Tenwek Day #4: Spend A Morning at Tenwek

So you'd like to know what it's like to spend a day at Tenwek?  Let's go...

My (our) morning starts when my roommate Luke's iPhone alarm goes off around 5:45 am.  Since we just got to bed around 3:00 am the "air siren" alarm was definitely needed to wake us after about 3 hours of sleep.  After untangling myself from the mosquito net and stumbling around the room trying to get dressed I was going to treat myself to a bowl of oatmeal, brown sugar and some dried fruit I brought from home.  I put a bowl in the microwave for a minute and went to brush  my teeth and gather all my computer stuff for the day.  Back to the microwave and all there is is soggy oatmeal in a bowl of water...  this microwave must require some more time, so I set it for 2 minutes and go gather up my camera bag, camera, unplug all the chargers and converters and run back to get my oatmeal...

Still a bowl of water and soggy oatmeal.  Wow, this microwave needs a lot of extra time, I punch in 4 more minutes and grab my hat, pick up my camera bag and the camera falls out on the table...  Good one Tom, throw it in the bag, grab your keys, take my malaria prophylaxis AND the bowl of soggy oatmeal in the microwave that isn't even warm to the touch.  Boy am I hoping the microwave in the kitchen is in working order.

Luke and I inhale as much coffee as we can hold, I get my oatmeal cooked up just right, THE INTERNET IS WORKING - YAY!!! check some email, feel somewhat connected to the world again.  Eric, my perfusion partner this week is pumping the case this morning so it will be a little more layed back for me.  Eric and Luke take off for the OR while I finish up a few more emails.  

Unfortunately, there's no time to blog just yet.  Time here at Tenwek is measured in whether or not I have enough time to either take pictures, document what is going on, photo editing, uploading photos to the blog or composing a blog post...  

I close up the computer and take off from the guesthouse to the hospital.  Its about a 10 minute walk.  The weather is beautiful outside, clear blue sky, green lawns, tropical flowers, a garden next to the guesthouse that the cooks use for the meals.  As I walk past Dr. White's home and turn the corner toward the hospital and walk up the stairs past the family health clinic, wait for the tractor and wagon to pass on the dirt road by the hospital and continue on to climb the stairs to the guard gate so they can let me into the hospital compound.  I greet them with "Jambo" (hello in Swahili) and they respond "Good Morning to You" (complete with the simultaneous chin thrust upward).

I realize that I'm breathing so hard I can barely breathe... I hope I'm not having a heart attack there's no room on the OR schedule for the next 2 weeks.  What is going on?  Maybe it will get better when I get to the hospital (...I hope I can make it to the hospital...) then I remember we're at 6,000 ft altitude.  Maybe I'll take an oxygen tank home with me tonight for the trip back in the morning  (Just kidding around honey, I'm fine  ;)

When I get into the cardiac OR Eric's got eveything under control and we take off for the canteen to get some chai and Mendozzi.  We've missed most every chai tea break at the hospital the past few days so I was all in favor of that.  When we got outside, it was starting to mist.  We're in the middle of the "short rain season" and we're getting rain every day for a few mintues.  On the way to the canteen Eric and I ran into Daniel.

Daniel is a scrub tech in the Tenwek OR.  He has helped our team every year we've been at Tenwek and has even had us into his home before.  Daniel is a great guy.  He shared his Ugali with me the night before when we were working until late in the morning.  Ugali is a staple Kenyan food made out of maze that Daniel grinds at his home and is cooked into a thick paste and eaten with beans or colored greens etc.  It was very good and my wife susie would have enjoyed the colored greens.

Eric and I continue on to the canteen and he treats me to some chai and mendazi, a kind donut type treat fried in oil mmmmmmmmmmmm.  While Erics ordering our food, I just can't stand around, gotta take some pictures....

This mother was in the canteen with her baby and she was fine with me taking a few pictures.

The little girl had an IV in her wrist so must be a patient here at Tenwek.  So cute...

The cashier in the canteen with the Mendazi in the 5 gallon buckets... 



What do they look like you say?  Here's a bucket full of them....

Good enough to eat, wouldn't you say?

This Kenyan gentleman was sitting next to us at our table enjoying his chai tea.  It doesn't get much better than this!

On my way back to the hospital I stopped by the back storage room to get some supplies when I ran into my friend Ann learing how to do the Kenyan handshake from Ruben.  So after I video'd Ann's handshake lesson I got a lesson of my own.  Did I really need to be counting the handshakes?  Poor Ruben, I about punched him in the face with the "thumb flick" he taught me at the end.  So much fun...

More later, back to surgery for our second case of the day...