Redhead Steps Around the World

Metal trays. Heat lamps. Serving spoons.   Each food scooped into it's own little compartment. All of a sudden I'm back in elementary school when my biggest worries were counting the ticks on the mysterious analogue clock till recess and who I would sit by for lunch. But I'm not in elementary school. I'm sitting at a table in the Rift Valley Academy cafeteria of Kijabe, Kenya with an orthopedic surgeon and his family for Sunday lunch, anxiously pushing my food around out of it's tray compartments. Reorganizing. I attempt to keep a calm face as I listen to the advice of a practicing physician who has spent several years on a medical school admission board and I feel thoughts race frantically around my head. Reorganizing.   For the past 6 months, I have been fighting with myself in a horrible ping-pong match of what to do with my immediate future. Team A: For better or for worse, apply this cycle to medical school. Team B: re-take the MCAT (the brand new, twice a...

I woke up this morning to meowing, barking, and the house trying to implode. Okay, okay so the meowing was the ringtone of Danielle's Kenyan phone, the barking was actually a dog (Emma), and the imploding house was really just a compo of Emma (dog) slamming herself against the laundry room door and two Kenyan women knocking forcefully on the locked back door, determined to sell us stuff…. at 8:30am on a Saturday morning.  Funsies. My just-woke-up-to-chaos brain was only more confused when I answered Danielle's phone to find another lady rambling loudly at me in Swahili. I answered in confused English, she replied in confused, rapid Swahili. Great. The morning finally settled out as I read some emails from our host family about the house (such as what to do with barking dog, how to unlock doors, what time Aidah the house-sitter would come by) and woke up enough to process things. At this point, Aidah the house-sitter appeared at the door (which I now knew how to unlock!...

Friday opened up like any normal morning here. The bird. Breakfast & tea. Walking the road to Joytown school (aka: the Road of a Thousand Eternal Staring Eyes). Sometimes I think just maybe we'll have walked that road enough where people will get used to us "white folks" and stop staring at us. This dream has yet to be fulfilled… I won't hold my breath... The day at Joytown opened, as usual, with singing and prayer and greetings (yay handshaking) with all the Bethany'sKids therapy staff. Everyone split up to their respective tasks and we were busy setting up the day's research when Karen skipped into our work-space hall with a smile and a surprise. 25 wheelchairs (in boxes) had just arrived by truck to Joytown school and we were just the people to assemble them. The exciting thing about these chairs is that they came as direct of last year's Wheels research report that the Free Wheelchair Mission (FWM) wheelchairs, used by many of the kids at Joyt...

After 24 hours of travel to the other side of the world and two days of research work I've finally gathered enough jet-lagged energy (and strong enough wifi) to write this. On Monday, I escaped the thunderstorms, tornadoes, and flooding of Texas on a trans-atlantic flight to London. The team included Professor Rispin, Prof Sasaki and Danielle. 8 hours later, we arrived with time to crawl through layers of Heathrow security and wander, sleepy eyed through the airport to our next gate. By 11am we were on our final 8 hour flight to Nairobi, Kenya. My plane buddies included a Kenyan track runner who's said he's filled up three passports traveling and racing in countries around in the world (completely paid for by sponsors, by the way). And he hasn't even finished college. Why am I in school again? Kidding... sigh... Med school... My second plane buddy was a newly graduated Kenyan-born pharmacist living in Houston. He reminded me how much doctors are needed, especially in ...