Saturday 4/29/23 10:00pm

I'm in Kenya! and I can confirm that it is still the rainy season, but ;et me back up a bit... Yesterday was the end of the month meeting with the accountants at ITW, so I spent the day entertaining Rian and repacking for the trip to Kenya. I was able to have a short meeting with Dr. Joyce Nayiga, Radiologist and the director of the Ultrasound School in Kampala, which was lovely. On my return from Kenya, I will have the opportunity to visit and tour the school, so more on that later. I finally tucked in for the night and woke up at 3am. UGH. At 3:30am I gave up and got up, finished packing, took a shower and was ready to roll long before necessary.

We left the office at 8am, picking up the rest of the training team on the way to the airport. Our Ugandan training team consists of Samalie (Lead Trainer), Sister Angela, and John; all are Sonographers and Radiographers, along with our IT guru, Allan. Additional trainers from Kenya will also be joining us at the Mara Training Center on Sunday. We caught an Air Kenya flight (12 seat prop plane) into Kisumu, Kenya, where we had to deplane with our luggage to go through customs, then hopped back on for a 30-minute flight to Mara North Nature Conservancy. I love flying in small planes and the view on the trip was spectacular, skimming along the coastline of beautiful Lake Victoria and catching a glimpse of elephants and giraffes below us during our decent to the landing strip into Mara.

We were picked up at the landing strip by James, a tall, gregarious and welcoming Maasai and our coordinator from the Training Center. James prepared us for the ride to the center, informing us that it usually took about an hour, however wildlife and rain may delay the trip. People, I thought I was going to lose my damn mind...there were animals EVERYWHERE! Here is a small fraction of the photos I managed to take before the rain found us.

Once the soggy team and our luggage was unloaded, we were fed a delicious late lunch and met the staff that would keep us well fed and taken care of during our stay. When the rain subsided, we barely made it to our rooms before it started up again. I am always so anxious about sharing a room with anyone, I attempt to stay up as late as possible and often wake up way too early, which is almost impossible to manage without disturbing a roommate. Luckily, there was a single available, a 3 walled room with a tarp and screen for the fourth wall and a small patio. The rest of the ladies shared rooms in the building with private bathrooms, whereas I have to walk about 20 feet to the toilets and showers. Absolutely worth it and I feel like I'm almost camping! My building has 8 similar rooms, two of them are singles (Allan snagged the other single), two of them have 2 beds, and the last two have three beds. There are also t more rooms with bathrooms that have 3 beds in each. The Mara Training Center is used for Training Nature Conservancy staff and rented out to organizations like ours, which helps bring in income. Take some time to learn about this incredible place. https://maraconservancies.org/

It is almost 11pm and I can see that the Wi-Fi is not working, so I'm going to sign off in hopes that I can post this in the morning. I'll leave you with a few photos of my temporary home for the next three weeks. 

Much love, Jo

My tent room at the Mara Training Center

My little patio

The toilet and shower building near my room