day fourty nine

This week involved not having any normal amounts of sleep. 

Sunday afternoon I got my hair done into braids, as when in Kenya act like the Kenyans right? I was so happy with them, Mercy did such a great job. However I soon learnt they were ridiculously hard to sleep. What followed for the next three nights was that as soon as I had found a comfortable position it quickly became uncomfortable, leading to exasperation when I managed about three hours sleep Tuesday night. This lead to a realitively unproductive Wednesday where I sat at my desk reading a textbook whilst unplaiting my hair. That night I fell asleep about 8pm and slept all the way through. True story. 

Now onto nicer things... we have puppies! They are sooooooo cute! And they don't call me mzungu! Actually, they probably like me the best because I pat them. For some reason they like my pants... 

We also have baby chickens! However where they are living is also where the geese, aka Al-shabab, are residing and so I don't get to see them as often. I swear those geese hate me - this week one of them charged at me from across the yard and attempted to bite me. I dream of chopping off their heads and roasting them... mwah ha ha ha ha. 

There is now another mzungu working with FSD here which is making life a lot more pleasant - I can actually speak normal speed and she understands me majority of the time - it's the Aussie accent that throws her, I haven't managed to lose it yet!

Other than that it's been busy at work - I've managed to get approval for the introduction of three new methods in the laboratory for a two month trial; Auramine-phenol staining for Cryptosporidium spp in faecal samples, gram staining of presumptive positive urines and titration of positive Widal serum agglutination.This week has involved writing the standard operating procedures (or SOPs) for each of the methods which in turn has made me think of all the other SOPs which should be written. If you didn't get any of that, basically I'm finally living out my dream of being useful with my knowledge of infectious diseases and laboratory skills.