Forest Walk/Eldoret

This morning, after breakfast in the cottage, we went on a hike through Kakamega Forest. The view from the top of the hill we climbed was beautiful, and, a little higher up, got to go in to a bat cave! I almost wouldn't leave the cave because one of the bats kept flying back and forth in one part and I was freaking out. After our hike, we showered, packed the vans, and ate lunch. Then, we left for Eldoret; we're staying in Eldoret Club, which is like a Members Club type thing and it's really nice. Andddddd there's wifi! Yayyyyyyy! Again, it's not great, but it'll work, especially considering I got to Skype with all the fam at my house tonight for Father's Day (s/o to Mom, Dad, Marg, Nana, Aunt Polly, Uncle Stanley, Eddie, Uncle Donnie, Aunt Katie, Aunt Lorie, Uncle Keith, Aidain, Jo-Anne... miss you all so much, can't wait to see you next week!!!). Earlier tonight, we met with Joe Mamlin at his house a few minutes from where we're staying to talk about AMPATH; the program that he started here in Eldoret and that we will be working with for the next 4 days. He was about 80 years old and such a sweetheart and SOOOOO smart. He's originally a physician from North Carolina who started travelling right out of med school, helping to build up and support med schools in less fortunate areas of the world. I won't get into all the details of his life, but it was fascinating and one thing he stressed over and over was to "stay vulnerable". He told us that history is constantly changing the course of our lives and we need to stay vulnerable and not stick to one set path throughout life; to open doors along way, no matter what may be behind them. Life throws so many opportunities at us, sometimes without us realizing, and we just fall into place. Looking back, he never would have thought that after graduating from medical school that he would be in a tiny town in western Kenya, running a world renowned medical program focused on sustainability. Basically, he started out building a medical school in Eldoret (there wasn't one there to begin with) and then realized that the school was located in the middle of the worst HIV/AIDS pandemic in the world. He started to get grants from the states to treat HIV and in turn, started to educate the community that once stigmatized the virus to the point that even though people were dying left and right, they acted is if there was no problem. Today, they are treating over 3 million people in Kenya, and not just for HIV... the goal is to rid the country of "the three headed monster" as he calls it; hunger, disease, and poverty. Also, they are trying to prevent the new wave of chronic diseases expected to hit the country (heart disease, hypertension, cancer, diabetes, etc.). Volunteers from each community are going door to door (literally, knocking on doors of every home in their community) and testing everyone in the home for HIV and other diseases. He calls it "flittering" (FLTR: Find people in need of care, Link them in to health care, Treat them, and Retain them). I could go on and on haha, but really, the whole time I was thinking, if this man hasn't gotten the Noble Peace Prize yet he damn well better. When we got into the car to leave the house, Wairimu told us (without me even mentioning my thoughts) that he was a candidate the last few years, but this year she thinks he'll get it because AMPATH was just given a $75 million grant. The government loves the work they're doing and many countries are already following in their footsteps and modeling programs after his. It was such a wonderful talk that I didn't realize we had been there for almost 2 hours and we hadn't eaten dinner (it was 9 pm). So we ran and grabbed pizza for dinner at Mama Mia's and now we're back at the room for the night.

Njau and his pweetty flowerrr

Kakamega Forest

bat cave