garissa day 1

Hotttttttttttttttt

We all heard it would be hot in Garissa (north-eastern Kenya), and it's true, we all feel like our skin is melting, and that the constant coating of sweat and dust seems to be a magnet for the amazingly diverse insect population. But hey, we chose to come here and we'll get used to all that.

By the way, I'm writing this from Erin's blackberry which got amazing reception along the 6 hour drive from Nairobi to here...technology is pretty amazing. My friend Christine who we're staying with, graduated from the Univ of Nairobi med school last year and chose to be posted in Garissa for the past year, which shocked her friends and family since it's a pretty harsh place, but she says amazing things like "if it wasn't me to go there, who else??". She just got a new job starting in a couple weeks where she'll be the MOH (minister of health), overseeing all public health projects in a large area, including one of the biggest refugee camps in Dadaab (called Hagadera), where she's taking us tomorrow (to stay and work for about 10 days)!

Our trip here from nairobi was classic, which means that there is no air conditioning and you get at least one flat tire, and to really top it off, we decided not to refill the half-empty gas tank when we came across a petrol station because a man on a donkey cart selling sodas told us we only had 120km to go. As we watched the gas gauge continue to drop with nothing in sight other than stray packs of camels and occasional mud-hut villages we got a bit worried. Erin has been catching up on that old show Alias lately, so she was planning what martial arts moves she might have to try out if we ran out of gas, and I was worried that josh wouldn't be much help since he was nearly passed out from the heat. Anyways, we made the last 30km by cruising on neutral, passers by that we stopped to ask told us garissa was 170km, 80km, 120km, 8km, and 10km (in that order)...needless to say we were pretty ecstatic when we saw a big sprawling town come in to view!

Lesson of the day, when driving on a road in Kenya or elsewhere, and it's getting to be late-afternoon or early-evening, and this road is known to be unsafe at night, fill up the gas tank whenever an opportunity presents itself.

I'll post pictures as soon as I have access to internet on my computer!

Happy birthday nara and karli!