When I came to Nairobi in February of 2024, I stayed in a nice, but fairly inexpensive hotel downtown. I was only here for about a week for the medical camp, so that made sense. This time, I have a place to stay with the shelters I work with. Oscar picked me up at the airport and brought me to WOFAR to stay with Moureen. The place WOFAR rents has plenty of room and offers more privacy than the other shelters. But . . . no refrigerator . . . or microwave . . . or coffeemaker. The water heater did not work well for my shower upstairs either. They do have indoor plumbing, electricity, and wifi. Houses here generally have neither heat nor AC. They do have windows, but no screens in them. I don’t understand why it wouldn’t be mandatory to build homes with screens in windows and doors in a malaria, yellow-fever, and dengue-endemic area, but the Kenyan government did not ask for my opinion on the matter. I did have my own bed in my own room with my own bathroom there, and I enjoyed the millet porridge cooked over the burner for breakfast.
I bought WOFAR a fridge, microwave, and coffeemaker, admittedly as much for my comfort as theirs. I would pay more than that by far to stay three months in a hotel and eat my meals at restaurants. They needed the fridge to conserve food and now for meds for the chickens. They also needed me to buy groceries for them as they didn’t have staples like green plantains to make matoke (looks like mashed potatoes), rice, any sort of meat, eggs, margarine, vegetables, or fruit. WOFAR also lacked adequate cups, glasses, mugs, plates, bowls, and silverware. I contributed to their supply of these items and also purchased a slow and pressure cooker combo machine to save time and electricity as well as to produce much more tender meat than boiling in a pot on a charcoal or liquid petroleum gas-fueled burner. They will keep the fridge and the slow/pressure cooker now that I’ve relocated to HAIG’s shelter where I run the clinic. They’ll also keep most of the dishes and all of the silverware I bought.
Staying here saves money for transportation, and HAIG has received better funding. So, they always have basic food staples for themselves. I buy what I want for myself. I can eat matoke and ugali (also looks like mashed potatoes, but made from cornmeal instead of green plantains), but I prefer not to, certainly not in the quantities they eat it here. They may fill half their plate with it. Red lentils serve me well, and I’ve introduced the others to them as they are cheap and very high in protein. The collard greens here work nicely as well! Generally, I cook for myself. They have cooked for me as well though. The fresh tilapia was great! I just need to be careful. They’re gut biome is, no doubt, next-level. They leave food out overnight and eat it the next day with no problem. That won’t fly for me though. Their fridge is not super large. A big pot of rice, for example, won’t fit. They do get the milk in there though. HAIG will reimburse me for the fridge I bought for the Acts10 Clinic apartment, the whole of the second floor of the shelter. Likewise, they will reimburse me for the slow/pressure cooker I bought for the Clinic apartment. If/when nobody is staying here to staff the clinic, they will have free use of it too. I feel safe in my own space upstairs while all of the guys downstairs are gay, lol.
Some other things I have noticed here include grocery stores here just don’t seem to have certain common household items like can openers, measuring spoons, measuring cups, silverware drawer organizers, etc. Homes here also commonly have small 1.5-2 inch elevations between rooms and as part of the landscaping outside. Watch your step! I broke the base of my 5th metatarsal on my right foot shortly after arriving here at WOFAR. While outside, getting ready to work out to an exercise video playing on my computer, I hit play and hurried to get into position to start—and rolled my right ankle down just such a ledge. My ankle had no problem, but I clearly chipped the 5th MT. Shortly after moving to Costa Rica, I dropped a 30-pound weight on my foot at the gym, breaking my great toe of my left foot. I hope this pattern does not continue. Also, one cannot really call the side-streets roads here. They have no pavement, lots of sharp rocks and potholes, and can only be traversed by cars at 10mph or less. Cars get passed by motorcycles, which may get passed by dirt bicycles. Unless you have a high clearance on your vehicle, the rocks will scrape the undercarriage. When dry, vehicles stir up clouds of dust, and when it has rained, the side streets have puddles and become very slippery with mud—a bit treacherous for a 51 year-old mzungu with a broken 5th MT of her right foot.
I have gotten to use a nearby gym at a hotel regularly. It has upright and recumbent exercise bikes, although the upright has a spin-bike seat that I don’t anticipate using. Likewise, it has an elliptical with a conveniently broken-off right foot pedal! I don’t have to put pressure on the fracture, lol! Likewise, a Smith machine with standard weights in kgs and a few other machines like a leg press, lateral pull down, etc. I paid to use the gym for a quarter and I enjoy their pool after my workout! God always provides for me to get my exercise in!
I can feel that God has brought me here to stay. I will tell more about that in another blog, but I have seen this place before in dreams. I will have to come and go as my daughters graduate from their respective college programs later this year and my parents remain in Indianapolis. I also still hope to get my permanent residency in Costa Rica. But I can tell God prepared me for this place and that I belong here.














