Pray for Jos

As many of you may have heard, there has been rioting and violence in Jos after the recent elections, splitting the city along ethnic and religious lines. For a better idea, please see the Mitchell family blog at www.mitchellmissions.blogspot.com.

Things appear to have calmed down but the SIM missionaries are being evacuated to Miango for the upcoming Moslem holiday "just to be safe." Keep the Ardills, Mitchells and Nigerian faculty and residents in your prayers.

For those of you looking for my pictures, see the post below.

PICTURES!!!!!

Though they haven't been captioned yet, you can view all of my pictures on the link below:

SHANNON's PICTURES or if that doesn't work, the URL is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/sleighcastle

Please note that there is an album of Nigerian images that are "nonsurgical" in the sense that those with delicate sensibilities will see no blood or guts. The "surgical" images are in a folder labeled as such for those who want the gore. I'll label them later so you know what the heck they are.
An additional album has the Kenya/Tanzanian adventure.

Thank you SO MUCH to those of you who prayed for me, donated to Evangel, and continue to support me in my life back home. I'm adjusting to life back at work, and I look forward to having time to talk to each and every one of you.

Hell's Gate, indeed.

I'm back in California!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thanks to everyone who has been praying for my safe travels, especially while I was alone in Nairobi this last couple of days. I was staying at the Mayfield Guest House run by AIM, which was great. If anyone ever needs a place to stay in Nairobi I'll get you their contact info.

The funny story I have from my last day there involves me trying to get up to Hell's Gate national park via Nairobi public transport. I managed to get to the really sketchy side of town to catch a matatu, which is a mini-bus of sorts, out to Naivasha. The matatus are hilarious in that they try to get as many people on board as possible, and are contantly making stops to try to get more. So I get up to Naivasha, in the Rift Valley (where all the violence was last year!!! And I'm alone and white. :) ) and finally get another matatu to go down toward the park. I was within 10K of the park and all of the matatus start pulling over to the side of the road. I speak VERY little swahili but finally figured out that none of the matatus have working seatbelts, but that by Kenyan law everyone must be belted. There was a police stop up the road and no one wanted to get fined for the belt issue. By this time it was getting late and I didn't want to miss my flight back home so I hitched back to Naivasha and took another bus to Nairobi. An adventure with no fun in the middle.... I guess I'll have to go back.

After a LOT of flying and some sleep I am safely at home, in the land of drinkable tap water and beds without mosquito nets. Beautiful.

Out of Africa

Well, after 2 long days riding around in a Range Rover looking at animals in Tarangire National Park and in the Ngorongoro Conservation area, Brian and Megan and I bummed around Arusha for a day before Megan headed home. Brian and I did very little last night, though I did find out a little too late that the Guiness here is 7.5%. Brian has now left me as well and I am spending the night here in Arusha before heading back to Nairobi in the morning.

I have very little idea what I'm going to do by myself in and around Nairobi for a day and a half, but I'm sure I'll find a way to amuse myself.

I'm flying back to the US from Nairobi on Wednesday night, hopefully arriving back on Thursday if all flights go well. Then it's back to my exciting life at Thornton Hospital first thing Friday morning.

Thanks to all of you still reading my updates in here and I promise that we'll catch up when I'm back in California!!!

Jambo!

Well, the two ER docs and I have made it safely to Uhuru peak on Kilimanjaro (5895 meters!!!!) and back down safely. Megan and Brian both said that they are not going to listen to any ideas of mine anymore.

I found out that while I adapt quite well to altitude with some time and some acetazolamide, that I really, really, really do not like to be cold. On our summit day there was some worry on my part about frostbite on my toes (I prioritized the fingers due to my profession of choice and kept them warm at all costs) but when Megan and I got back to the tent and warmed up all 20 of our toes appeared to be viable. None have fallen off to date.

We are off to do a bit of safari action before I am left to my own devices for a couple of days, then I will be back in the US (and back at work... )

I will leave much more detailed, exciting tidbits about my Kili adventure (with pictures!) at a later date for those who are interested. Right now I need to go figure out which of my clothes are the least nasty.

Travelling in Style

I am safely in Arusha, Tanzania. Here is a brief list of the events of the last 2 days:

1) I survived the infamous Lagos airport-twice
2) Through some mixup during the long, painful adventure of booking my Kenya Airways flight from Lagos to Nairobi, I bought a first-class ticket. So I sat in the Lounge area until boarding, then had my very first first-class flight. I had a glass of champagne just because I could.
3) I avoided getting scammed by the crooks working the Kenya-Tanzanian border pretending to be "officials." The Irish girl next to me on the bus apparently lost $50 to them. That's my reward for never trusting anyone.
4) Due to nausea from travel and/or unavailable meals, I have survived for 2 days off of diet coke and british-style "digestive" crackers. Nasty.
5) I sat around the night before last watching BBC with a bunch of ex-pats who were much more concerned with the baseball playoffs than the Wall Street crash.
6) I finally got to read a newspaper and found out that Haile Gebrasallasie (I'm sure I spelled that wrong) just broke his own world record at the Berlin Marathon. Awesome.
7) I had to have a friend tell me via email that Lance is coming back. That's how out of touch I am.

I will write once I get off the mountain!

Shikina.

In Hausa, 'shikina' roughly translates to "finished; done with this." I am leaving Jos today (in about an hour, actually). I didn't anticipate being so reluctant to leave; I've made some great friends and I really enjoyed my time in the hospital. Of course, there are things that I will not miss (the traffic; walking along the road dogding "achabas," the taxi motorcycles; and spending all of my time in a skirt) but I find myself wishing I could spend more time here.

I'm off to climb Kilimanjaro with my friends Megan and Brian, two ER residents that are friends from med school. I never get to see either one of them because we're spread out across the US, so it will be great to hang out with the two of them. Megan is the crazy friend who made me a triathlete, and not only have we hiked together before, but we lived in a tiny room in Honduras for a month together, so I know we can travel together. She's being kind enough to bring me Clif bars.

While I'm on the mountain I won't be able to blog, so if I don't get back on here before then, I'll be back online on the 10th or so. In the meantime, entertain yourselves by reading a book. I'm in the middle of "Infidel," which my mother has been telling me to read for some time now. Yes, mom, I have your copy. Sorry.