hamburger and fries (thankfully not necessary). kylie found the whole ordeal quite stressful and actually came close to a full blown panic attack, but aside from consoling her i actually quite enjoyed the whole experience... this could have been due to the fact that i had not one but two lovely kenyan ladies in my lap for most of the trip! finally we arrived home, squished and tired and dusty but still breathing, and most of our groceries were intact!

imagine all the people piled in the back of this!

for the last of our excitement, on tuesday night we had a goodbye party for gemma before she left for scotland. at one point she looked out the door and stated calmly, "oh look, that bush is on fire". i ran to her side to see a 10 foot high crackling blaze in her backyard. we started a bucket brigade and i rushed next door to alert the director, whose house was possibly in danger. luckily the fire was big but not that hot and we managed to control it before it spread along the hedges to the other houses! and no, the burning bush did not speak to us.
gemma taping her goodbye party (after the fire excitement)