Tyler: Msambweni District Hospital

I am now on Kenya’s coastline. I am very close to the Tanzanian border in a town called Msambweni (m-sam-BWAY-nee). It’s a cute little town with barely the essentials. My house has power, running water, a TV, and toilets (they don’t flush; you have to rinse the bowl with a little bucket of water). I am living a whopping 2 minute walk away from the Indian Ocean. It’s like looking at a post card when I walk to the beach. There are palm trees and then sand and then blue water stretching to the horizon. Mrembo sana (very beautiful). I’ve gone swimming in it a couple times and the water is so warm that it isn’t refreshing. It is like going in warm bath water. I can’t wait to scuba dive here. Still working on that though…

I started working at Msambweni District Hospital on Tuesday the 17th. It’s hard to describe the differences that there are between the medical facilities here and back in the States. In the men’s ward, the patients are all in the same room in beds with less than white sheets. For the most part of the day in that ward, we just went around and checked on patient management and progression. Basically, we just talked for 30 seconds and wrote on their records, which are $0.50 notebooks, “continue management.” 

On weekends, I plan to do a little traveling, but not as much as when I was in Nairobi. I don’t know why, but I feel that the need is not there and I would just prefer to sit here on the beach. I want to go to Lamu, which is another coastal city north of Mombasa. It is an old city built hundreds of years ago and is supposedly one of the most beautiful places of Kenya. Other than that, I really want to scuba dive a lot. I’m working on arranging that today, so my fingers are crossed.

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