Jet lag, a trip to USAMRU-K, and the hotel

I started my day with a Skype conversation with Brad, which was two hours later on his end than I thought it would be, on account of me not being able to tell time. Well, not so much not being able to tell time as thinking that Kenya was nine hours ahead of DC, not seven. Oops.

I was feeling awake enough to hit the treadmill this morning (I've been told no fewer than ten times that I can't do PT outside the hotel). I took it easy on myself, on account of the hours traveled and the hours I am off, and I really hate running on a treadmill, but I'm going to have to get over that if I hope to train to prepare myself for the Marine Corps Marathon in October.

After a hotel breakfast, I decided that my life was far too strenuous, so I took a late-morning nap (I'm blaming the jet lag, not my general laziness, but draw whatever conclusions you want from that), and then got ready for my trip to USAMRU-K. I got to see a little more of Nairobi during the drive to the lab, which isn't saying much. It's pretty much the same as any large city in any developing country; the only difference is what language the signs are in (in Kenya, English) and which side of the road they drive on (left). The driving itself is the same (absolutely insane, with "might is right" as far as right of way) and there aren't many differences in the people (mostly dressed in Western clothes with some more colorful outfits, walking or driving to work, and kids in uniforms walking or taking the bus to school).

At USAMRU-K, I got the introduction to the lab and the GEIS (Global Emerging Infection Surveillance) system. It's not too different as far as the mission from the Peru lab. They do research and surveillance on respiratory illnesses (flu is a big one), gastrointestinal illness, STIs, malaria, and a smattering of other things. The lab here was actually founded in 1969 by request of the Kenyan government to help them study African trypanosomiasis, or African Sleeping Sickness (which is not, despite its depiction on House, sexually transmitted). It's branched out since then, but what's remained constant is the cooperation between the United States government (both the Army and CDC have offices at the lab) and the Kenyan government. Without that cooperation, you get a situation like there was in Indonesia, which led to the Indonesian government requesting that we close the lab (that was a Navy lab; it closed last year).

After my trip to the lab, I came back to the hotel and decided to wander around. It's a pretty nice place:

Above is the hotel from the outside (this picture was actually taken from their website).

This is the view from my room. It's very green and tropical, despite the fact that July is Kenya's "winter". It is actually cooler and less humid here than it is in DC right now, but less of that has to do with the season (Nairobi is at 1 degree south latitude; you don't have seasons when you sit on the equator) and more to do with the fact that we're over 5400 feet in elevation. That's high enough that malaria mosquitoes aren't found, and have never been found, in Nairobi.

This sign is also on the hotel grounds, and I had to take a picture :) The spiral staircase in the picture leads down to a wine cave, and this sidewalk is the route from the wine cave to the hotel's restaurant. I thought it was funny :)

Tomorrow will probably be another day of playing tourist before I get to work. My flight to Malindi is at 10:40 and lands around noon, and I'm supposed to be getting a tour around Malindi after that; according to the coordinator at USAMRU-K, there isn't much that goes on at the hospital in Malindi in the afternoons. Then, Wednesday morning, it'll be time for me to pretend to be a doctor again :)