Lesson Learned from African Roads

(from Eric)

Stephanie wrote a while back about their misadventure on Burundian roads, but after our past weekend, it seems that there is (perhaps unfortunately) more to share.

Our family is heading back to the US for a spell in about six weeks.  As Rachel and I thought about it, we weren't at all sure that our kids had even gotten in a car since early January.  Such realizations can give one a bit of cabin fever, so we thought we'd have a family weekend down on a beach resort on Lake Tanganyika.

The drive down was three hours, one of which was on Route Nationale 16.  Here is a picture:

Lesson 1:  Even though something carries a national highway designation (and there isn't a level above this, though many roads are nicer) you cannot make assumptions.  

And a GPS on your phone is invaluable, but there should be limits to the extent you trust a road that you have not yet seen.  But we arrived safe and sound, and were treated the following morning to one of the loveliest rainbows we have ever seen.  

Lesson 2:  African beauty is all around us.  Getting out can help us to see that, and we need to see it.

The kids wanted to do nothing else but swim.  We splashed and floated and played.  We applied sunscreen liberally and then reapplied in an hour.  And we promptly got burned.

Lesson 3:  White missionaries in equatorial Africa are among the pastiest white people you will meet.  

It's a little difficult to explain exactly why this is the case, but it is undoubtedly true.  Maybe it's that we take the perfect weather for granted too often, or the cultural norms that cover most of your body most of the time.  I don't know.  But the combination of pasty whiteness with the intense equatorial sun means that there is nothing that you can do to sufficiently protect yourself.

Two mornings later, and we're ready to head back to Kibuye.  Despite being in the full swing of rainy season, our time at the beach was rain-less.  Until we got in the car.  Right around the time we hit RN 16 in all of its unpaved, rutted glory, the rain starts falling.  We made a game of it.  Whenever a particularly hairy section was coming up, we would tell the kids that we could do this only by "grunt power".  Everyone in the car would then grunt loudly until we cleared the present obstacle.

About two miles from the end of the bad road (and about 1 hour from Kibuye), we came face to face with an obstacle that no amount of grunting was going to help.  A river was running across the road.  It was solid water for about 30m across, and we had no idea how deep.  The river was swift.  We stopped at the edge and studied it for a while.  A couple guys with bicycles waded through the downpour.  At least where they stepped, it came up to knee deep, and threatened to knock them over.

I forgot to take a picture.  Luckily, on returning to Kibuye, I found a picture of it on google images.  Here is RN 16 at the moment of our encounter:

Lesson 4:  Hold your travel plans loosely and prioritize safety.

After considering our options for about 20 minutes, we decided that this wasn't going to work, and proceeded to travel back on wet, bad (and increasingly dark) roads for the next 4 hours in order to get to the capital city, where our very gracious friends the Guillebauds put us all up for the night at the last minute's notice.  Yes, we wanted to get back, and yes, we needed to get into work the following morning.  But sometimes things happened.  

On the flip side, our trip back down the mountain did get us another stunning view (during a brief pause in the rains, see Lesson 2 above).  The hills of Burundi followed by the largest lake in Africa, followed by the Congolese mountains.

So, this morning, after more than doubling our trip the day prior, we drove another three hours back to Kibuye, where we were delighted to be home.  Six weeks until we get in a car again?  Definitely doesn't sound too long.

Lesson 5:  The quickest way to solve your African wanderlust/cabin fever problem is just to go somewhere.  Anywhere, really.

***

As a final aside, whenever Rachel and I travel, we are struck anew at the difficulties people undergo to seek care at Kibuye.  Burundi is a small country (about the size of Massachusetts), so to say that every week we get patients from every province in the country, that doesn't seem like too big of a deal.  But it is not a uniformly accessible country.  The areas that we were slogging through were the provinces and communes that usually elicit a "well, that is a bit far" response from me when I think about my patients.

Lesson 6:  Good roads are not just a matter of convenience.  They save lives.  Take a moment and thank God for the roads that you have.

Medical evacuation, part 2

By Alyssa 

In the last few years of team life, we have experienced several "all hands on deck" crises - such as the flash flood at the waterfall in 2016 and the failed coup d'état in 2015. These events definitely bring us together as a team in ways beyond what we experience through day-to-day life and work together. We regularly reference those intense bonding times and they go down in team history to be retold again and again. Well, we recently added another crisis to the team lore with our second medical evacuation (for the first one, read here.)

Similar to family life, each of us has team "roles" in addition to our hospital, school, and community work - tasks such as facilitating the weekly market order or the vehicle upkeep. One of my roles is to be team doctor. Usually that means handing out Zofran for stomach bugs, answering questions about malaria prophylaxis, or maybe putting steri-strips on a wound.

Cleaning and steri-stripping a minor wound for Abi

But last month our team dealt with an unexpected medical crisis for a visiting American boy that went way beyond minor! Cole was visiting with his family so his father, a surgeon, could help cover the surgery service for Jason. One day after running Cole complained of leg pain. As he was a healthy, active 12 year old, we didn't worry too much about it, but the visiting orthopedic doctor did check him out during lunch. The next day his leg was still hurting and he had developed a low grade fever, so we brought him up to the hospital for x-rays and lab tests. The x-rays were normal but the labs showed signs of infection and inflammation, so we started antibiotics. The leg still looked normal with no visible wound, swelling, or redness. The following day, however, he developed swelling in the leg and an ultrasound revealed a deep fluid collection near the bone. He definitely needed to have it drained in the operating room. We looked into sending him to Kenya for the operation, but it would be at least 24 hours before there was an available flight, and almost all the orthopedic surgeons we knew in Kenya were at a medical conference in Greece. We had a visiting American orthopedic surgeon at Kibuye, and he and Cole's father, also a surgeon, decided it was better to operate right away. Thankfully the surgery went well and the surgeons found and drained the infection near Cole's fibula. We now had a diagnosis: acute osteomyelitis (infection of the bone.) We hoped Cole would begin to recover with continued IV antibiotics.

Pre-op on left, post-op on right

The next morning, Cole was sitting on the couch reading a book when I came to check on him and give him his antibiotics. I listened to his lungs and noticed crackles in the left base that weren't there before. Then we checked his oxygen level and discovered it was lower than it should have been. And then he had another fever and significant tachycardia (fast heart rate), too. These were all concerning symptoms and meant without a doubt that we needed to get Cole to a hospital with an available intensive care unit ASAP! We were concerned the leg infection was now in his bloodstream and he could develop septic shock as a result.

This is the moment when the team mobilized into high gear like a well oiled machine. We were few in number as most of the doctors were at the medical conference in Greece, but everyone remaining dropped everything and came running to do the work of many more people. These are the folks you want by your side in a crisis! As Cole's dad spent hours on the phone with the med-evac company, the Serge Kibuye team packed up all the suitcases for the family of 7, looked at flights and arranged guesthouses for the mom and other four children in Kenya, drove cars (including a makeshift ambulance for Cole, his dad, and me) to Bujumbura, made lunch and fed all the kids, facilitated quick goodbyes, texted our Kenya connections to receive the family in Nairobi, connected with Kenyan doctors/hospitals, and of course monitored and cared for Cole. He got worse with a medication reaction just before we got into the vehicles to head for Bujumbura but thankfully responded to a breathing treatment.

Susan driving our "ambulance." A definite answer to prayer is that Cole actually started feeling better, and his oxygen levels increased as we drove down the hill towards the airport. The lower altitude and the vancomycin helped, but mostly people were praying around the world! Thank you! 

We waited for the airplane with our Serge teammate and peds ER doc Randy Bond, and thankfully Cole remained stable in the interim. Again Serge teammates served the family by caring for Cole's siblings and mother until their flight the next morning.

Cole and his father flying to Nairobi

Driving right onto the runway in our "ambulance" with our special patient 

As we drove back to Kibuye the next day and recovered from the chaos of the previous few days, Cole and his family's journey continued in Nairobi. He went back to the operating room multiple times and was finally stable enough to fly back to America where he was immediately hospitalized in Michigan for a few more days. And two and a half weeks after the ordeal began, he finally went home (though he will continue treatment for several more weeks from home.)

Cole thanking the Kibuye kids for their Get Well cards. Even the kids prayed for Cole and cared for him!

Thinking of Cole on Good Friday brought new meaning to Isaiah 53:4 where we learn that Jesus carried our pain and suffering. And that hope encourages me as I think of the pain and suffering my Burundian patients face as well. We all wait for the day when all things will be made new and there will be no more sickness or suffering or pain. In the meantime, I'm thankful to be waiting with my amazing friends and teammates! 

African Road Trip

(It is my pleasure to introduce a new blogger.  Audrey Ward is our intern for ten months who has been here since August.  She is somewhere in limbo between graduate studies in comparative literature and medicine, and where better to pass such a limbo than in Burundi.  We're thankful for being willing to share her perspective.)

It sounds like an absurd story problem in math class: 14 sunburnt yet happy buzungu and 28 cans of Pringles are in a 15-passenger van whose fuel tank is only 1/8 full of diesel. They want to travel from Kigoma,Tanzania to Kibuye, Burundi after a camping trip with monkeys. 

If the visas are all in order, but it’s also New Year’s Eve, and 2 out of 3 filling stations will NOT have diesel fuel, then how many hours will it take for the buzungu to reach Kibuye? And how many cans of Pringles will be left over? (When calculating your answer, make sure to consider that Son Excellence the President of Burundi himself is alsocurrently on a road trip.)

I was blissfully unaware of the answer to this story problem as I popped a Dramamine for carsickness and crammed into the last row of the van. We stopped in the town of Kigoma to shop at the excitingly clean minimart with glorious products like cocoa mix and chips,stuffed ourselves back into the van with grocery bags on our laps, and headed towards the border.

We made it to the border pretty quickly, only a few hours, including the short stop by a Tanzanian policeman in an immaculately white suit who waved us on after a cheerful conversation.

To cross the Tanzanian/Burundian border by car, there is no one-stop international tollbooth gate or something, as I had imagined. Instead, the trip requires two separate stops, one on each side, to get visas checked twice and stamped for exiting and for (re-) entering. On theTanzanian side, we stopped at the office next to a Burundian refugee camp. The officials were fairly efficient, and we stepped across the road to buy a stalk of bananas and to exchange some money.

A little while later, we stopped at the Burundian border office. One guy passing by on foot peered in the windows of the van curiously while several of us cued up at the desk of the border official. A Tanzanian nun traveling on foot glanced at the long line and the stacks of passports obviously all in one group, and asked meekly if she could be allowed to go to the head of the line. We of course ushered her to the front. (It’s pretty bad form to be a missionary and snub a nun.)

After what felt like ages, there were just two people left in line: George Watts, with his family’s stack of passports, and me. The border office uses large hardbound books full of blank graphing paper to record information by hand. Just as the border official had finishedpainstakingly copying all of the information (country, name, passport number, occupation, visa number) from the second passport in his stack, she came to the end of the current page in her notebook.

Slowly, she turned the page.

She looked at the blank paper.


She took out a ruler from her desk.


She placed the ruler on the page and drew her pen down to create a column.


She removed the ruler and touched-up the line she drew with a few gentle strokes.

She continued this process until both of the open-faced pages had the correct number of columns.

She double-checked her work with the previous page.

For the sake of future efficiency (I suppose), she turned another page and drew all of those columns as well.

Finally, she reached out for the third passport as George and I breathed a sigh of relief. I have never felt more Western in my sense of time passing. Thankfully, she seemed to speed up a little bit as she took down the information for each passport, although she did look at my visa for several moments and then asked me if it was a visa, which was briefly concerning.

“What happened in there? Are you guys even legal or what??” John called when George and I finally made it back to the car with our passports.

We lurched back onto the road, and for the next hour everything went smoothly, despite another stop by a policeman who just wanted to chat (and hold Jess’s hand through the window for an awkward amount of time).

Then, we started looking for diesel, but the first few attempts yielded nothing but stares from pedestrians who stopped to watch us through the windows. We were only slightly concerned about the time we had left on the engine when the biggest delay in the road tripoccurred. Son Excellence.

In the middle of nowhere, with fields on either side, is an intersection with two main highways (they must have been main highways, because they were paved). All we had to do was turn left at the intersection and we would be only an hour and a half or so fromKibuye. But just as we approached the intersection, we noticed a police officer stopping all oncoming traffic from either direction.

“This can’t be a good sign,” someone muttered, and suspicions were confirmed when some official police and then military vehicles started to pass through the intersection on the road up ahead. We realized that it must be the entourage for some sort of important official.  After the kids got bored of counting the cars that passed after about 36 SUVs and military trucks with soldiers hanging out on the back, we realized that it must be the entourage for the MOST important official. The President had apparently been on a tour or doing a fieldcampaign in a province and was heading back to the capital. We spotted a black SUV with Burundian flags and thought it must be him, but ten minutes later after another barrage of military vehicles another identical SUV passed. When this had happened about five times, we had to hand it to the Burundian security force for not taking any chances. There were more than enough decoys.

Meanwhile, we had to turn off the AC in order to conserve fuel. It was a sunny day and we hadn’t climbed the mountains yet, so it was humid and HOT in that car. To make it worse, we couldn’t roll down all of the windows: word apparently spread to the neighborhood kids that a white van with a bunch of buzungu was stopped at the presidential parade. About a dozen kids and teenagers forgot all about the parade as they surrounded the windows, cupping their hands against the glass to peer in and occasionally tapping it or yelling at us to see if we would react. Sometimes we talked to them, to break up the boredom, but soon we felt too lethargic to say anything. Sweat trickled down our backs. Every time there was a pause in the passing military cars, our hopes would rise that the parade was over—only to be dashed again as yet another truck or SUV appeared.

I’m not entirely sure how long we stayed there, but it felt like at least 45 minutes. Finally, the policeman waved us on, and we escaped the crowd and rolled down the windows for the most refreshing breeze I’ve ever felt.

But we still had to find fuel. When we finally discovered a gas station with diesel, it was in a very crowded corner of the town and once more our van was surrounded with onlookers and even grown men who cupped their hands against the windows to stare at us. But the waitingpaid off, and finally we had a full fuel tank and set off on the final leg of the journey.

We arrived in Kibuye about 3 PM. In reality, the trip was only about an hour longer than we originally estimated—so as far as African travel goes, this was pretty successful.

In the end, the answers to the story problem are: five hours. And no Pringles remaining.

Through Snow and Mud

For a couple of months, we are living in St. Joseph, MI, a few miles inland from Lake Michigan, where I am doing some hospital work.  It's been a mild winter, but maybe it's starting to catch up.

Last night, it dropped about 4 inches of snow, and another 6 or so accumulated during the day.  As I headed out for some of my first winter driving in a few years, I was "momentarily transported back to Kenya".  In fact, there were several ways in which the experience was reminiscent of driving in Africa.   The following thoughts ran through my head this morning, and would have been true of any given drive in Kenya:

• Wow, it would be great if I had 4-wheel drive.  Instead, I have a 2-wheel drive van.
• Where is the road?  Well, it must be somewhere between those 2 mailboxes (or trees)
• Wow, the Lord has made a beautiful place here.  If I try to look around and enjoy it, I'm sure to die.
• Slowing down may actually be more dangerous in this situation.
• I'm so glad no one really cares if I stay in my own lane.
• Well, there are worse things than getting stuck.
• The best thing about this situation is that there are not many other cars on the road.
• When in doubt, trust the ruts that are already in the road.
• Of course, one never quite knows where those ruts led the last person.
• Oh look, they didn't really lead them very well.  Better get out of the rut.
• Lord, thank you, thank you, thank you for bringing me safe and sound from point A to point B.

Driving back from visiting some friends.  John has skillz.  We never got stuck.

DMV vs. Busia

I had a truly delightful experience at two DMV offices this last month. Heather and I decided that we would need a second vehicle due to my work schedule, and shortly thereafter I found my dream truck: a mid-90's Toyota Pickup with a lot of miles on it, in need of a little care. I bought it that afternoon, added the vehicle onto our insurance with a 3 minute phone call and spent just 20 minutes the following day at the DMV in Wisconsin getting a temporary plate so I could drive it to its new home in Michigan. The following week in Michigan I spent 30 minutes at the DMV getting registration, title, and plates. Done. Anna has affectionately named the truck Blueberry Pie.
In contrast... two years ago I bought a motorcycle from my brother. He was leaving Uganda after a couple years with the Peace Corps there, and I was living in Kenya. He inquired about the necessary proceedings to transfer the motorcycle into my name in Kenya, and the process seemed doable. So he packed nearly all his earthly belongings on the bike and proceeded to the Uganda-Kenya border. The border officials appropriately cancelled the registration on exiting Uganda, and then my brother went 100ft to register the bike in Kenya and enter in through the Kenyan border at Busia. He was hoping to get to our house that afternoon, stay with us a few days, and then leave for the US. He was told that he had received some incorrect information about transferring the motorcycle, but he was assured that it could be corrected and he could be on his way.


3 DAYS later my brother was still stuck at the border, unable to acquire the appropriate paperwork. He had a plane to catch, so he left the motorcycle in storage (a closet somewhere on the Kenyan border) and took a night bus to our house. He gave me a synopsis of what had happened and what needed to happen to get the bike out, drawing maps detailing where the various people are that I need to talk to, and then he went on that same day to Nairobi to catch his plane. It was a week before I had a day off work to go back to the border and (hopefully) get the bike. I took the seats out of our van and headed for the border one early morning.

I found my brother's contact there in some back alley, and we proceeded together to various offices. To make a long story short, I eventually got the motorcycle out of the closet by that evening, heaved it into the back of the van, found a place to stay in this border town of Busia, and drove back the following morning. Soon thereafter I started in on the process of getting it registered in my name. This necessitated multiple trips to Nairobi, and eventually I gave up and paid someone to do it for me.

We discovered many things in the process, including that this was actually a stolen bike from Japan, that I did not have the right paperwork to own a motorbike in Kenya (so we put it in John's name), and that there are serious rules about parking in downtown Nairobi (I got a hefty parking ticket on one trip). Overall, the experience made me so grateful for the efficiency and order of the DMV... and yet somehow from this vantage point, it now seems like it was quite a fun adventure!

Life on the Highways

This week at a conference, someone asked us to draw a picture of what our lives look like these days. I drew our family driving in the car.

In the last month, our family has driven over 5000 miles. Other McCropder families are traveling similar paths. We welcome your prayers for safety and sanity in the car as we traverse the country to attend conferences and courses, to speak at various events, and to see friends and family.

We are figuring out some of the tricks of handling life on the road:

We utilize free wi-fi and free refills at many a McDonalds.

We try to coordinate pit stops with friends when we travel to the same locations. This may not happen again for several months, but Maggie and Abi did enjoy playing together at this playground in Ohio a few weeks ago.

At a McDonalds in Connecticut, we learned to suggest simultaneous straw drinking so that we can get back in the car faster and keep driving.

We encourage children to entertain themselves quietly in the car, even if that means letting them practice photography skills with the digital camera. This is Anna's best photograph from New Hampshire.

You may notice that Abi is holding a bag in the picture. Perhaps you recall a disaster or two with her carsick stomach in Kenya. We are extremely thankful to report that she has only been that carsick once in the USA so far. I'll always remember central New York for last week's clean-up effort.

2000 miles later, our family is now in Colorado for a course at Mission Training International. Here we are enjoying the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, and we feel very thankful for all the wonderful people we have been blessed to see all across this beautiful country.

Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Actually, no trains, but we are driving and flying these next few days. Alyssa, Heather and I (Jason) are heading to Burundi for a week. We will take the 1.5 hour flight from Nairobi to Bujumbura tomorrow and then drive 3 hours up to Kibuye Hospital that same afternoon. We will be joining the only doctor there to help out at the hospital. During the week we are there, we hope to get a better sense of how the hospital functions, discover what needs exist, and develop relationships with the staff and medical students. We pray this trip would help us understand the place better and know how best to invest and plan for our futures there.

Alyssa and I have both brushed up on our C-section skills, Heather is excited to test out the French she has been studying, and Heather and Alyssa are looking forward to seeing Burundi for the first time. You could pray for a successful trip and also for Anna (who gets to stay in Nairobi with her Uncle Eli and Aunt Bethany and cousins) and for Abi (staying at Tenwek with Cropseys). We will report when we get back (no internet at Kibuye, yet).

Life on the Highways

This week at a conference, someone asked us to draw a picture of what our lives look like these days. I drew our family driving in the car.

In the last month, our family has driven over 5000 miles. Other McCropder families are traveling similar paths. We welcome your prayers for safety and sanity in the car as we traverse the country to attend conferences and courses, to speak at various events, and to see friends and family.

We are figuring out some of the tricks of handling life on the road:

We utilize free wi-fi and free refills at many a McDonalds.

We try to coordinate pit stops with friends when we travel to the same locations. This may not happen again for several months, but Maggie and Abi did enjoy playing together at this playground in Ohio a few weeks ago.

At a McDonalds in Connecticut, we learned to suggest simultaneous straw drinking so that we can get back in the car faster and keep driving.

We encourage children to entertain themselves quietly in the car, even if that means letting them practice photography skills with the digital camera. This is Anna's best photograph from New Hampshire.

You may notice that Abi is holding a bag in the picture. Perhaps you recall a disaster or two with her carsick stomach in Kenya. We are extremely thankful to report that she has only been that carsick once in the USA so far. I'll always remember central New York for last week's clean-up effort.

2000 miles later, our family is now in Colorado for a course at Mission Training International. Here we are enjoying the beauty of the Rocky Mountains, and we feel very thankful for all the wonderful people we have been blessed to see all across this beautiful country.

Passing

The dashed and solid yellow lines that sometimes appear down the center of the roads here in Kenya are deceitfully simple. Driving to Mombasa, I constantly ran through a complicated algorithm of factors that must be processed before attempting to pass a vehicle on the highway. My thoughts went something like this:

Hmm, that truck up there is going very slow in front of me (it could be going anywhere from 10 mph to 50 mph depending on its load and the incline of the road). The billowing black exhaust pouring from its muffler has good potential to make one of my daughters carsick if we are stuck behind this truck for a while. Can I pass the truck? Well, I do see a bus coming toward me in the other lane, but it is still quite far off, so I think I could make it around this truck if it is a school bus (which would travel at 50 mph), but not if it is a public bus (which would travel at 70 mph). It looks like a school bus. OK, now are there any potholes in the passing lane that would destroy our van’s suspension? No. Ok, are there any potholes in this lane that would cause the truck ahead to swerve into my passing lane? No. Are there any cars (which can travel at 70-90 mph) passing the bus up ahead which would make this endeavor tight, or any cars coming from behind me which would sideswipe me when I pull out? I don’t think so. Are there any motorcycles in the oncoming lane? If so, is there a shoulder present, and could the motorcycle just drive on the shoulder while I am passing? Our van is pretty loaded down. Can I accelerate fast enough to pass this truck on a mild incline? If I don’t do it now, I have to slow way down and then it will take a long time to gain momentum again. Is the road really wide enough right here to handle passing traffic? Yes. Any curves in the road to block my vision? No. Any police checks ahead, where they lay metal spikes across the road forcing only 1 vehicle to pass at a time? No. OK, it looks like we’ll try this one.

So I pull out, only to realize I forgot to look to the side of the road where there is a herd of livestock, and one cow looks like it is going to make a break for it. So I slow back down and crouch behind the lumbering truck to await my next opportunity.

All this lurching around can be quite perilous for those who get carsick.

Buses, Boats, Bikes and Boda Bodas

This past week the Faders had a fantastic week of vacation in which we did quite a bit of traveling, including all of the above modes of popular African transportation. We started off going to Hell's Gate National Park. My brother-in-law and I rented bikes for the afternoon and rode through the park, seeing zebras, warthogs, hyraxes, gazelles, and other animals.


We also took a boat to an island in Lake Naivasha where we could walk around with all those same animals.



After saying goodbye to Heather's sister and her husband, we took a night bus 15 hours from Nairobi to Kampala, Uganda, to visit my brother who is drilling/fixing water holes there with the Peace Corps. To get to my brother's house from Kampala, we took a 2 hour ride on a matatu (van with 15-23 people crunched in it) to Mubende, and then another 1 hour ride in a matatu further into the bush, and finally a 8km boda boda ride from the town to his village. Boda bodas are a popular form of transportation here which is a motorcycle with up to 4 passengers (plus the driver). In this case, the driver, Heather, Abi, and I were on one, and the driver, my brother, Anna, and our bags were on the other.



The following day we took boda bodas to a village to fix their bore hole. This time we also carried heavy tools and some 8 foot metal rods for fixing the water hole.



We returned to Kampala on Friday and then traveled 2 hours south to Lake Nabugabo, to a campsite where we met up with some of my brother's Peace Corps friends for 2 nights. We had a great time, and the lake was beautiful.


Then north again to Kampala for Sunday night, before going to Jinja Monday morning and rafting on the Nile.


Monday night was back on the night bus from Jinja to Nairobi (only 10 hours this time) and then a 3 hour trip back to Tenwek on Tuesday with our van. All in all, 48 hours of this past week were spent in various vehicles with our 2 little girls, who were excellent travelers. They especially liked the boat and the boda bodas. We are thankful for safety in all of this traveling, and we are very thankful for such a wonderful vacation with family! We will also be happy to have a break from vehicles for a while.

Achebe's Truth - or - My Automotive Misadventures Beside the Tea Plantations

I just returned from a week-long conference on HIV medications, and I'm planning on sharing a few observations from an interesting week. However, I first want to share our journey back to Tenwek, which was an unexpected epic.

The journey from Nakuru (where the conference was) to Tenwek should take about 3 hours, and about halfway back, you pass through the town of Kericho, which is the heart of tea country, in part because of the profuse amount of rain the area gets. It's actually incredibly beautiful.

As we came to the outskirts of Kericho, the weather became typical, that is, a torrential downpour. And here the road narrows quite a bit. I was driving a van (not ours, but a borrowed one) with another missionary doc, and four of our Kenyan staff. Up ahead, an oversized lorry/truck was heading towards us, so I was hugging the shoulder.

What happened next was a blur, but it involved the wheel slipping off the shoulder, popping back on to the tarmac, hydroplaning across the width of the road at least twice, narrowly missing several oncoming cars, spinning 180 degrees, and sliding backwards off the road, stunned and shocked that we didn't tip over, which I had felt to be inevitable.

We quickly found that no one was hurt. We voiced a prayer of thanks, and I got out to inspect the vehicle. One of the rear tires was flat, the rubber having pulled away from the metal rim. So, we found the jack and the spare (fortunately in perfect condition), and changed the tire out. All this was accomplished in pouring rain.

An aside: I have a baseline essential tremor, a shaking that usually isn't very noticeable. But cold and adrenaline are two things that can exaggerate it quite a bit, the result being that I was shaking quite a bit by this point.

We got back in the car (which unfortunately still required A/C despite being freezing, to avoid fogging the windows), drove into the town, found a petrol station, and had all the tire pressures checked. As we got through to the other side of town, we heard a weird clicking noise from where we had changed the tire. We stopped, and a couple of us watched the car driving forward to confirm that nothing looked loose. Perhaps the alignment had gone a bit awry. We decided not to worry about it until, a few kilometers later, there was a distinct clunking sound, followed by a loud grating noise. We quickly pulled over, and got out to investigate.

The wheel had fallen off. That's right. The whole tire and wheel had fallen off the axle, and a total of zero lugnuts remained. However! The saving grace was that, though it had fallen off, it had remained upright in the wheel well, and so the whole car was resting on the upright wheel and the axle and brake disc never hit the ground.

So back out into the pouring rain. We recovered one lugnut from alongside the road, and after much discussion, took one nut from each of the other wheels, put a total of four on the tire, and drove back into town to an auto dealership that had stayed open late since they had heard we would be coming.

And so we arrive at Kericho Toyota, more soaked to the bone that I have ever been (my shoes are still too wet to wear 48 hours later), freezing cold, muddy, with me shivering like a psychiatric patient who has been on meds way too long.

They took immediate pity on us, brought us some coffee, and within a couple hours had replaced the lugnuts, repaired the tire, and test-driven the car, pronouncing it safe to drive. The owner of the place had extra pity on me, and gave me a bright yellow (and dry!) Toyota t-shirt to change into.

I'm glad it was bright yellow, since it would make us a bit easier to see, since we were now going to have to drive 2 hours home in the dark, which in Kenya is a situation we try very hard to avoid. It was still pouring rain. The end story is that we arrived safe, and I learned that Kenyans have an inexplicable habit of turning their brights on when they approach another driver at night, which is particularly difficult when it is pouring rain, and even worse when you are shaking like someone about to have a seizure.

And so it is that Rachel found me arriving home at 9:30pm, in squishing shoes, with a pronounced tremor, and a bright yellow Toyota t-shirt that she had never seen before, but thankfully, completely well and safe.

One last note: The odds of tail-spinning through a busy main road, and neither hitting anyone nor flipping the vehicle is low. The odds of your tire falling off your car, with no damage to anyone or the vehicle is also very low. The odds of both events happening in the space of 90 minutes is very much lower. And so we thank God, who sustains us in many ways, recognized or otherwise.

(a hint on the Achebe reference)

The Jolly Green Giant

Buying a used car is often an interesting process no matter which country you live in, and Kenya is no exception. Within weeks of our arrival to Kenya, it was evident that getting a vehicle would be necessary. We batted around various options and decided that a lightly used van which could fit all of us would be ideal. Since most of our travel is on asphalt or decent dirt roads, we decided that an SUV would not be necessary to get us where we needed to go. So a while back, the three families went into Nairobi to search for a suitable van that we could all share for the next 2 years. The boys kicked some tires in a variety of used car lots without much success. The type of vehicle we were looking for is very commonly used as a matatu, or a van for public transport, and so they are in high demand. We almost decided to try and make the trek back to Nairobi some other time.

We then got a recommendation and called “Jolly,” who promptly found 5 of the exact type of van we were looking for. Jolly has connections, apparently. One of the five was looked a little better than the rest. It had been used as a cargo transport van in Japan for 7 years and then imported to Kenya. There were therefore no seats (except the 3 front ones) and lots of evidence that the driver of the cargo van had been a chain smoker. Jolly assured us that he could take care of the smoke smell and get us some good seats. We took it for a test drive (with me sitting on the floor in the back of the van) and were quite pleased. So we asked Jolly to make a few additions, like a rack on the top, and putting “PRIVATE” on the front so that police don’t stop us all the time thinking we are a matatu. We then agreed to pick it up when we were returning to Nairobi in 3 weeks.

The finished product is a 2003 Toyota Hiace Diesel Van with 11 seats (there are 11 of us). We are very pleased with it. We have taken it on a number of trips already, and it has performed flawlessly (even when I got stuck in the mud last week). We have named it “The Jolly Green Giant”, and call it “Jolly” for short, in honor of the car salesman we bought it from. We are very thankful to those of you who have donated to the purchase this van. We know that it will allow us to be more effective in our work here over the next two years – and maybe we’ll take it to where we go next (road trip anyone?).

Driving on the Left

Unlike Jason, the rest of us grew up driving only on the right side of the road, and therefore adjusting to Kenyan driving takes some intentionality. Today, I drove into Nairobi for a national family medicine meeting. It was a good meeting, and I met some impressive folks. The six or seven hours of driving gave me a chance to see 3 giraffes and a baboon alongside the tarmac, and also some time to consider the nuances of driving on the left, and the mistakes often made when switching sides.

1. Getting into the car on the passenger side when you're the driver (novice mistake #1).

2. Taking your right hand turns tight and/or without looking both ways for traffic.

3. Taking your left hand turns wide and/or spending too much time watching for opposite traffic.

4. Turning on the windshield wipers instead of your turn signal (since they are on opposite sides).

5. Neglecting your rearview mirror, since you're not used to looking for it on your left.

6. Hugging the shoulder, which may not really be all that bad an idea.

(And not related to the side-of-the-road issue, but related to driving in Kenya:)

7. Not knowing how fast you can go, because there are no speed limits, but you can still get pulled over (by a cop standing on the side of the road, because they have no vehicles) for speeding, though they have no radar gun or other monitoring device.

8. 3+ lane roundabouts. Enough said.

Here's a map of where in the world they drive on the right (red) or left (blue). Interestingly, although most of the world used to drive on the left (including the US), only 34% of the world currently does.

Our Matatu Ride - or - How We First Encountered the Kenyan Police

After over a month of not leaving the hospital compound here, or even getting into a car, the feeling of cabin fever had been settling in. So, yesterday, when Rachel and I had our first day off together for a while, we decided that a bit of exploring was in order.

The easiest target was the village of Bomet, about a 5-minute drive away, and the standard transportation to get there is the "matatu", which is a public taxi of sorts, and most of the local ones are similar to this station wagon pictured here, with two bench seats and an open area for luggage in the back.

Our drive there was great. We walked up to the hospital gate, and found a guy that could take us. (He was actually a matatu driver, unlike when the Faders and Cropseys went a couple weeks ago, and later found out that the guy they hired was just a family member who had come to see a patient in the ICU.) Since no one else seemed to be headed our way, and we didn't have correct change anyway, we just paid double to have the vehicle to ourselves ($3).

Wow, it felt great to get away from the hospital and see a bit more of the area! We enjoyed exploring the town of Bomet, which actually has a lot of shops, and we picked up three bags of groceries. Then we asked around, and found another matatu going back to Tenwek. We got in, and there were already two passengers. Great, we thought, we should be ready to go and can pay the normal rate. But we waited, and another lady joined the 4 of us in the back seat, making 5. OK, ready to go? Nope, time for another guy to get in the front, making three. Then another guy, making 4. Then 2 people in the boot with our groceries, making a total of 11. Now, we're ready to go. Oh well, it's a short ride, and what a great experience...

We were about halfway back when the police flagged us over. We didn't understand the whole interchange, but apparently our driver had broken two matatu laws: First, no people allowed in the boot, so those two got out, and they started walking up the road. Second, he wasn't allowed to tint his windows (which they all were), which seems like a reasonable law, since I'm sure the purpose of tinting is to avoid observance of their transgressions. So the police started stripping off all the tinting. I did my part and tore off the tinting on my window, crumpled it up, and tucked in next to the door. Thankfully, then, the police let us go, and we headed down the road.

We had not gone more than 100 meters, when we turned a corner, the driver stopped, and the two people from the boot caught up to the car, and climbed back in, and we drove the rest of the way back to Tenwek. Priceless.

We were right. Nothing cures cabin fever like a little mini-adventure full of awesome cultural experiences.