For the past month I’ve been sharing a house with Collyn, Rose and Matilda the cat. Charlie the dog occasional drops down for a quick hello, but mainly he and Meow stay at the hospital where they laze around until lunch, hoping for a piece of something to drop to the floor. Next door is Nurse Anne from Iowa who has most of her meals here. Nurse Brad (staying at Annie and Susan’s down the road) occasionally can be convinced to join.
So our house has had end of the day happy hour on this fabulous outdoor patio (where I am now). Our libation was mixed with laughter, personal and work talk, complete with meals delivered by Sam’s crew.
At least once a day we found ourselves officing at the Lilac Café where the lattes and cappuccinos flowed and Lidia kept our tabs until they bloated and she was concerned we would skip town without paying!
Early in our stay Annie and Susan kicked us off with a wonderful dinner at their house, before they headed off to see friends in Nairobi. Frank and Susan had a rocking cocktail party at their house. Susan and I had fabulous gin and tonics – what a treat!
Since I convinced Collyn to come for three weeks to do her much needed data and finance work, I wanted her to have the full experience. (It worked, she stayed a full month and will certainly come back.) So our weekends have been full – Maasai, Hadzabe and Datoga tribes, Lake Eyase, and a great Ngorongoro Crater trip (next blog I promise). We did lots of walks to Karatu with Anne to shop, eat and dodge the bling sellers and bajaji drivers who looked at us funny when we said “we just like to walk”! On our 6 mile round trip, the road was strewn with CUTE kids who want to say “hello” and ask for pipi (candy in Swahili).
Rose left on Thursday, Friday we said goodbye to Brad and I made a final goodbye breakfast for Collyn this morning.
GREAT, I did a full rotation on my TRX, some laundry and now listening to my favorite playlist on Spotify while working on this blog – all things that were sorely neglected – but I’m lonely.
Nurse Anne will no doubt wander over for a glass of wine and Sunday leftovers. AND tomorrow is Monday and I’m back to work with my favorite hospital staff on the planet! Their specialty is healing broken hearts. I love how they pronounce the E so I’m DianE or Kizito calls me Professor and one of the doctors, who thinks he is a comedian, still teases me with Jama!
A special thanks to Collyn for sharing her important expertise, for her easy immersion into the FAME culture and for leaving an everlasting mark on the “new day for data” at FAME!
I have two more months so lots to come! And we still haven’t debriefed on so much good work, Dr. Ivan’s retirement party, surviving giardia and the amazing day in the Crater!!! All coming soon!
Where in the world are you Diane? 