I Have a Stupid Question...

The Vanderbilt cardiac team made it's way to Kenya in 2 separate series of flights. Those of us on the "first wave" left on November 5, 2008. The entire trip from Nashville to Detroit to Amsterdam to Nairobi would end 2 days after it started. Now that's some serious traveling! One of the many really cool things about this trip was that we all started out as professional aquaintances when we left Nashville... and we returned as family.

.

You can only imagine how excited yet completely exhausted we were at each leg of our journey to Kenya with little or no sleep on any of the flights. Each layover at each airport was 4 to 8 hours in length as we got closer and closer to our final destination in Nairobi where a bed and a shower was waiting for us at the Menonite Guesthouse. There we would get to clean up and rest up before we made the final 5 hour treck to Tenwek Hospital the following day via range rovers across the great Rift Valley of Western Africa.

.

The Amsterdam Airport Schiphol was very European, clean and inviting. Not much different from what we had left behind in the States. Landing in Nairobi however, was quite different indeed. The airport was much smaller and older. We were advised to not take ANY pictures inside the airport or of any airport security personnel. We were immediately ushered to a very long line to obtain our Kenyan VISA's where we became acutely aware of the very high humidity and temperature and the very serious demeanor of the airport security personnel. After waiting in line for over an hour to get our VISA's we made our way to baggage claim to try and find all of our luggage filled with drugs and surgical paraphernalia hoping we would make it through customs without anything being confiscated. When we finally made it to the vans, our drivers got us all loaded in as it started to lightly rain, and we were wisked off to the Menonite Guesthouse in the dark of night.

.

As we were being driven through Nairobi along what I believed to be the roughest road I'd ever traveled on, we were all trying to gawk outside the vehicle to catch glimpses of what Africa really looked like by the illumination of the infrequent street lights we passed by. From the very first moment I landed in Africa, I was amazed by everything around me and I wanted to just soak it all in - every last bit of it. I had a gazillion questions that I wanted to ask, I just wasn't sure where to begin. Not having any idea what Africa was "supposed" to look like, I told the driver I had a stupid question to ask... in Nashville it was not uncommon to see deer along the side of the road grazing. I wondered what types of exotic African animals we might expect to see hanging out along the side of the road tonight? Of course everyone in the van was quick to agree that it really was a stupid question... until Robb yelled out that there was a giraffe walking along the side of the road as we passed by. This is gonna be some kind of adventure!

.

We're definitely not in Kansas anymore Toto!