A Year Without Ice Cubes One year through Africa and Asia

Allow me to update you all about our going-ons over the past few days. We’re now in Eldoret, Kenya, where Michelle’s friend Kareem is taking a year off from med school to work at the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital. We came here for a number of reasons, first and foremost to visit Kareem, also to get away from Nairobi (too many people, too chaotic, apparently too dangerous…), and lastly to check out some volunteer opportunities associated with the organization Kareem is working through, AMPATH. AMPATH (The Academic Model for Providing Access to Healthcare) is an amazing organization started by a sweet southern man and his wonderful wife, which has become a model of international development, HIV/AIDS treatment and research, and tons of other things. It is sponsored by Indiana University and Moi University in Eldoret and has developed a partnership with USAID. You can check out their website here http://www.medicine.iupui.edu/kenya/index.html !!! In any case, we knew we could crash at Kareem’s place, we were ready to leave Nairobi, and we heard there were some really great things going on, so we packed up our bags and caught an overnight bus to Eldoret. Kareem’s taxi driver and friend, Maxxx (Kareem has given him the triple x ending) met us at the bus station in Eldoret at 4 am after waiting for us for over an hour (all phone service was down in Eldoret for some unknown reason). Maxx is a wonderful man with a pimped out Mercedes taxicab that has a tv screen playing non stop music videos. So far in our travels with Maxxx we’ve watched booty-shaking hip-hop videos, ‘70s power ballads from live concerts, and Elton John’s “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”. It’s always a good time with Maxxx! Kareem is staying in a sort of American compound in an extremely nice gated neighborhood. He’s in the Brown House (named after Brown University) and is able to use the free internet and laundry services at the IU (Indiana University) house down the road. When Michelle and I first got here we were both extremely turned off to find ourselves in a mini version of academic America… Kareem signed us up for lunch at the IU house, and when we entered the next day we were greeted by American (and some Canadian) professionals who introduced themselves with the name of their university (“Hi, Joe So-and-So from the University of Here-and-There) and talked about their post doc students and neurobiology and other heady topics. We ran out of the IU house as soon as we finished eating and spent the next hour commiserating as we walked around Eldoret trying to find the hospital (“I didn’t come to Africa to tell other Americans where I went to college!”) That night we even drove to a restaurant in an SUV, and if I could have a nickel for every time the word “like” was spoken in our gas guzzling mode of transportation… But we decided to try to embrace it since Thanksgiving was the next day and it was an unexpected American reunion of sorts. Kareem also assured us that once we got out into the community we’d be interacting almost exclusively with Africans. And Kareem was right and it turns out the Americans here are really great people doing really great work. And I will update you on the specifics soon…