Roast Goat

Hello friends and family,

Yesterday was a beautiful day, the sun was shining and no rain! My watch battery died the night before so in the mornings I judge the time by the number of birds singing outside (they usually start about 5 AM) and then will check my laptop. We always have morning tea and afternoon tea in Africa, left over from the colonial time. Africans love their tea, I of course am not a huge tea fan. Even "milky tea" as they call it, but I do like their "drinking chocolate" with hot milk instead of water, it's quite good. Yesterday when we went out for afternoon tea I was completely surprised to find a big chocolate cake with the words "Happy Birthday Meighan" on it, all I could say was "it's not my birthday" which of course is tomorrow but I couldn't think of anything else to say. They all sang Happy birthday to me and then a big group of women gathered round me in a circle and started singing a beautiful Luo song (Luo is a tribe in Kenya) and dancing around me. It was quite a wonderful experience. They told me afterward it was actually a wedding song but they didn't know what else to sing. :) Then one person fed me cake. It is tradition in Africa and also in India when there is a birthday to feed the birthday person the first bite of cake. Like I said, it was quite a wonderful experience.

Last night we went to the study coordinators house, his name is Ngure (the N is silent) for dinner. He has a beautiful house in a housing development not far from where we are staying. The houses in the housing development are a lot closer together than in the states, and have lots of concrete and paved stones on the outside and little grass. But they are beautiful. One interesting thing about their backyard, they have a tree that is pretty established already that their porch was built around, and I noted the neighbors on either side of them did as well. Rather than clearing the ground completely as developers in the states would, here they leave at least one tree per backyard and work around it. The tree provides necessary shade during the hot season. The inside of the house was beautiful tiles and wood on the floors. For dinner we started out with a pumpkin soup that was amazing, I think it was my first time having pumpkin. Pumpkin is very popular in Africa because it can grow quite easily so they eat a lot of it. We also feasted on traditional food such as a black bean and banana dish that takes 12 hours to make (traditionally, it is reserved for women who have just given birth because it is rich in nutrients), pureed peas and potatoes (very good) and many others. After we had finished eating, they brought out the choma choma, which is roast goat. In the Kikuyu tribe it is tradition to bring the prized meat out after everyone has finished eating. Then when you take some, you think "if I'd had known this was coming, I wouldn't have eaten so much." The roast goat was good, chewy of course, but good.

Today we are off to the Nairobi lab for presentations all day and then Saturday we go to the Nairobi clinic for their walkthrough, which will also take all day. On Sunday, I might be going for a game drive, Nelly the regional director might take me. Then in the afternoon, I am hoping to head to Rafiki, which is an orphanage for a couple hours.

I hope everyone at home is enjoying their evenings, it is about 8 pm your time, 6:00 am Friday morning my time.

April 21,2008 Two Great Days

Greetings friends and family,

The past two days have been great, especially yesterday....I'm almost hesitant to tell you because I know you will be jealous and it is so wonderful. I'll tell you about Saturday first (my birthday). We had our "walk through" at the site where they had to demonstrate to us various study visits to assess comprehension of study procedures. They had saved one of my cakes that they surprised me with on Thursday (there were 3) and so we had that after the walkthrough. They all sang happy birthday to me again and then sang a Luo song that I never got the meaning of. We then went back to the hotel where we were trying to arrange for a game drive through the park the next day. One of my colleagues mentioned to the hotel that it was my birthday (they were trying to get them to lower the price) and they asked me my room number. When I went to my room that night I found a large bouquet of roses and a huge fruit basket and cookies with a card from the staff wishing me happy birthday. At dinner that night, the staff came out with a piece of cake and on the plate they had written "happy birthday meighan" in chocolate. It was very nice. I felt very loved and taken care of. It's always hard to be away on your birthday but when friends and strangers make a big deal about it, it's nice.

Then on Sunday came the big day! We had hired a driver and car for the day to take us through the park and then to the orphanage and girls home. The morning started out rainy and we were worried about the game drive. The driver, Kevin told us that the "animals spirits would be dampened by the rain" but that hopefully we would see some. Well, we saw some amazing animals! I won't go into too much detail....but have some fantastic pictures to show when I return home. We saw, lots and lots of giraffes (at least 50), lots of impalas, heart beast, water buck, amazing birds, flocks (or herds?) of ostrich, zebras, water buffalo and a family of black rinos (mom, dad and baby). We then left the park, the sun was shining by this time and it was beautiful and headed to a elephant orphanage that is only open to the public for an hour a day (during feeding). All of these baby elephants were found throughout Kenya and were taken to this elephant orphanage to be raised before being taken back and released into the wild. You are only separated from the baby elephants by a rope and they routinely go under the rope and walk or lay among the humans and get pets and scratches. I got to pet and rub a baby female, the skin was very hard and the trunk felt extremely strong. It was pretty amazing. Then we went back to the hotel for a quick lunch and from there continued to "faith house" which is a home for orphan teenage girls run by a woman from the US. We then traveled to Rafiki house which is an orphanage that currently houses 80 children the oldest being in 4th grade. All of these kids are true orphans, with no mom or dad and live at the house. They also have a school that allows children from the area to attend and a medical clinic that is open 4 times a year with physicians from the US. They have an amazing set up for the kids and they all appeared to be well loved and taken care of. I had some neat interactions with some of them and played soccer with a 3 year old who didn't want to leave to go to dinner. It was a good day. Very fulfilling and worthwhile in many different ways.

I leave to come home in 2 days time. I will send pictures and tell more stories when I get back.