Quick update

Posted on October 27, 2006

I did not get a chance to post this stuff yesterday, so here goes a quick update and my pictures.

Janet and I spent the day taking care of some business. First we stopped off at the PR department at the hospital to get permission for me to take pictures in the newborn unit. I was pleased at how protective they were. But once we explained why we wanted to take the pictures they were more than happy to help. We feel that we can get donations for proper basinetts and cribs as well as some much needed supplies for the nurseries. They are operating on not much – like pretty much every other department at Kenyatta. So, the head of the floor took us around and was very eager to point out all of the things that needed fixing.

Here are some of our pictures.

This row of cribs house the abandoned children. I couldn’t get them all in the picture.

They feed with cups, not bottles.

We spent some time holding a few babies. They don’t get much cuddling. The nurses have far too many babies to take care of.

We also worked out some plans with the PR department and the pediatric wards to show a movie this evening. Next week we will be handing out the dolls as part of a conference wrap up. There has been a fair amount of media about our work here. The PR department is using everything they can get to keep the buzz going.

Last night we had a very nice cocktail party at another hotel. Then we came back and had a late dinner.

When we went to bed last night the hotel was pretty loud. It continued throughout much of the night. It turns out the guy next door to us fell asleep with his TV blaring. Once the rest of the hotel settled in and got quiet it was impossible to sleep. At 3am Janet insisted that the night manager do something more than gently tapping on the door. So, they attempted to key into his room, but the deadbolt was locked. Then they tried to climb out on our little balcony and over to his to get in through his window. No luck. They continued to lightly knock on his door when Janet finally went over and started banging on the door. They finally followed suit and after about 20 minutes of banging he finally woke up and said "oops". Nice. Of course Janet and I were up for quite some time after that. I have no idea what time we finally got back to sleep. I didn’t even want to look at my watch because I knew it was bad.

The doctors left earlier this morning for some seminars and we are getting ready to head out for more surgeries today. This evening we will show Finding Nemo or some other fun movie to the over 100 children on the pediatric ward.

Tomorrow we are going off to a remote hospital to do some surgeries. I am excited to see what there is to see there.

We have also been invited to travel to Mombasa for an overnight stay. We will be doing surgeries there as well. Mombasa is a coastal town with white sandy beaches. There is one neurosurgeon there and he could use a little help. We will fly down next Friday and then come back Saturday afternoon before we need to get ready to come back home.

I am excited about all of the extra wonderful things we are getting to do while we are here.