Sweeeet Passion: Our First Week in Eldoret

One week down - and what a week it's been! Though we feel like we've jumped into the deep end, we've had an exciting week that's allowed us to quickly get over our jet-lag, adjust to our new surroundings, and feel right at home in Eldoret. Cody traveled to Webuye - a rural town two hours away - on the first day of fieldwork to visit the construction site for a rural malaria diagnostic lab. Lauren spent her first couple days meeting the MNCH community/facility-based teams and sampling her first ugali (stiff porridge made from maize - a Kenyan staple).

Lauren in front of the entrance to AMPATH Centre and Chandaria Cancer Center

At the end of the week, we ventured to Safaricom (Kenya's AT&T) to buy SIM cards and enroll in M-PESA (Kenya's Venmo). We were advised to go first thing in the morning as the wait grows exponentially longer as the day wears on. After arriving 10 minutes prior to opening, we were quickly ushered into the building to join Safaricom's celebratory team breakfast and...goat offering ceremony (AT&T you better up your game)! The team recently won a customer service award in Kenya and invited us to join in the celebration (for those of you wondering, fear not - the goat wasn't harmed!). We were struck by their hospitality and enjoyed hot chai while programming our new Kenyan cell numbers.

Cody and the victory goat

Next, we made our way to Rupa Mall (Eldoret's one-stop shop) to check out our local grocery store and mboga shop (veggie stand). Mboga is essentially a fresh veggie and tropical fruit lover's heaven - papaya, five varieties of mango, ripe passion fruit, pineapples from wall to wall! We filled our totes with as much as we could carry and got a few stares hauling our ridiculous load on the walk home (Cody's adjusting to the absence of Costco). Lauren's already craving their fruit smoothies and fresh gouda (old habits die hard...and yes, finding tasty cheese was a priority).

sweeeet passion fruit at mboga

Over the weekend, we plan to go on our first hike with a couple of housemates and celebrate another housemate's birthday. All in all, a pretty sweeeeeet first week in Eldoret!

rainbow over the hilltop compound