Travels with my Stethoscope .

Tuesday 26th February
 My last day in Saikeri was full of goodbyes. As usual, I just felt like I was getting to know what I was doing and it was time to leave. I walked down to the village to say a few farewells, and someone wearing a red shukka in the distance shouted out "Supa Nosim!" (Hello Nosim), I shouted back "Eepa" (the response to supa) without really knowing who it was, but it gave me a bit of a warm glow just knowing that no-one was staring at me any more, I was just the mzungo (white person) from the clinic. We then got taken for a beer in the village bar, rather strangely named "The Honey Pot" , by Maggie's brother William, a softly spoken man with the biggest smile I have ever seen. With no electricity ,we sat in the semi-darkness sipping warm beer as one by one the Maasai locals popped in, all of them shaking my hand, several of them pointing out various wounds that I had dressed for them over the last few weeks - warm beer has never tasted so good.We left as it grew dark,  gasoline lamps flickering inside darkened windows, and the sounds of African music and muted laughter drifting from behind the doors of the corrugated iron shacks that lined the dusty road. It was a moment I will never forget.
Due to a fantastic bit of Kenyan timekeeping, our 0900 pick-up arrived at 1500, so arrived late into Nairobi, ready for Safari the following morning.

Now I'm really really really going to try not to go on too much about Safari, but it's going to be very tricky, as it was simply AMAZING. Everyone talks about the "Big Five" - elephant, buffalo, leopard, rhino and lion. We saw the lot on the first day !!! The leopards are notoriously the hardest to find, hanging out as they do, in trees, and being the fiercest of all the cats. The leopard we found stalked in front of our van, me in the front, with my window open, frozen solid with fear in my seat - I could have reached out and touched it - had I been able to move..... oh I could go on and on and on about how completely wonderful and awe inspiring to drive across the Maasai Mara, spotting girraffes practice fighting while the rest of the herd grazed on impossibly tall trees, while an elephant strolls past in the distance, zebras crossing (sorry !), and to top it all we saw a black rhino. Apparently, in the 350000 acres of the Maasai Mara, there are only 40 black rhinos left, thanks to poaching. The chances of seeing one, are therefore very rare indeed - the last sighting being some five months previously. And we saw one.
To top that we stayed in permanent tent structures with proper beds, electricity, and the best hot shower I have had in a month. We completed each day playing silly card games, drinking COLD beers, and at one point , laughing till I had tears rolling down my face. And to add to the perfect weekend, I found out I had passed my diploma in tropical nursing !
I am going to forget the amount of times I hit my head on the roof of the van, falling over in the van while craning to see an ostrich, and the four hour drive that took nine hours because the bridge had been washed away, but I will remember the frankly fantastic rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody that we regaled our poor driver with on the way home, complete with the "Wayne's World" headbanging.
A few things I will always remember about Kenya - everything, but everything in Maasai land has a thorn attached to it. Great big thorns, little deceptive thorns, even the grass is thorny. Time and distance are elastic, and just when you think you can't fit one more person in the back of a pick-up, another five get in.
So now I have a day here in Nairobi, where most people would probably go shopping, or sightseeing. I, on the other hand, am paying an arm and a leg and having a massage and a facial. Lovely. Then onto Zanzibar and a lovely lie down on Thursday. Probably will put the blog on hold for a while, as I'm sure no-one is interested in me lying down in a hammock for two weeks, so unless something really marvellous happens, I'll be back online when I get home.
Just as an aside, if anyone feel the burning need to comment on any of my posts, or even just to "follow"  so I can see you, strangely enough it is not the "follow" button that needs pressing, but the Google "join this group" icon, which is right at the bottom of the first post. Just in case .......