Elephants and Giraffes

I'll get to the animal petting soon but first let me tell you the story of how I injured myself.

Every day to get to work I have to take a 10 minute matatu ride then walk for about 30-45 minutes. During this walk there are 2.5 monstrous mountains. Every morning I go down a red dirt one and then up 1.5 rocky, slip-sliding one. Every afternoon is down the 1.5 deathtrap and up the red dirt one. No big. On Friday afternoon I was going down the rocky one with three coworkers when my right foot settled on a very unstable rock. The next thing I know I am sliding down on my butt with my right leg tucked under me. Everyone immediately reaches down for me to help me back up. I say that I am really fine and that it didn't hurt that bad. Until I looked down at my right leg. Blood everywhere. My friend Rahab says, "I think there is a rock in your knee!" No way. I look down at it and think "nope, that's just my skin." On a closer inspection I realize that there is indeed a rock completely embedded in my knee. Someone says that I should just pull it out because we all think that it is a small rock and no big deal. I have it half way out when someone says "Stop! It's really big, maybe you should just keep it in there." Ummm... no way. I am not pushing it back in my knee or leaving it hanging out halfway. I continue to pull it out. As soon as it is out I realize two things. 1) it is a BIG rock. About the size of the tip of my thumb. You may say that it is not that big, but when it is in your knee that is HUGE. 2) there is blood now gushing out of the hole in my knee down my leg. One of my friends hands me about 5 baby wipes to mop up the blood and another goes back in Kangemi looking for some band-aids.

Also, remember that this is the first mountain and that I still have 30 more minutes of walking and a 10 minute matatu ride before I get anywhere near my apartment.

My friend comes back with the band-aid and I slap it on my leg. I decide not to look down at my leg again until we get to the matatu stop, because I know that if I do I will just sit down and cry. I make it back to the matatu stop with many, many strange looks at me on the way. When we stop I realize that the band-aid is hanging off my knee and there is blood running down my leg. I mop it up some more and slap another band-aid on for the ride home.

Long story short- I get home and have been nursing it to health. I do not want an infection from that bloody rock. I have been lathering it in neosporin and dousing it in hydrogen peroxide twice a day. So now you know why I have been limping around and look ridiculous climbing the 5 flights of stairs to our apartment every day. If you were wondering that is.

On to baby elephants and giraffes! By now you have probably seen the 150 photos on my Facebook of the baby elephants and giraffes we saw yesterday. So amazing!

We went into Nairobi with some other Emory students that are here for CDC research to the Nairobi wildlife place. Not sure of the name right now, but I took a picture of the sign if you want details. Only 500 KSH to see the elephants (around $5), which was a donation to help them along. They house 23 baby elephants from the wild and when they are ready, release them back. Most of them are in the orphanage because their mothers were killed by poachers and park rangers found them all alone. The park rangers are their family so they play with them everyday and feed them every three hours, which means that every baby elephant sleeps in a pen with a caretaker each night. How amazing is that? Anyways, you can see the photos and I will attempt to upload more videos when the internet is better.

After the baby elephants we went across the park to the giraffes. Amazing! As you can tell from my photos they have no fear of humans. I even kissed one! On the cheek :) Leslie caught a picture of it so I will have to look for it on her computer to post to Facebook. It was very cool. There was a great gift shop there where I bought some really cool stuff.

I will confess that I have done two American things this weekend. 1) I had KFC yesterday. It was so good! Not sure if it was good because it was American or if it was just because it was good food. Probably a mixture of both. But they did not have mac'n cheese which was upsetting. I have also caught myself saying chips, instead of fries and petrol, instead of gas. Changes. 2) I just got back from the movies. There is a cinema in the mall that we live by and if you know me at all, then you know that I adore movies! It was so cheap, only 550 KSH (about $6). I guess that isn't that cheap but compared to Atlanta it really is.

That's all for now. I'm about to head downtown to meet one of Leslie's coworkers for some amazing views and sightseeing. And we will also buy our train tickets to Mombasa for August :)

Stay tuned!