Transit via Embu

Tuesday and our whole group has arrived safely, Dr. MacIntosh and his wife Lorah, and four other 4th year medical students: Jen, Christine, Hope and David.  Mennonite Guesthouse breakfast consisted of a casserole of eggs, flour and bacon, fresh papaya and pineapple slices, and interesting little oat bars that had a hint of sweetness and disintegrated the minute you touched them.  I grabbed one for the road, not knowing what lays ahead.  Before we leave the capitol, we get directions to the nearest shopping area from a girl I met my first night here-Kim, a physician's assistance student from Ohio who will be working in Tanzania for the next three months...as soon as her luggage arrives from Amsterdam. 
Walking to the shopping mall was treacherous in the sense that cars, motos, and matatus (passenger vans) were whizzing by and their exhaust was suffocating.  With purchased internet access in hand and peanut butter and coffee, we made a sweaty walk home to catch our ride.  Since Kenya was a British colony until the 1960's, tea is more popular than coffee and I was warned once we leave a certain radius of Nairobi you may see it growing in the fields but it may not make it to the stores.
Stuffed into the matatu with our driver John, we head to Chogoria.  The first third consisted of construction and thorough ways of traffic crossing eachother with no supervision.  Crazy budabuda (sp?) riders- motorcycles- were transporting everything you could imagine and if they were up to date on the latest trend, were wearing fur coats and orange shin guards.  Long lunch break in a town called Embu at the Isaac Walter Inn- Kuku Kenya as my dish- chicken pieces with cooked carrots and greens. Then through farming country for a couple hours- tea, corn, coffee and rice mostly.  Lastly we made a short ride through the foothills of Mount Kenya, leading us into our one-main-road village.  Quick tour of the hospital and I beelined for bed.