Farewell to Carlan

In our busy-ness and recent internet woes, we have neglected to give props to a very important visitor who just spent a month with us: our good friend Carlan Wendler. Carlan is from southern CA and is doing his ER residency at LA County Hospital (sounds like a crazy place). He has known various members of the McCropders for some time now...mostly due to the fact that he did med school at the University of Michigan, 2 years behind Eric and 3 years behind John. He also attended Knox. We are really excited, because Carlan is considering joining up with us when he finishes his residency in the summer of 2012. At that point, we might need a name change to the McCropdLers. Catchy, huh? :) No worries, we won't change the blog address.

So Carlan joined us here at Tenwek for almost 4 wks, and sadly left yesterday to return to the States. He expressed the sentiment that many of us felt--hard to leave, but working in such an environment reminds you of the need for MORE TRAINING, so he's gone back to get some more learnin'. That and I think he's under contract. He was a welcome breath of fresh air, bringing candy and racquetball equipment upon arrival, playing with the kids, taking lots of great pictures on his fancy camera, sharing meals, and most importantly asking stimulating questions about our future and our lives here at Tenwek. And he was a good sport when all the guys left to go to Brackenhurst, sharing meals with 4 women and 5 kids (only one of whom was male).

The above picture also features our friends Chris and Suzanne Gayton, ortho and ER, whom who also know from Knox, and arrived for 2 weeks just before Carlan. It's like a mini-Knox in Kenya!

Further evidence of Carlan's good sport-edness...on our way to Masai Mara, the car we were travelling in got stuck. No worries. Carlan jumped out to push, and arrived at our 5 star resort covered in mud!