Not Quite What I Had Planned…
This past week here at ILRI I have been pretty busy. I was able to do a couple of experiments to compare Brachiaria grass varieties and how much biomass each variety produces. I also conducted an experiment on one variety of the Brachiaria grass to see how much biomass the plant has at varying heights. These experiments kept me pretty busy all week and I was able to collect a lot of data from them.
My last weekend here in Kenya I had it planned that I would go to Kapiti, which is another location in Kenya that ILRI owns. Kapiti is basically a giant ranch where a lot of the research that can’t be done on campus is conducted. I was really looking forward to going, but it ended up not being meant to be. The day before I was to leave for Kapiti I started to feel a bit unwell, but I didn’t think to much of it. The next morning I felt even worse, but I decided I would tough it out and I would be fine. Well, I managed to make it to Kapiti, but as soon as I got there I was feeling even worse and I ended up puking a couple of times. This lead to me returning back to Nairobi and going to the doctor.
The doctor’s visit was a bit different then what I am used to seeing in the U.S. I had to fill out all of the typical information that you usually do when you go to a doctor. Next I had to go sit in a certain area to wait for all of the typical measurements to be done, but instead of going back to a room after this was done I instead had to go back out and wait for my name to be called again. When my name was finally called after waiting for what felt like forever, I went back to see a doctor who acted like a typical doctor in the U.S. He wanted to run some tests and instead of me staying in the same room, I got to go upstairs and yep! you guessed it, wait some more. After having the tests done I had to wait for them to get the results back and when I finally did I had to take them back downstairs to the doctor. There I gave the results to a different doctor, since the doctor I had originally seen was no longer on shift.
In the end I was just diagnosed with a bacterial infection and given some antibiotics to help kill all of the bad bacteria. After spending five and a half hours waiting in the hospital I was finally able to go back to campus. The rest of my weekend consisted of hot baths, long naps and a bunch of people checking to make sure that I was okay. I’m doing a lot better now and I can’t believe that I only have four more days here, it’s crazy how time flies!
