Mtoto alihifadhi chupa yangu ya maji baridi

Another weekend spent taking in the sights and sounds of Eldoret is winding down. A slow Saturday followed a night of dancing. Philip & I completed several more interviews and are drawing ever closer to the end of our schedule of interviews. (I neglected further updates since my earlier concerns about approval for our study. To fast-forward, though it didn't feel like it at the time, we have been making progress and do expect to complete Part One of the study in time to make our flight out of Nairobi. Further details to be found in written and hopefully published form... likely many, many months from now)

From there, I joined Anne in the dorm room of her friend, Lillian, whom she was taking up on an offer to teach ugali-making. Ugali is a staple of the Kenyan diet for several reasons, I'm sure, the most important being that Kenyans seem to really love it. We delved into Lillian's own ugali-making education, ugali preferences and pointers... and finally enjoyed a really good dinner. Dan, forgive me for having forgotten the name of the Tongan version of ugali, and please comment and answer me that question.


Sunday morning, we got up for the 10:00 mass at the Cathedral (pictured below with Margaret, who works at IU house, and two of her children) in Eldoret.


We were in a packed church, alive with music and praise. The whole of the service was in Kiswahili, and fast, so we were unable to understand much of what transpired. Luckily, mass format doesn't change much, so I was able to gather, then pass on to Joe, what people were likely singing and saying. The choir, on their third consecutive mass, was wonderful (listen to a few songs below). From what we could tell, there was an emphasis on addressing the food shortage in Kenya, so grocery/market bags were placed up at the altar during the offering, and there was a special collection for the food bank. I think that one of my favorite things about being Catholic is that we are everywhere, and often doing good work.










In the afternoon, we left town for a hike with Philip & Robina at Mlango Falls.



Always the gentleman... That's Philip helping Robina while carrying Anne's bag and the blanket that I insisted on bringing.



We followed a well-worn path downward following the course of the waterfall. The path quickly ended, and the four of us scrambled over a few more large boulders and had a seat. Nothing overly strenuous, Anne managing quite ably in the flip-flops I might have warned her against wearing. Moments later, literally from above where we were sitting, a young boy emerged, smiling widely in a what appeared to be a combination of the joy of climbing on rocks and the pride of being admired for doing so with such ease. To look at these kids, it is immediately clear that they spend serious time climbing around in this waterfall. The skin on their knees and shins is thick & scaly from hours of rubbing against and sliding over rock. They moved as comfortably on narrow ledges and wet, smooth rock as I once did on the flat, green grass in my backyard in Carmel, IN.


The crevice he first climbed down looked like something that I could manage. Only after barely managing it did it dawn on me that his ability to climb to or from a particular perch did not correlate well with my safety there.


There was no place amongst this massive assembly of boulders in the waterfall that the most daring of the group (on the left above) couldn't get to with ease. With only minimal exaggeration, he walked up a 30-foot vertical rock face with nothing but bare feet. Eat your heart out, Climb Time. The little baby down-climb you see me in below was legitimately frightening. He can be seen smiling down from above.


As we were climbing up out of the rocks, I dropped a waterbottle into the water. Lightning fast, he's out of sight... until a tiny hand snatches the bottle just as before going over and out of sight with the current. He and his friends were rewarded with all the snacks we had with us.

Last but not least, in an effort to keep some focus on our main purpose, though one of many, in traveling to Eldoret, a picture of Anne hard at work "clerking" a pediatric patient.


Tomorrow, we head west to the towns of Kisumu, Busia & Port Victoria for the early part of the week. We will be shadowing a Kenyan physician and soon-to-be Brown intern named Dennis. Hopefully, we will be able to repay his hospitality when he leaves his home & family to move to Providence and internship in June. Chas, sadly, Port Victoria will be the closest we get to Mfangano Island for now.

Excited to get home to see the Hoosiers in the post-season,

Joe & Anne