Day 1: Arrival and Orphanage

After finishing my series of flights from Jacksonville to Atlanta to Amsterdam to Nairobi to Mombasa, I arrived at my walled-in and gated housing complex. There are about 5 or 6 buildings in the complex, with one main building have the most bedrooms, the kitchen, and the living room. The other buildings are mostly just bedrooms and bathrooms. My building is small and has 2 of us in one room and 4 in the other.

The housing complex is walled-in with a gate for security.

 The main building's front door, which leads to other buildings, the pool, and clothes-hanging areas.

The living room leading to the kitchen (left) and a bedroom (right). The water bottle 

supplies us with safe drinking water since the tap water is unsafe for consumption.

The living room in the main building where we will likely spend much of our downtime.

After getting settled and meeting the other 15 or so pre-health students, we were driven to an orphanage down the road. There, we sang to the kids (Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, I'm a Little Tea Pot) and they sang to us. Then we told the kids about ourselves one at a time, and then we took pictures with them and kicked a soccer ball around with them.

Very rough living conditions on our way to and from the orphanage.

Lots of kids at the orphanage. 

More kids. 

Face.

Happy!

Finally we headed back to housing complex and ate dinner. Tomorrow morning starts early for hospital orientation!

 

My first homemade Mombasa dinner: spaghetti and meat sauce with vegetables!