Skip to main content

Oh the Americans are here. Make spaghetti.

Tuesday and Wednesday passed quickly and easily as we now all adjusted to Kenya time (Goodbye jet lag!) and were back to our Joytown research routine. We knew what had to get done and the time we had to do it in.  SACDEP welcomed us back with a Tuesday meal including "American food" aka spaghetti noodles. Just noodles. Haha Thanks, Kenya.

We continued our wheelchair research at Joytown Primary School and got to return to the Secondary School (Kenyan High School equivalent) for a second survey time with the students. I realized through this survey that although we are very different, Kenyans and Americans, much is the same. High school students are high school students. They are teenagers. Some with attitudes, most with dreams, and all of them with lives that are just as real and crazy to understand as my own. *Philosophical vent over* Once our survey work was finished, Danielle decided to jump in and join a group of Secondary girls rehearsing songs for an upcoming talent show. They're probably glad we left… ;)

Wednesday rounded out our last full day of 2015 research!  The day was more relaxed as we finished necessary research tasks (tracking down wheelchairs, confirming names and diagnoses of subjects, ect) and put everything into giant spreadsheets (I'm basically an Excel master. Thanks, Wheels). Oh, and lots more wheelchair assembly. Phew.


I ended my night in the SACDEP office but this time rather than catching some wi-fi and finishing the day's work, I had a long conversation with Joseph the front-desk/guest-relations guy about future planning and the crazy path that life takes you on. It was really neat. A conversation that was just as though provoking as it sounds and highlighted by the fact that we are two people that never expected to meet again after my first (and foreseeably, only) time  in Kenya with Wheels 2013. Conclusion: Life keeps you guessing. Sometimes you really enjoy it and sometimes you just have to be okay with the ride.

Yuh. We made those.

Our wonderful team (workin' hard...)

Working oh so hard...
Selfie with some Joytown kids


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hello again Kenya

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 ...
4 comments
Read more

And Now Presenting… - Joytown Day 13

Our whirlwind day of presentation (no wheelchair pun intended) began with a formal presentation to the Joytown secondary school (high school) and ended with a true Kenyan-style impromptu pres to the primary students and teachers. We carefully planned a presentation to the high school students, even creating a powerpoint to share with them containing graphs of the finalized data and pictures from the study. We miraculously packed 20+ people and wheelchairs into a computer room of the school library that was really only designed for 10 or so comfortably. We shared our data results and the Tinsley family shared some really encouraging words to the teens/young adults, urging them to realize that they are fearfully and wonderfully made by God for great purposes in this world. After exchanging contact information with one of the head-teachers who organized the high school participation in our study, (once she had told us about three different ways about the high school exchange progra...
Post a Comment
Read more