so i felt very strange on monday. things just weren’t right. i went to the doctor. they took a blood test. now, apparantly there are several different kinds of blood tests out there that do various different things. things one just takes a quick look at the blood to see if any major abnormalities show up to require further testing or apparantly give the doctor a fairly good idea what might be going on.

mine came back indicating i had some sort of bacteria that was just messing me around in a not so nice way. and the doctor I saw says to me: “You probably have Typhoid”. probably.

im now taking a horrible drug called ciprofloxacin. not only is is supposed to take care of whatever is bugging my system, but just in case it should also treat me for any of the following: pneumonia, bronchitis, some types of gonorrhea, diarrhea caused by bacteria, and is also used to prevent and/or treat anthrax.

potential side-effects (the ones listed after the expected side-effects): seizures, vaginal yeast infection, confusion, shaking hands that you cannot control, believing that others want to harm you, hallucination, depression, thoughts about dying or killing yourself

this is going to be a fun 10 days. i sure hope I don’t get the yeast infection.

tags: ciprofloxacintyphoidbacteriakenyanairobiyeast infectionanthrax

yesterday a large building being constructed in downtown somehow collapsed and at the moment they are not exactly sure how many people are dead. i sat and watched the local news coverage of the event yesterday. From the camera angles and the massive crowd of people and the fact that it seemed everyone was yelling at the same time, it was complete chaos. They have estimated that something like 10,000 onlookers showed up to watch, and this press of people made it very difficult for rescue vehicles and personel to get in and out of the area.

here is a photo taken from Der Yid’s flickr stream.

read this report from cnn: Many trapped in Nairobi building collapse

elsewhere:

This is something which I have neglected to mention before now, but kenya has been suffereing from drought and famine in many parts of the country for the last few months. Not only Kenya, but large parts of the “Horn of Africa”. Part of the reason I forgot to mention it is that it is not very obvious to us here in the big city. Although the number of Maasi moving their cattle through the city to graze has increased quite a bit. the sad thing is that it is really difficult to address the situation. Partly due to lack of infrastructure in the country to easilily move much needed supplies, partly due to massive corruption in governing bodies and everyone’s desire to get as much money into their own pockets as possible and *maybe partly due to a “hesitancy” from international communities to respond to yet another problem on the long list of many already bothering the world.

if you are interested to read up more about the drought/famine in Kenya at the moment check out these links from Google news: News stories about Kenya drought
This particular AP link is a pretty good read.

unfortunately I can’t find any photos to share with you anywhere on the net at the moment. that is a little frustrating.

and last but not least:

kenya recently introduced a breathalizer test to curb the amount of drunken drivers. There are way too many in this country. But the cops were pulling over so many people and busting alot of them (the police were probably also using it as a good means to scam large amounts of money from people) that a group of folks came together and took the issue to court saying that at the moment the law is unconstitutional because it wasn’t passed by legislation or something to that affect. the BBC has a nice article on it, read it here: Kenya suspends breathalyzer

*my personal opinion

tags: kenyafaminenairobibreathalyserdrought collapsehorn of africa

i forgot that free accounts don’t always do what you think they will do for you. Like let you upload tons of photos to your hearts content. oh well… it was just a whole lot easier to upload them to flickr than the way I have to do it with my own website….grrr… i need some technical assistance in sorting that one out…

a few weeks back i wrote about my experience in a closet and my exit from Maridi back to Kenya. i was trying to upload the photos today, but apparantly I have ran out of the bandwidth space I am allowed to use in one month’s time. which means I have to pay 24.95 to get unlimited, etc. don’t need it that bad.

i got about 12 of them up. and there are a couple of shots of the closet. Nothing to exciting. but here are some soldiers:

i think they are the good guys.

update: click on the photo above to view the flickr photos with a few comments or click on this link to view the photos I have recently added to my original photo page.

Tags:
sudan nairobimaridi Lord’s Resistance Army kenya

Matatu - Small mini bus used for public transportation. Really bad drivers. Or really good depending on how you look at it. If Kenyans were affected by road rage (which for some reason most of them are not) it would probably result from an encounter with a matatu driver.

saw this one this morning and thought it was nifty. I really want to walk around and take pictures of all the cool Matatus that I see, but am too afraid someone is going to try and swipe my camera.

on another note. here are a few links with some interesting information. The first one is a summary of the current situation in Sudan and is worth a read: Sudan Tribune article.

this next one is a blog of a friend of mine working in Nigeria for Shell. She and her husband write some extremely interesting observations and from quite a different perspective than your run of the mill humanitarian worker or travel bum. check it out:Warri Story

Tags:
sudan nigerianairobimatatu shell kenya

so i am back at the office in nairobi. still waiting to sign paperwork on a new contract, which seems to take these folks a long time to sort out.

here is a photo of center of nairobi:

thought you might enjoy.

for the past week some family of mary’s have come down from northern kenya and have been staying with us in the house. they have been living in probably one of the worst places in kenya - the kakuma refugee camp. So it has been nice to offer them a place to stay for a few days and relax and get away from the craziness of that other place.

the only thing is that those children know how to make lots of noise. the whole day.:)

so two complaints about Nairobi:

1. It seems anyone is happy to rob you blind. We had an electrician in our house the other day to do some work and have the suspicion that either he or the man he was working with walked off with 600 USD in cash. It mysteriously disappeard after they visited our home. That kinda hurt and really really pissed me off. We thought the money was well hidden and not in a very conspicuous (sp?) location. guess we were the stupid ones.

2. It seems anyone is happy to rob you in front of your face. I have to take Mary with me everywhere to negotiate the price of a thing. Two problems here is that when they see me, the want to charge alot. It seems to be a skin tax. I am a westerner, therefore I have lots of money and can afford to pay 5 times the asking price of a thing. At least this is what I imagine runs through their minds when they see me. Yesterday we had a man come and fill up our water tank. It was supposed to cost the equivalent of 15 dollars. Then he saw me come out of the house to watch. At the end his price changed to 20 dollars. This sort of thing happens about 3 or 4 times daily. Anywhere that we have to negotiate the price of a thing before buying it. If Mary asks before they realize I am with her, the price of the thing is reasonable. If they realize I am with Mary, they try to push it up. I know it shouldn’t bother me so much, but sometimes I get really frustrated with the attitude and approach. plus i don’t want to spend the money:)