February 5, 2012

Greetings to everyone in Canada and the United States.  We have been busy with settling the boy into another school, some wonderful travel and the goal of creating a carpentry business/school among other adventures!
It has been a privilege to be able to offer some of my menial skills and experience in helping, I hope, a few people out in this country.
One of my most recent experiences was a tour of the Moi Teaching Hospital here in Eldoret.  I was invited by a friend Eun Yong a social worker from the United States working with AMPATH.  As a former social worker/mental health worker I took the opportunity to see first hand how a developing nations' health care operation works.  I was invited to perform rounds with the team and saw all the wards from palliative to surgery.  In Kenya when you come to a hospital for treatment you are not allowed to leave until you pay your bill.  I witnessed beds that had three people per bed, where one is sick and two could leave but can not because they do not have the resources to pay.  There is a recent law implemented where the State will pay the bill after proof of poverty and can take up to three months to process.  The forms are filled out in Eldoret go to Nairobi' Ministry of Health then approved and sent back to Eldoret for release of said patient.
About half of the patients I saw in palliative care were AIDS related with the balance being TB and other such afflictions.  The hospital did have a smaller ward where some teen ages and younger ones had a more quite environment to pass over.
The wards are segregated with men on one wing and women on the other.  Family and friends, if available and can afford the travel costs, come to tend their own.  Nurses are useless and appear to be burnt out or just do not care anymore.  Many patients will lie in feces for many hours or days.  Depends or sanitary items for women are non existent.  Women with cervical cancers leak out onto the beds with infrequent care by the nurses.  It is quite sad to see first hand however when I did stop to do bed side talks I ensured that I touched or rubbed my contact and the smiles warmed my soul.
At the time of my visit we had a woman die.  Her name was Phyllis and I was volunteered by the team to identify the body at the morgue that afternoon.  The process is that when an individual dies a piece of masking tape is attached to their forehead and their name and file number written on same.  The body is transported to the morgue, the family is notified to claim the body.  In this case EunYong informed me that the body would be picked up the following day, because this family could afford to pay the hospital bill, and requested that I and the team go to the morgue to identify Phyllis's body.  We did so, but the some what disturbing thing was that in the morgue, due to lack of space, bodies are stacked up to six high on each tray awaiting pick up.  When the doors were opened heads bob out.  Quite sad.  Phillis we did identify and have her cleaned up for presentation and pick up the following morning.  Some bodies will remain in the morgue for quite some time because families can not afford to pay the deceased hospital bill.
On the positive side many improvements have been made over the twelve years AMPATH has been here with stories from the past I would rather not mention in this blog.  I am amazed at how far they do stretch a dollar compared to our Canadian health care system.

 When we traveled to Lake Baringo for a holiday we stopped by a school/foster home for deaf children.  It was great!  The children were warm and inviting, well nourished and happy.  I took pictures of them and they were very excited to see themselves.  We will print out and send same to Elizabeth (a friend who helps run the facility) to give to the children.  One thing that was especially titillating was to watch the children interact with my boy Alex.  It is a rare thing for black children to see white children of the same age, especially in this region.
As my beautiful wife Lori has mentioned above and with other pictures of the Lake area we had a rejuvenating weekend!
I have been focusing most of my time and attention on helping a young man named Patrick O'Mera from the U.S.  Patrick is a recent graduate of engineering from Illinois and his wife Dr. O'Mera works with AMPATH.  Patrick started a small 'seed' repair and maintenance business two years ago in Eldoret.  I have come on board with him to help in training of his staff, setting up a work shop proper, consulting with him with the goal of fundraising to acquire capital assets (tools and equipment) and work with Red River Community Colleges' Carpentry department to start a formal school in the region based on their curriculum.  Currently there is only one Poly Tech school that awards a certificate to graduates of their course.  Unfortunately, the school does not have proper funding to purchase materials to develop the practical/apprenticeship skills required for the realities of working in the industry.  I am currently working towards a mutual arrangement where they will test our students in exchange for practical hands on training for theirs.  In Kenya the way of things is that one has to have a piece of paper to command a higher wage, but in most cases they have no practical experience.  This runs the gamete from government to trades.  One of my objectives is to have workers/students who can not only have the certificate but perform also.  Teach a man to fish...

The secondary goal is to develop the capacity of the crews and the business/school to have the ability to work on the 25 AIDS/HIV sites in the region.  The sites are being converted from triage to primary care.  I have met with Dr. Joe Manlin, co-founder of AMPATH and his wife Sara Ellen and both think this is the right direction to go.
I have attached some pictures here to show some work to date.  It has included the purchase of power tools (I think one calls it "in kind") and the conversion of a structure (formerly a chicken shed!) into a viable work shop.  The power in Kenya is 240 vs our 110 so if you play with the power here you do not get a "tickle" as in Canada.  You may get your heart stopped though!  The shed now has hand made upper wood grills for security and air flow, upgrades on electrical, intitial shelving units being completed for secure tool storage and where the disaster wood pile is currently to have a iron wood drying rack and work benches constructed within the next month or so.  The area that has a wood pile in the corner will eventually be housed in and become an office area.  I hope to call on some of you for donations in the near future.  From house parties to corporate I am confident we can get a viable, sustainable business/school up and running!  The crew is pumped!  We have four months of work lined up and the weather looks good.  Do what you love, love what you do, and deliver your promise.

Office to be

New shelves for proper tool storage

Tool storage before works began

Cut at a steady pace

 

Learning skill saw basics - Well done!

Measure twice

 

February 3, 2012

Hi all

Not too much new on our end.  Work is keeping both Jim and I busy.  Alex is finally settled at school, although not really until 2 days ago.  I hope that this is it. Today I went to my third AMPATH site and the district hospital attached to it for a site visit.  I learn something new here everyday.  My learning curve is very steep as it always is in the first 6 months on a new job.  Add a new country to that and I think it doubles. The good thing is that the things that I learned this week will push us forward much more quickly on this project which is good (ie.  some of the work was previously done but not implemented on another project). 

We were tourists last weekend.  We went to Lake Baringo which is east and north from here. We stayed at an absolutely lovely place called Lake Baringo Island camp.  It was so hot that all you could do was sit by the pool, read, talk and swim.  Lovely.  Can't swim in the lake though unless you like swimming with crocs.  The food was excellent.  The company was great.  On the boat ride to the island Alex said, "this is like being in a movie".  Boy didn't he get it right.  The location and people (a very interesting group) would make the perfect movie.  On Saturday, Alex spent from 8:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. in the pool with his friend Otte. You will see them in the pics.  Needless to say he was a little tired.  I surprised he made it for the early morning boat ride on Sunday, but he did. Good thing because we saw two hippos swimming.  Hung out and watched them for about 10 minutes.  Saw many great birds.

If I can get Jim on here to write, you could hear about his hospital tour with the Palliative care program. 

Take care all. Lori

Our friend Ash

Friend Paula on the left

Otte - Paula and Ash's Foster Son and Alex's friend

 

Happy Malanka

Selling wares

Kakamega Forest - Large shallow roots

Happy Malanka to all my Orthodox friends and family.  I hope you all had a fun time at the festivities.  On our side, we went out for supper and stayed up until 10:30.  That is late for around here!

Typical stalls

Washing cars in Lake Victoria - Kisumu

Kakamega

Donkey and cart

Garbage along the side road

Alex eating a huge serving of ugali

Homa Bay

Andrew & looking at Lake Victoria

We have been settling into a real routine around here after the Christmas festivities.  Between Christmas and new years, we took a 3 day trip down to around Lake Victoria area.  We went to Kakamega Forest which is the last bit of Rain Forest in these parts which used to reach all the way across Africa at this latitude.  It is a National Park now.  We stayed in Kisumu the first night.  We drove into the city about 7:30 p.m. (already dark here by that time) and what I noticed the most, was the lack of electricity.  There were so few buildings with electricity.  And there are no street lights anywhere in  these smaller cities.  We celebrated Jim's birthday that evening with a nice dinner out.  You will see in the pictures, Andrew.  Andrew is one of our new friends.  He was introduced to us as someone whom we could trust as a taxi and we soon became friends.


We spent the next two days traveling around Kisumu area and south down the lake to Homa Bay.  Around Homa Bay are the Homa Hills. These are old volcanoes worn down after millions of years.  We climbed the highest one in the area so that we could see out across the landscape.  I won't be climbing Mt. Kenya if I don't get into better shape! We did lots of driving on the trip and saw a variety of different landscapes - rain forest, rice fields, mountains, sunflower fields, Lake Victoria.

Happy boy on first day at school in Eldoret

Since then we have been settling into school (Alex - not so well) and fully into work (me - going well).  For my eHealth colleauges, I am working as the PM, business analyst and change manager on a project.  I have 2 analysts in training working about 80% on the project with me, a system analyst about 10% and 2 quality data analysts, very part time.  We are working on a pilot project (2 sites) to transform the HIV clinics to Chronic Disease Management clinics (large modification of the health record - paper and electronic) and the current Primary Health Care clinics to a streamlined primary care centre with electronic records including reporting to the government and no paper chart. They have done some work on the initial PHC patient record already and we are coming in to streamline it and to make sure that it has all the clinical and reporting components required. The goal is to  have the pilot completed by the end of this fiscal year and use it as model for the rest of the 23 sites and their satellite sites.  At the same time, the IT group is working on a wireless network across the AMPATH region.  We are waited anxiously for this as it means that we will be able to have a networked EMR for AMPATH across all 25 sites.  Very exciting and so much opportunity for improvement!

We are also tasked to come up with a strategy for a Univeral ID for clients / patients.  This will be a more difficult task and has been one that has been one the books for a while.  A research project has just been completed with 4 sites using a Universal ID however, at this time, some patients can have up to 13 different IDs.  The research project work however will be extremely useful and one of the analysts on the project was the project assistant.


So this will be a challenging year at work but it is very exciting.  The analysts that are working with me are very smart and there is certainly great potential for leadership in this area.

As for the rest of the family, Jim has been doing some small jobs.  He is putting in a quote this weekend to the Sally Test Program (children's area at the hospital)  to build a wall of cabinets for a new centre at one of the hospitals.  Alex has been having a few issues adjusting to school and the new schedule so we have been working hard to help him. And for those who want to know, I heard from Sally Hull at Hull's Haven Border Collie Rescue and Penny is doing very well!  She has been trained  out of her aggressiveness and is now being fostered by a family who has a little boy who adores her and who has a minature  Penny to play with. If you know of anyone who wants to adopt her, please call Sally at Hull's Haven.  And we have adopted a pet here.  Tuffy the farm cat has been coming around for about a month now.  He was very skinny (ie. starving) when he first started coming around but is now well fed (better than some people here).  He has a home on the patio (box with Jim's old sweater inside) and is best friends with Jim.  He however wants to come in the house and I won't allow it.  Pretty good for a farm cat I would say.

As for coping with the culture here, sometimes it is difficult.  I often feel guilty.  We live in this nice home with all the amenities of life.  And just across the way are people who are struggling to feed themselves. There are people in town who drive Mercedes cars past the street kids.  It really doesn't make much sense. I have talked about it with my new friends and colleagues and they struggle with it plenty.  Consider this, a member of parliament in Kenya makes over $200,000 Cdn a year TAX FREE not including corruption $ (Stephen Harper makes $300,000 a year and a Canadian backbencher MP makes $150,000 and have to pay tax).  Remember the doctors who make $12,000 a year (not tax free).  Think about the worker with limited education (because their family could not afford to send them to school) who make $5 a day or about $1000 a year.  Some of the people here believe there will be an uprising one day against the rich and those are the ones who are in government.  The Northern African uprising of 2010/2011 will move south eventually.

Once again, in the mean time we do what we can.  Today I will see Ronald (the runner) at the market.  I am meeting Joshua (just graduated from grade 12) for chai (tea) or lunch.  Whether I can provide some hope or hands on support, I do not know. But I will do whatever little I can.  I will take any guilty energy I have and put it to good use. 

So I am off to enjoy the beautiful sun that is out this morning and my Kiswahili lesson before I go to the market.  I was up at 5:30 because I could not stand listening to the neighborhood dog choir anymore.  Can always take that afternoon nap as it is Saturday!

Take care all.  Enjoy the winter (LOL).

Lori

Kipkaren Hospice

CO, Rebecca, Adrian, Purity

On Friday December 23, we had a chance to go to the Living Room International hospice at Kipkaren, east of Eldoret (http://www.livingroominternational.org/kenya/).  Both adults and children live at the hospice, for short periods of time or for long term care.  Sometimes it is for palliative care but most of the time it is for healing or long term care.  I liked going there so much that I think that I will try to spend some weekend time there every month.  Alex stayed pretty close to mom and dad however later that day, he said that he liked the babies.  The staff we met were wonderful.  I would like to tell you about  the residents. 

Noah

Noah is in his late 20’s.  He has a brain injury and is paralyzed on his left side from a drowning.  Noah survived the drowning however he was not taken well care of.  When the living room staff found him, I believe that they said he was down to 30 kg.  Noah has been at the hospice now as a long term resident for some time around a year and is doing very well.  He can’t verbalize however is able to communicate simply with the staff through non-verbal communication.

Mary

We met Mary when we first came in and were getting our tour.  She was lying in her bed.  Mary is 14 or 15 and has been at the hospice for about 8 months or so.  When Mary first arrived, she could not walk and was severely malnourished.  She still does not verbalize however she is walking and has been rehabilitating well.  I do not know why she has these problems whether it is due to malnutrition or something else. You will see a picture of Mary putting on slippers.  We brought these sheepskin slippers and they fit her perfectly.  I think they will be better for walking than the flipflops she was wearing. Mary was very interested in Alex.  She communicate that she wanted Alex to come near to her and then later on when we went to the living room area, she wanted Alex to sit beside her. 

Mary in her new slippers

Purity grabbed Jim’s heart immediately.  When we came in, she went to him right away and he probably had her in his arms for two out of the three hours we were there.  Purity has only been at the hospice for about 4 weeks.  She is HIV positive and 2 ½ years old.  The staff said that she is responding well to the anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs.  She looks healthy but she is small because she has been malnourished. 

The most beautiful smile on Adrian

Mercy is also about years old and has only been at the hospice for a very short period of time.  She was severely malnourished when she came to the hospice and is only about the size of a 8 month old due to the malnutrition. She is eating well at the hospice and seems to be managing well.

Adrian.  Beautiful  Adrian.  Apart from our friend Michael, he has the most beautiful smile in the whole world.  Adrian arrived at the hospice about one week before we visited.  He is 5 years old and has been blind since birth.  Adrian is HIV positive and is quite sick right now.  Jim was rubbing his back and Adrian’s caregiver had to tell Jim to stop because it was causing him pain – Adrian has boils all over his back.  That tells me that he certainly has AIDS symptoms.  However, they have started him on the ARVs so hopefully they will start to fight the virus soon.  We brought some presents and gave Adrian the St. Bernard dog that you see him with in the pictures.  It was nice and soft.  When he felt it the big beautiful smile came onto his face.  Adrian’s smile was my Christmas present. Adrian felt all the parts of the dog as someone explained to him what they there.   Adrian wanted to take his dog for a walk so they tied a rope around the dog’s neck and Adrian took him for a walk.  With Adrian was nyanya (grandma) Rebecca.  I think Rebecca comes to volunteer at the hospice but I am not sure.

Belinda and Marcie

Little Belinda is 3 months old.    She came to the hospice with her mom shortly after she was born.  Her mom was dying of AIDS and Belinda was diagnosed as HIV positive.  Her mom died when Belinda was 2 months old.  Belinda has been started on ARVs since she arrived at the hospice and was diagnosed.  She is growing well and is healthy.  If a pregnant woman starts on certain ARV drugs when she is pregnant, the transmission of the HIV from mom to baby decreases from 50% t0 3% or so.  So part of the education and prevention process with AMPATH is to have people get tested for HIV early and often (if they are sexually active).  Unfortunately, this did not occur with Belinda’s mom.

Jacob

Jacob has been at the hospice for three months.  Before that he was in the hospital in Nairobi. Jacob is a teacher, married and the father of 3 children between 3 and 10.  I cannot remember the whole story from when I first heard it in August however Jacob was at school when someone (? a student) came into the school with a gun.  Jacob was shot in the back injuring his spinal column.  He is paralyzed from the waist down. However, his upper body is good so he can push himself around in the wheel chair.  Jacob’s family lives close to the hospice and visits him often. He was going home for Christmas week when we met him.  Jacob is a history teacher and loves to read.  His English was excellent, as you would expect from a teacher.  He reminded me of my dad.  Jacob is still in rehab.  When I asked him if he was going to teach again, he said that he thought that he would.  There is a school and residence for children which is part of the organization that the hospice belongs to, so maybe he will get a job there.  I would think that they would be lucky to get him.  We will look for some history books so that when we go back, we will take them for him.  He seems to have a very strong character and the will to continue through rehab. 

Sharlene

Sharlene is 8 years old.  She has been at the hospice for quite some time and will likely stay there for long term care.  By looking at Sharlene I think she may have Muscular Dystrophy.  She didn’t really respond but she looked healthy and well taken care of. Along with Sharlene was Marcie who is 5.  I think Marcie also has MD.  Marcie’s mom and baby sister were there while we were visiting.  Marcie was walking with the support of her mom.  

Teresa

Teresa was extremely sweet.  I spent a good bit of time with her.  She has had stroke and is paralyzed on the one side.  She is not walking at all.  Teresa certainly understood what we were saying to her but could not verbalize back.  However she certainly communicated through her facial expressions and her arm.  I love the connection that women have between each other.  No matter who you are or what physical or mental state you are in, women have a bond that is very distinct and strong.  I love feeling that bond with the women in my life.

Jacob and Paulina

I had just a little bit of time to spend with Pauline because we were leaving soon.  However, as I held her hand and talked her, Pauline responded with a big smile. I am not 100% sure of Pauline’s situation however the staff indicated that she was found at her sister’s house and was very sick.  I think she is HIV positive.  Her sister’s husband no longer wanted her sister to look after Pauline (very cultural that the wife has to basically ignore her family) so Pauline was moved to the hospice.  I cannot remember any other details however her sister does come to visit her.

Joseph

I didn’t really talk to Joseph much however Jim did spend some time with him.  Joseph’s legs are not good however he is still walking.  He was in good spirits and seemed physically healthy.

I think that is everyone who lives there.  I look forward to the next time we are able to go back and visit.

Purity

Smiling Mary

Jim and Purity

December 20, 2011

December 20, 2011

Well just a few more days until Christmas.  We bought some Christmas decorations yesterday at the “Eldoret Cultural Shop” – basically a souvenir  shop for us Mzungus.  I am liking that Christmas in non-commercial here.  Christmas is not a secular holiday here.  It is a little more commercial in Nairobi, as I see from the newspapers, but certainly not in Eldoret.  I did buy a few gifts for one of the organizations here and we are going to go out there this Friday December 23.  Look it up if you want.  Google 'Living Room International Kenya'.   This will be a low key Christmas except that we are hosting Christmas dinner for 16.  We are having Kenyans, new Kenyans (previously Canadian), Americans and ourselves.  Ages 7 to late fifties.  Should be fun.  I have even ordered a Turkey to cook(instead of the traditional goat).

I have started to buy my fruits and vegetables at the local market instead of the supermarket.  I went last Saturday and yesterday.  I also went to the fish market last week which had delicious fish from Lake Victoria.  So yesterday a t the market I met Ronald.  For those of you who read my emails in the summer you may remember my story about shopping in the market and talking to the teenage boys.  Well I saw the same group again yesterday.  As I approached the beans and spice shop, Ronald asked me if he could help me in the market (to make some money).  I told him I would let him know when I came out of the shop.  So after I bought my wheat berries and beans I came out and realized I would have two heavy bags to carry and I needed to walk a ways so I ‘hired’ him.  I offered him 100 shillings (for about one hour) but he told me he wanted to buy some new pants for Christmas, so I gave him 200 shillings ($2.40 Cdn).  So Ronald went with me to buy the fruits and vegetables, to the souvenir shop and up to the supermarket.  Ronald has his grade 8 (he is probably 16).  He doesn’t go to school anymore because high school is too expensive.  He lives with this group of boys.  He is a runner and has dreams of becoming a Kenyan athlete. He said he runs 20 km every evening.  He says he saves his money to buy running shoes (he was wearing dress shoes when I saw him).  Kenyan athletes  do very well here and the main track training facility is here in Eldoret because we are at over 7000 feet elevation. I asked him if he would like to continue on with school and he said yes.  So, I told Ronald to look for me next Saturday between 9:00 and 10:00 and he could carry for me again next week. 

All I know is that I am not going to change the world, but little by little, we can help one person at a time.

If don't talk or email you, blessings to you all this Christmas.  May God be with you all and may we all be grateful for the blessing and challenges He has bestowed upon us.  May you have a stress-free week.

Love Lori

Friday December 9, 2011

Because we have had internet issues, I have not been able to blog.  Something happened to the wifi on my computer and it is not fixed yet.  And we moved and do not have access to internet set up yet.  So I just have on and off internet at work. 

Well it has now been three weeks since we left sunny Winnipeg for Eldoret.  The last 7 days it has been sunny and 22-25 degrees.  I have had 2 weeks at work and we have been in our new house (see pics) for 5 days.

The house is big enough to fit many people (not only 3) however we rented it because there are not a lot of rentals around.  Unfortunately, it is not furnished, so we have to furnish it. We hope that when we move out, the new people will want to purchase the furnishing and appliances.  It is a very nice home and is in an area with 3 other houses behind a security gate.  I would say that we are living within the top 1% of the people in this country.  The exact opposite of the slum that I was able to visit in August.  So we have been mainly spending our time getting settled.

The top manager at AMPATH lives across the street from us and his wife is a pediatrician at AMPATH.  They have a 7 year old boy so Alex has someone to play with. They also have an adorable 1 year old baby girl.

We have met a number of people, both Kenyan and North American.  The Kenyans are very welcoming.  We have two birthday parties to go to this weekend.   One for Eden, who is turning three.  One of the American families has been going through adoption / immigration processes for about 2 years now to have Eden ‘lawfully’ join their American family.  She has been their daughter since she was 9 months old when they first met her.  Her dad and her are still here in Eldoret waiting for the adoption and immigration to be finalized while her mom and little brother have gone back to the US as mom is due with a new baby in January.  We hope that the paperwork can be finished by January when the new baby will be born so Eden and her dad Ben can be with the rest of the family.  US immigration appears to be the main barrier.

The second birthday party is for Isaac (Otte) who is turning 7.  He is the foster child of one of the AMPATH managers.   When Otte was 4 he was living on the streets as his mother could not take care of her many children (I believe 8 at that time). He came up to Paula (his foster mom) and told her that he was so very hungry.  Paula and her husband started to foster Otte at that time.  He lives with them, goes to school and has a good life.  He goes home still to visit his brothers and sisters.  Alex and Otte met at American Thanksgiving and have played a few times since.  He is a very decent kid and certainly has lots of street smarts.

On the healthcare side of things, the publicly paid physicians have been on strike since Monday.  The hospital AMPATH is affiliated is one of two publicly run teaching hospitals in the country.  That means that there have not been any doctors for 5 days.  There is no such thing as an essential services law here.  I was speaking with Dr. Joe Mamlin, US head of AMPATH yesterday and he said he just finished rounds on the medicine units in the morning.  There was only him and two medical students who had failed their exams and were taking extra rotations to learn more.  I understand that the Emergency department is crazy.  All units are being manned only by AMPATH medical consultants from the US.  The situation is not good from a patient perspective and will only get worse.  I do however feel for the physicians.  Their salaries are extremely low.  A senior medical officer receives approximately $500 per month salary with about the equivalent in perks for a total of about $1000 a month.  Not much for a senior physician, even in Kenya.  Compare that $12,000 a year to the Kenyan Members of Parliament who make $100,00 to $200,000 a year, not including perks.  Now compare that to a fulltime housekeeper / nanny that makes $50-$80 a month.  Hmmm. . .

The mortuary at the hospital has to stack bodies on top of one another because there is not enough room.  If family members do not claim the body (generally because they cannot afford to claim it), the body gets buried in a common grave.  If the family pays for a coffin, a coffin will be used.  If the family does not pay for a coffin, then the body will be wrapped in cloth and buried.  This makes me sad.

If a health professional at the hospital makes a mistake they are responsible for it.  It is not considered a system responsibility.  Current story I heard:  a pharmacist was on maternity leave.  Her replacement made a mistake which cost the patient approximate $40 (compare that to the income of the housekeeper).  The patient found out that a mistake was made and that she did not have to pay the $40 so she ‘sued’ hospital to get her $40 back.  The hospital made the pharmacist on maternity leave pay the $40 (even though she wasn’t at work and was on maternity leave).  The pharmacist’s income is not high and has a family of three to look after. 

You will see is the pictures one of a dog.  Her name is Chai and we have become quite attached to her.  She lives at the residence where we were staying.  The giraffes were seen by Alex and Jim at a farm close to Eldoret. 

So that is it for now.  Take care.  If you want to email you can contact Jim at backtobasicswinnipeg@gmail.com or Lori at lorisiddall@gmail.com

Lori