October 31st

So I’m now five hours ahead of you all, since we don’t have daylight savings
time. I know it’s been a couple days since I’ve written, but it has been a
pretty good couple of days. Which I guess is why I haven’t felt the need to
write incessantly home which is good. I’ve been spending a lot of time hanging
out with Rebecca, learning a lot about England, what it’s like there, how the
medical system is and other stuff. We’ve also talked with Zoey quite a bit, I
don’t remember if I mentioned her, but she’s another woman from England who has
been here since January with Health Poverty Action (formerly Health Unlimited).
For a quick review of the last several days, things have been pretty busy with
classes and such. I got to meet this 80 year old lady named Mary Lane, she used
to be a nurse and delivered hundreds of babies at the hospital. She’s kind of
like the town matron, she is well liked and respected. She is pretty well off so
she takes in some kids from the neighborhood and cares for them. Karen also
showed me places around town where I can get good prices and won’t get ripped
off, also by doing so she established me as “one of hers” which should get me
fair prices. As for my classes, they are going better, though I’m still
struggling with my expectations of progress. Friday was good, the kids actually
showed that they knew some things and made me really happy. They are also making
progress on their math, which is good. Slow but steady, not what I’d like, but
again it is still progress. I finally got my emails, there for a few days I
wasn’t getting anything and I was getting really upset, especially since I had
been in such constant contact that my mom was worried about not hearing from me
and I had no real way to let her know I was fine the internet was just bad. But
she knows that it happens sometimes now and it should be ok in the future. That
pretty much brings up to today. Tom left for America today to take a big test to
get his Tropical Medicine certification, and he won’t be returning until Friday
or Saturday, I’m not quite sure. Karen has to go get him and when he returns
she’ll have a work team of nine people coming to build beds. We tried to go to a
youth church service today. Abdul was supposed to come at about 8am to lead
Rebecca and I the service, however he never showed and so we set out at about
8:20ish hoping to meet him on the way. We walked for a little over 40 minutes
without meeting him and decided to turn back a little after 9 to come back to
Kamakwie since the service started at nine and we hadn’t a clue where we were
going. On the way back we stopped at the place where Zoey stays and chatted for
about 2 hours. I learned a lot about how the University system works in England,
which was really interesting. Then she took us to see where there is good tailor
who does good work and does it quickly. After that we sorted some more boxes,
the crazy things people send… A George Foreman grill cleaner, literally hundreds
of wash rags, those disposable packages of plastic silverware with a napkin,
like you get from a restaurant, one use coffee servings from hotels and all
sorts of other stuff. We have been finding some of the stuff from my church for
the bikes they sent, today we found the tires. We’ve found other things that are
random but useful like an air compressor, bags of marshmallows, tins of ham
(Karen packed them to be shipped but it was still funny to find like 20 canned
hams). After that, Rebecca and I played scrabble, and I lost, though I blame it
on having at least 5 vowels the whole game. After dinner Rebecca Karen and I
played monopoly deal, several times. It’s a short but really fun version of
monopoly. The Mahr’s, who had gone to Makeni for the weekend, returned this
evening. They came over with costumes on and so Karen gave them candy. She said
that it was her first trick-or-treaters. The Samuel the hospital accountant was
over to get software for his new computer, just as he was leaving a storm blew
in and there was a lightning strike very near to the house, I actually got a
little shock from my computer, but their house is well grounded so it didn’t do
any damage to the electric system of the house. It was really loud and scared
the three of us. But the storm passed pretty quickly. Other than that not much
really happened today. As I get more used to things my posts will be less
frequent, but I will write at least once every week, hopefully more, because
there is still so much to see and do here. I will make sure to track what I’ve
been doing better, I’ve just been a little busy lately. Anyway,

Blessings from Africa,
Ryan Brooks