Still traveling!

We made it to Nairobi! We spent the night in Nairobi and are now on our way back to the airport for our flight to Mombasa.

Flights were generally uneventful and on time. On our first flight we secured a bulkhead exit row giving M an extra 7 feet of leg room and on our second flight we each got our own row. I have to say that it all went extremely smoothly. We grabbed a taxi to our hotel and by that I mean that M sat in the front seat with my 40 lb backpack on his lap, I sat in the back with two gigantic boxes of lab supplies, and the trunk was crammed with our carry-on backpacks and M's large backpack. I have found taxis in other countries to be synonymous with clown cars in that they always seem to be able to fit in all the luggage and people regardless of the size of the car. In the US, taxis balk at ferrying 5 people but elsewhere you simply hear "it's ok" and they just start doing their magic which is a polite way of saying they throw their entire body weight against your bags in order to smash it all inside. I really appreciate the can-do attitude.

Also, for a little comic relief, check out Crocodile Dundee:


Those of you who know M well know that once he gets interested or committed to something, he's very eager to pursue and understand that thing. This has obviously served him very well in the majority of his pursuits in life but occasionally, it's downright hilarious. A few examples of things M has been interested in recently:

• cranberries (we ate homemade cranberry sauce for weeks last fall)
• foraging (I've made a lot of mulberry pies in the last 2 years and he once brought home a boombox older than we are)
• books about food (he read books titled Salt, Cod, and The Big Oyster in a month long span and randomly quoted facts about these things)

Recently, M became obsessed with packing only light-weight technical gear for our trip to Kenya. No expense could be spared in acquiring these items and NOTHING, I repeat nothing, should be cotton or any other natural fiber. So, this is how he came to be seated in the Newark airport looking like Crocodile Dundee but he did inform me that "everything was wicking nicely". I love him, he cracks me up!

Packing

We have packed up and are leaving Cleveland tomorrow morning. We will be transporting 2 large boxes of lab supplies for M so this leaves us with 3 bags for personal gear plus anything we can carry on the plane. We quickly realized that clothes for Kilimanjaro (picture ski gear) and snorkel equipment filled our duffle bag to capacity so we were each left with our hiking backpacks for our yearlong trip.

Things that made the cut:
- Hiking pants
- Linen pants
- 2 bathing suits
- socks + underwear
- 3 long sleeve "sunblock" shirts
- large hats
- 2 running outfits + running shoes
- pair of shorts
- 2 t-shirts (respective college athletic teams of course)
- sarong for E
- scarf for E
- sandals
- one jar of strawberry balsamic jam (the argument for this one was fierce but I needed a taste of home!)
- waterproof jacket
- Guidebooks, Kindle, a few additional books
- 2 cameras + cases
- binoculars
- hiking boots
- hospital clothes for M: 2 pairs khakis, 2 button downs, 1 tie
- sunscreen, bug spray, toiletries

That list might seem long but I've packed more for a 3 day weekend.

Here I am holding all my clothes for the year:


Here's M holding all of his clothes for the year. He'd like me to add that he's doing it all with one hand and I needed 2:


Things that didn't make the cut:
- hair dryer (not a real loss)
- makeup (not crying over this one either)
- anything cotton except the t-shirts
- anything that showed E's knees or shoulders (except bathing suits for the pool in the compound)
- anything that can't be handwashed
- anything irreplaceable

We got everything into our backpacks and have met the weight limit. Of course there's a chance that some or all of this stuff won't actually make it to Kenya. I don't have a great track record with checked bags arriving at my destination in a timely fashion so we've packed a few items in our carry-ons and are hoping for the best. It'll all get there eventually and if it doesn't, that probably ok too.

Dreams

The thing about going to tropical foreign countries, aside from the excellent beaches and abundant fruit, is the diseases. Several months ago, we were vaccinated against all that we could be, but malaria is one of those bugs that does not yet have a vaccine. Dr. Wiki will explain more about malaria if you're interested: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malaria. To prevent malaria when traveling to an endemic area, people generally use a combination of insect repellent, bednets, avoidance (i.e. don't go outside late at night when the mosquitoes are biting), and chemoprophylaxis (read: antimalarials). Just a few days ago, E and I took our first dose of mefloquine, which is taken once per week. Mefloquine is the drug of choice in many areas now because of the prevalence of chloroquine-resistant malaria. One thing that many travelers will tell you about the antimalarials is the vivid dreams and hallucinations that they cause. A famous story at my school involves a very well-recognized doctor running naked through the halls of an African hospital after he started taking his mefloquine. We prepared ourselves for the worst, but so far, nothing out of the ordinary. However, it does mean that we're leaving for Kenya very soon!

Shots, shots, shots, shots

No, not the awesome club song that John played for us in Sanibel, I mean actual, with a needle, shots. And mom, please don't look that song up because as M's dad says they don't use "nice talk".

One of our earliest activities in preparation for Kenya was to get our shots in April. We needed vaccinations for Hepatitis, Diptheria, Tetanus, Yellow Fever, and Meningitis. M had already had some of these shots because of working in the hospital but I was the lucky recipient of 2 shots in each arm plus a blood draw to make sure that I had high enough antibodies to some other common pathogens like Rubella and Measles. In addition to these shots, we also got an oral vaccine for Typhoid Fever and a lot of counseling on malaria pills and how we will need of copious amounts of DEET (bugspray on steroids).

Apparently our daily routine will be something like: wake up, shower, apply DEET over every square inch, apply sunscreen over every square inch, and then reapply at approximately 10 minute intervals throughout the day because we're both pretty albino and totally susceptible to malaria. Lovely. Nothing to make you feel clean post-shower like DEET.

The best part, besides getting shots that made me unable to lift my arms for 4 days, was talking about being in Kenya. The doctor in the travel clinic specialized in infectious diseases and had been to Tanzania before to do research. She said that it was a life-changing experience for her and it made us so excited.

The details

Hi All!

E here. Since M led the way filling you in on the initial plan, I thought I'd give a few more details about our plan for the next year. We leave August 12th and the travel plan is Newark --> London --> Nairobi --> Mombasa --> Diani. We will arrive in Nairobi late on the 13th and stay the night before flying on to Mombasa on the 14th.

When we tell people we're moving to Kenya, we typically get the same questions: Where exactly is Kenya in Africa? Where is Diani? And how big will your hut be? Can M even fit in a hut?

Most people know that Kenya is in Africa and that it produces fast runners. In fact, I can't tell you how many people made jokes about me learning to run faster while in Kenya while I was training for the marathon - hey, one can only hope! Other than those two facts though, most of us (M and me included) know very little about Kenya.

Kenya is on the Eastern Coast of Africa on the "horn" part of the continent that sits below the Middle East and the Persian Gulf. It is bordered by Somalia and Ethiopia (to the north), Tanzania (to the south), and Uganda (to the East). The biggest city is Nairobi in the middle of the country and Mombasa is the second largest city on the coast. We're living in Diani about 45 minutes south of Mombasa. Click on the map above to see a close-up of our location.

Coincidentally, as soon as I told my friend Clementine that I was going to Diani, she said "oh, Diani Beach Hospital saved me after an episode of food poisoning". Of course it did. If you know Clem, this was a perfectly normal thing for her to say, otherwise, most people haven't heard of it.

We are not living in a hut. We will be living in an apartment-type of house that the lab owns. As previously mentioned, M will be working in a lab while in Diani and the lab owns this housing and has graciously offered us a place in that apartment (there are 3-4 bedrooms which are occupied with people coming and going on lab business). This arrangement is fantastic because it means that we don't have to find our own living quarters and know we have a place to stay immediately when we arrive. We've seen a few pictures but we will update you on the living arrangements when we arrive and figure them out. Very excited to get there!

How it all began

Hello reader, M here! As inaugural posts, we thought it would be a good idea to start from the inception of this Kenya scheme, and then take us to the present day. So, come back in time with me to the year 2008-ish.

2008 - After E stole my heart and we were engaged in May, we began to discuss plans for the future. Unfortunately for a medical student (and the spouse of one), this topic primarily consists of the following discussion:

Spouse: "Wouldn't it be awesome if we could do X?! When could we do that?"
Medical Student: "Yeah, that would be fun, but I have to be here for rotations / exams / the school has not yet released our schedule and I have no idea if we can go or not."

After several discussions of similar tenor, we both began to feel a bit constricted by the medical school schedule. Several weeks or months later, while discussing something unrelated, E expressed her desire to visit Africa, which she'd had for a long time. She could never really pinpoint why she wanted to go there, but something piqued her interest.

At this point, E had been working hard at her job in Boston, spending most of her weekends in Cleveland. She was sacrificing time with her friends in Boston, professional development at a job at which she did exceedingly well, and enduring countless delays at Logan Airport, all for our relationship and for my medical career. I wanted to make similar sacrifices for her, but with my scheduling constraints, I felt helpless. Finally, I realized that we could do both: my med school allows for a 5th year of medical school for those who do a year of research, which can be abroad. Perfect! Several weeks had passed since our original conversation and I'm sure it was no longer on E's mind, but one day I said "let's go to Africa!". It took me a little while to convince her that it was actually feasible, but we at least had an outline of a plan now!

I met with several physicians who had research abroad, and settled on one at the Global Health center at school who has been doing infectious disease research on the coast of Kenya for over 15 years. Among other things, his group looks at transmission rates of various disease (malaria, etc.), and the effect of several infectious diseases on newborns (i.e. Mom is infected, what does that do to her baby?). Pretty interesting stuff! His lab and projects are well-established, he was more than willing to have us, and he said the he could find plenty of work for me in Kenya. Sounds good!

Now back to my better half. While it's great to have things set up (relatively) from a research perspective, this leaves E, who is not a medical student, in a more difficult situation, not having anything to do and all. We spoke with several people who spent some time in Kenya with their spouses, and while there are volunteer opportunities (a local school, and orphanage, a rehab clinic), nothing can be set up until arrival. While not ideal, E is being a trooper and taking a leap of faith by showing up in a foreign country without anything formally arranged. I'm truly blessed that I'm married to a woman for whom I am sure this will not be a problem! When we first talked about Kenya, one of the first things out of her mouth was "I want to be fluent in Swahili". Those of you who know E know that she is a sponge, and within the first week of arriving, I know that she will already be teaching me useful phrases and customs so that I don't stand out any more than a 6'7" white guy needs to. I'm a pretty intrepid guy, but it's comforting to know that I'll be exploring with someone who is equally intrepid, not to mention my best friend.

As this blog is now at a length where I may lose my reader before I even had him/her, I'll conclude. In the last several months, we have rented our house to some Irish surgeons, boarded our dog (thanks Mom and Dad), stored and/or loaned our cars, E quit her excellent job, and I've finished third year of medical school. We're approaching the end of the first year of our married lives, and I think that we are both more nervous about this coming year than we were about the past. We're only a few days from departure now, and I kind of can't believe that we're actually doing it. I know that it's going to be amazing, not only because of the once-in-a-lifetime sites and experiences, but also because E and I will get to spend a year together (relatively) unencumbered by medical school and work. I look forward to early morning runs when it's still cool outside, struggling to construct Swahili phrases together, and spending evenings enjoying each other's company, rather than studying for the next test or finishing a powerpoint to meet tomorrow's deadline. We're so fortunate to have the opportunity to share this time together, and we hope that you'll check in from time to time and see what we're up to!

Until next time,

M