9:34pm     Wow it’s sometimes hard to believe that I am here, in Kenya, Africa.  I think sometimes that it is just unreal at how well I’ve adjusted, how I call the compound “home” when talking with others.  It scares and excites me all at the same time.  Everyone here is already family, I’ve never met such accepting people.  I met with Caitlin today and talked wit her about one other volunteer who was complaining because he couldn’t find a place to put the pull-up bar he bought.  Who cares if you can’t do your pull-ups for a few weeks?  It made me sad to think about people like him that travel here and still worry about their body image.  But I do think there’s hope, with all the great people that are volunteering here.  The boys of the compound sing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” all the time.

Achieng, ariyo, abek, angwen, abeach……6, 7, 8, ochiko, apar.  Counting to 10 in Luo.  The people at the clinic love to help teach me the language and they all laugh when I pronounce things wrong or when they ask me questions in Luo and I can’t understand.  One thing I’ve noticed in the clinic is that people don’t come in for injuries very often at all.  Often you see people walking around the town with deformities of various extremities, usually ankles and knees, from previous injury or dislocations that they never received medical care for.  People tend to only come into the clinic when illnesses are bad enough to interfere with living and working.  It’s usually a last minute thing.  Living, just surviving, is most if not everyone’s first priority.  I actually have had time to just sit back and breathe and remember just to live, live in the moment, live for today, and just to live and nothing more.