Kenya

So my new phone has a camera, but you know how camera phone are. It’s no replacement for my digital camera that recently broke, but I can take pictures of bugs and stuff around the house. Now let’s play “Hii ni nini” (what is this)!

Oooh!I found these in the market the other day. They’re everywhere and they’re cheap which means they’re in season right now I guess. I don’t remember seeing these in the market at this time last year, so maybe this is something special for Kenya, or at least Tala. I know the picture isn’t very good, but can you guess what they are? They’re not cherries, they’re… plums! Mini plums! I paid thirty Kenyan shillings (about fifty cents) for a big bag of them.
Continue Reading

Kenya

Yesterday I was very sick. Today I went to the doctor and a blood test showed that I have plasmodium malariae. So now I am among the billions of malaria-infected people in the world. In retrospect it really wasn’t all that bad, just a lot of diarrhea. Other than the the obvious annoyance of having to run to the toilet every 20 minutes, the headaches, muscle pain, lack of appetite, and fatigue are pretty normal if you’ve ever had the flu or common cold.

I got a shot of quinine in my butt (ouch), and now I’m on anti-biotics for a few days. I feel better already; part of that was probably due to eating my first meal in twenty-four hours. I will go for more shots tomorrow and the next day and then I’ll be rid of this parasite forever. The good thing is that, according the Center for Disease Control, I am building up immunities to this parasite. Cool!
Continue Reading

Miscellaneous

I upgraded this blog to the latest WordPress version (2.7). The only change that you’ll notice is a new “threaded comment” functionality which allows you to reply to other comments. I had to make some small tweaks to this site’s theme to enable the new comment stuff. I suppose this would also be a good time to post a link to my theme files just in case you’re interested in using it on your blog.

Continue Reading