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Friday, June 1, 2012

piki piki

Yes! I rode on my first piki piki today! I mean I've been riding four-wheelers since I could walk, but it was still exciting to ride a motorcycle in Kenya. If I ever end up in Africa for longer amount of time, I have decided that I will own one of these.

Now I have to say that what got me a piki piki ride is a little less exciting. In fact, it's kind of annoying. It's also a little bit of a long story, so here we go...

So today was Kenya's independence day and therefore, we didn't have work at the hospital. My housemates, Lauren and Haley, both work in the O.R. at the hospital and a few of the O.R. staff thought it would be fun to go on a "nature walk." They said there was the potential for seeing elephants, monkeys, and waterfalls so of course we were in! This morning we met at the matatu (15 passenger van) station at 7:30 to depart. Now we are in Africa, so we didn't actually have everyone there until 8:30. Once all 12 of us were present we got on our matatu to head out to the park. We had a private driver because the wonderful Terry arranged a van that would take just us and not half of Kijabe (which is what they tend to think will fit in a matatu). The workers at the station were not very happy about this because our van wasn't next in line to leave, so we got out and walked about a mile up the hill just to meet the same van driver for the rest of the drive. Oh Kenya.
When we finally got to the park, we began our walk. It was BEAUTIFUL.



It was also a pretty tough hike.




So needless to say, it was only a matter of time before this happened. 


Yes, I sprained my ankle in the middle of the Kenyan rain forest. Thankfully, I was with a bunch of nurses and surgical technicians. 


They cut up one of their bags and gave it to me to use as an ace bandage.


As Lauren will more than willingly tell you, as soon as I went down I said, "I just broke my ankle!" Not gonna lie, it kinda felt like I broke my ankle. So I was a little over a mile away from any form of road, and you saw the pictures of the valley we climbed through to get to where this little accident happened. We decided I definitely shouldn't keep going with the hike, so Samuel who is one of the Kenyans from CURE, called his piki piki driver to come meet us at the closest road. Poor Sam, David, and Terry helped carry me to the road to meet the piki piki. They are seriously the best.

So that's how I got my first piki piki ride! Lauren and Haley got back to the house about 7 hours later with mud caked all over them and absolutely no energy. Evidently I didn't even see half of what they would encounter.

Part of me is glad I left when I did, but part of me is bummed that I had to miss out. Tomorrow is our trip to Nairobi, so pray that we can get some crutches in the morning so I'm not hopping around like an idiot all day!

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