Eye Surgery Is Not for the Faint of Heart.

What a day… I thought it would just be another ordinary eight hours at the clinic spent wrapping up my research here before I leave for Tanzania on Tuesday, but as it turns out, today was a little more exciting than I’d bargained for.

I decided that I wanted to watch an eye surgery while I had the opportunity, so this afternoon I suited up in green scrubs and a hairnet and entered the operating theatre to watch Dr. Sebastian masterfully remove a cataract from an elderly patient and insert a new lens in the eye. I got to look through a microscope while he worked, and it was really fascinating… except I have discovered (without much surprise) that I don’t have the stomach for that kind of thing.

A few minutes into surgery I found myself feeling incredibly hot, nauseous, and unstable on my feet as all the sounds around me and the beeping of the machines faded and seemed to be coming from very far away. I had to sit down and compose myself three times during the fifteen-minute surgery for fear I’d faint and land right on top of the patient (who was, by the way, fully conscious during the entire operation). He handled the whole thing much better than I did, which is slightly embarrassing. Ah well… there’s a reason I’m not going into medicine!

In other news, I’ve been in Kenya for two weeks as of today, and I think I’m really starting to get used to life here. For one thing, it feels very normal now to drive on the left-hand side of the road and to have the passenger’s seat be on the left side of the car. By the way, Sebastian promised to let me try to drive his car someday soon - driver’s seat is on the right and I’ll have to shift with my left hand… should be interesting! Maybe I can talk him into letting me try it out today??

Another thing I see everywhere here that I don’t at home is all the brightly-colored clothing. Because the costal area is 90% Muslim, many of the women also wear the beautiful material to cover their heads. It doesn’t even seem strange anymore to see women wearing full black covering with only their eyes showing (or even having the face completely covered), although I still have no clue how they survive the heat and humidity under all that! My favorite is when women wearing black cloth over their faces put glasses on top of it like I saw in the clinic today : )

I’m also growing accustomed to eating oogali (think white corn meal formed into a sticky ball) with vegetable stew with the fingers of my right hand (no silverware needed!), and I like all the food here I’ve tried so far. Today for lunch I had chipati (like a deep-fried tortilla) with stew - yum! Although this one I had to cheat and use a spoon with… couldn’t quite figure out how to sop up the stew with the chipati without one.

I am almost used to being the only American around and lately have been getting teased about my accent and the way the American “a” is pronounced in a very nasal way – especially having grown up in northwest Ohio - instead of the more British “ah” (as in “mahn-go” instead of “mango” and “Fahn-ta” instead of “Fanta”… or “Stah-cy” instead of “Stacy”). Yes well… can’t help it!

Happy Thursday, more to come when I get back to a computer or internet cafe!