Soooooooooooo, Let me try this again. Earlier this morning I had my entire posting done. When I went to hit the send button I lost it all as the internet was down. UGH!!!!!!
Oct 21
This is travel day. I leave here at 9am. Nikos from Africa Calling takes me to Bushtrekers as he only has me. Here I meet up with 5 more people. Emma (Brit), Derek (Scott), Seta and Anna (Belgium) and Maryana (Mexico). We all pile into this huge truck. We are taking a huge truck as we are to pick up 6 more people in 2 days for Massi Mara. We drive to Lake Baringo. We are meant to go for a boat ride on the lake but it is late when we get there and soon after it begins to rain. We eat dinner and crash.
Oct 22
We get up at 6am and go for our boat ride to see the Hippos and birds. It is on the boring side. We get back, have breakfast and head out to Lake Bagloria. This is a much nicer lake. Here we see a zillion flamingos. White ones and pink ones. Further on we get to the hot springs. They are great. I wanted to get into them but they are natural and are not made for people to enter. As wel, they are serioulsy hot. You can hard boil an egg in it after just 5 mins.
From here we drive on to Lake Nakuru. When we arrive at the campsite it is raining. I had booked a room for the night before I got there as I was warned that it was cold up there. The rest of the people also took a room. We were all glad that we did as not only did we have elect. but soft beds and shelter. Yup! It rained most of the night.
Now this lake is beautiful but drying up. More flamingos, white Rhinos, Giraffes, Hyhinas, Impallas, Buffallok, monkeys and Eland zebra, which is the largest Antelope in the world if I understood it correctly.
Oct 23
Now we head back towards Nairobi to pick up the other people. Oh, the roads are not the best roads in the world. They are seriously bummpy and with a big truck it makes it even worse. The driver has been worried about the wheel since yesterday. We leave at 7:30 and arrive at 11:30. The driver decides that he wants to get another truck as he does not trust this one. We have lunch while waiting but the whole time takes 3 hrs. We pick up 7 people and they are cranky alreadty. UGH!!!!!!!!!!!!! At 2:30 we head off again. After hrs and hrs of driving we fianlly reach Massi Mara at 8:30. On our way to the camp we see Elephants. At this very moment I have a realization. OH NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I did not transfer my sleeping bag. I can only hope that someone eles did. I am not worried about the rest of this trip but I am worried that I may not have ti for Kili.
As soon as we get to the camp I let everybody else off the truck. I as the driver and he says that he double checked the truck and did not see anything on it. I find the guide and he tells me that he saw it and transfer it for me. WHEW!!!!!!!!!
Now we are all assigned to little huts. They are so quaint. Maryana is my roommate again. She is so sweet and we totally get along. She is all of 24 but we have some amazing conversations. Maryana and Emma both work with disabled children. Emma is a speach therapest and Maryana a special eds teacher. Needless to say we have a ton in common and it is so refreshing talking to people who are doing what I so wanted to do.
Anyway, our hut has a single bed and a bunk. I give Maryana the bunk. All the huts have elect which is huge. Way more than I ever expected. Eat a late dinner and crash.
Oct 24
Today we did two game drives. One early in the morning and one in the late afternoon. We see tons of Zebra, Elephants, Giraffes, Lions (YEAH!!!!!!!!!! and a male to boot), Impala, Gazzels, Topis, Elands, Hippo's and mongoose. The only thing we are missing is the Leopard of the big 5. We also get to see the Wilderbeast migration. They are coming back from Serengti in Tanz. We go the the place where they cross the river to safety. In the river are a bunch of Crocs. We see on open it's mouth but it is not hunger. They are all corssing very safetly while we were watching anyway.
We are meant to go to the Massi village today but be put it off till tomorrow. Game drives are exhauting. You spend all of your energy looking for things that your eyes get sore. You never, ever leave the truck to see anything. You are seat bound the entire time.
Tonight we are blessed with a serious lightening and thunder show but now rain. This is good for alot of people as it is hot out.
Oct 25
Today we do two more game drives. Inbetween the game drives we got to the Massi village. On the game drives we see a cheeta which was the highlight of the day till we came upon a moma lion and her 1 year old babies. We did not see it but mom had killed a wilderbeast and dragged it down to the river bed. The cubs (3 of them) were so not interested. They were playing and having fun. Mom was eating but we could not see her. What we did see was the blood on her face.
The village is interesting but way to touristy for me. The Massi warriors did two dances for us and the women followed by doing two dances as well. They were selling their wares. I should have bought something but I knew that when I got back I would be at a Massi market and would get a way better price.
Oct 26
Wow! We had alot of excitement last night. At about 1am the Elephants decided to come to our camp. They were just passing by.....so we thought. At 4:30am we hear the Elephant blow it horn and a lion roar. This wakes up most of us. I hear the Massi Warriors tell someone to go back into their room as it is not safe. I can see them sneaking around the cabin next to ours. After an hour of this we are given the okay to come out again. I run into Emma and she is scared The Elephants were right next her rooom. She could hear them eating. Before you could not see the river for the bushes now it is totally clear. Thsi was the conversation of the day. Oh ya, Maryana slept through the whole thing.
So, today is anohter travel day. We are on our way back to Nairoi. We leave at 8am and get back at 5pm. Everybody quickly splits up afer a fast and furious good bye.
2 comments:
hey,bake,
all i can say is WOW!!! what adventures you are having! i'm so happy for you and all that have the treasures of meeting you!
i'm off to ecuador to do a medical mission saturday with about 22 others. i'll fill you in later. too bad i did not coordinate a trip to the galapagos islands along with it! no diving this trip, jusr offering various types of medical assistance and other stuff to about 2000 people. we will be going first to quido and then outside quayacil. probably will no be on line until i return, check with you then. good luck and god bless.
Linda,
Fran and Jerry from Chicago here. Thought you would be interested in this light reading. Has the young girl from Curacao improved any?
xoxo
Fran
January 2, 2007
In Atlanta, Medical Sleuths of Last Resort
By DAN HURLEY
ATLANTA — Standing before a row of enlarged photographic slides of deadly viruses like Ebola and Hantavirus that decorate the new lunchroom at his office, Dr. Sherif Zaki professed himself to be uplifted.
“I can’t tell you how much this has done for our morale,” Dr. Zaki said.
As a leader of an 11-year-old program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention here that tries to ferret out the cause of 700 or so unexplained deaths across the United States each year, Dr. Zaki spends his days on matters that could test the morale of any scientist: a boy in Mississippi who died 17 days after developing a fever and headache; a football player at the University of Missouri who died hours after collapsing on the field; a skateboarder who scraped her knee and died a few days later. These are among the mysteries for which Dr. Zaki and his colleagues at the Unexplained Deaths Project, or UNEX, serve as the medical detectives of last resort.
Now, after years of toiling in the subbasement of a 1950s-era building on the C.D.C.’s campus, Dr. Zaki’s team has moved to a futuristic-looking building nearby where the window shades automatically rise or fall depending on the amount of sunshine, a transmission electron microscope stands ready to magnify bacteria and viruses up to 740,000 times, and images of deadly pathogens pass for décor.
Started in 1995 as an informal collaboration among a handful of C.D.C. scientists determined to identify outbreaks of new infectious diseases before they reached epidemic proportions, UNEX distinguished itself as an interdisciplinary group that brought together the expertise of virologists, bacteriologists, epidemiologists, veterinarians and clinicians. As enthusiasm for the program grew, four affiliates in state health departments opened in California, Connecticut, Minnesota and Oregon.
Despite their success and the continuing threat of emerging infections, the state programs recently lost their financing, and enthusiasm for UNEX even within the C.D.C. was dwindling, to the point where its very future appeared to be in doubt until late December, when another year’s financing was finally approved.
The problem, Dr. Zaki said, is that the program’s interdisciplinary nature clashes with the trend, at C.D.C. and in science generally, toward specialization. In fact, each researcher involved with UNEX has another position within one of C.D.C.’s specialized departments. Dr. Zaki, for instance, is chief of infectious disease pathology activity.
The hundreds of cases referred to UNEX each year by state health authorities, medical examiners and the occasional private physician represent a fraction of the true number of unexplained deaths across the country. Dr. Zaki estimates that there are “tens of thousands” of such cases each year. Most are presumed to be caused by infectious agents, usually carried by animals or insects, which is why UNEX is housed in the C.D.C.’s National Center for Zoonotic, Vector-Borne and Enteric Diseases.
“There are so many cases where we say, ‘We know this is infectious,’ where I’d bet you anything the death was caused by a virus we can’t find,” Dr. Zaki said.
In fact, UNEX is able to find the particular killer pathogen in only about 15 percent of the cases referred to the office, he said.
On July 12, 2005, for instance, 19-year-old Aaron O’Neal, a reserve linebacker for the University of Missouri Tigers, collapsed on the field during a preseason workout and died soon after at a hospital. An autopsy found that the lining of his brain had been inflamed, a possible sign of viral meningitis. But even when UNEX received brain tissue samples, no virus or any other clear sign of what caused the inflammation could be detected. Aside from storing the remaining tissue sample on the chance that a new test might one day solve the mystery, the case was closed.
Still, UNEX collars its share of microbial culprits. On Sept. 13, 2005, a 10-year-old Mississippi boy went to his pediatrician with a fever, headache and an itchy scalp. Within days he became so disoriented and agitated that he bit a family member. Admitted to the hospital, he grew sicker, but all tests came back negative. After he died on Sept. 27, it took UNEX just eight days to detect the rabies virus in serum samples. They later learned, by speaking with friends and family, that dead bats had been previously found inside the boy’s home and garage, and that he had removed a live bat from his bedroom and released it outdoors in spring 2005.
Sometimes, finding the cause of a death means discovering a pathogen previously unknown to science. During the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, it was a colleague of Dr. Zaki’s, Cynthia Goldsmith, who first identified the SARS coronavirus using an older-generation electron microscope at their old lab. “It took my breath away when I first recognized it,” Ms. Goldsmith said.
Then there are the times when a probable cause of death is suspected, but local health officials are reluctant to perform an autopsy. On Oct. 5, 2001, minutes after a Florida photo retoucher for The National Enquirer died of what appeared to be inhalation anthrax, a doctor who treated the man called Dr. Zaki.
“The medical examiner wasn’t inclined to do the autopsy,” Dr. Zaki recalled. “Finally they said, ‘O.K., we’ll do it, but only if you come down.’ ”
When Dr. Zaki and a small group of colleagues flew to Florida the next morning on a private chartered jet, they learned that some of the staff at the Palm Beach County medical examiner’s office had had second thoughts about the autopsy.
“When we got there,” Dr. Zaki said, “the people in the facility told us, ‘If you do that autopsy, we’re all going to leave and never come back. You’re going to leave spores, you’re going to contaminate the facility.’ ”
Dr. Zaki’s group explained that the spores become dangerous only if allowed to dry out — something they would prevent through meticulous cleaning — and that antibiotics given as prophylaxis would eliminate the slim remaining chance of infection. Even so, they performed the autopsy in a small room used for storage.
“We left that room much cleaner than when we found it,” Dr. Zaki said.
His own laboratory has an unequalled collection of automated testing equipment and a trove of tissue samples dating back decades.
“I don’t think there’s any laboratory like this in the world,” Dr. Zaki said. “And there’s nowhere else where people from so many different fields are together in such close proximity. It makes one very proud.”
Egyptian by birth, Dr. Zaki graduated third in his class of 1,200 at the University of Alexandria medical school before coming to the United States to study pathology in 1983.
Asked why he chose pathology, he replied: “My mom asked me the same question. She said, ‘Be a real doctor.’ But pathology explains how and why a disease happens.”
Yet UNEX, as sophisticated as its equipment may be, is still routinely outfoxed by nature’s most archaic life forms, the viruses and bacteria whose roles in human disease, and hiding places in blood and tissue samples, continue to defy detection.
“We think we know everything,” Dr. Zaki said, “but we don’t know the tip of the iceberg.
“There are so many viruses and bacteria we don’t know anything about, that we don’t have tests for,” he said. “A hundred years from now, people will not believe the number of pathogens we didn’t even know existed.”
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