Thursday morning

 I got a solid 8 hours of sleep, it's about 5:30am here as I write this.  Breakfast is at 8.  I've got some fruit here in the room to tide me over.  I gave one of the sisters here a plastic bag of laundry yesterday morning full of mostly underwear and it never returned.  I hope she didn't think I was donating it, we do leave clothes behind after each trip.  I kinda need a few more days worth of skivvies to get home!  Yet another travel story that's not so funny at the time but will get better with each telling.

If I do get stuck here after Friday, my friends Alison and Billy are going to find my daily meds for me.  A pharmacy here is called a chemist, after the British tradition. If you know what you need, you can get most anything without a prescription, similar to Mexico.  You just talk to the chemist about it and you're good to go.  Kind of refreshing compared to our system where the patient is not trusted at all.  I understand restrictions on strong narcotics and other addictive drugs, but common antibiotics seem OK to me with a pharmacist's approval and getting a doctor involved as needed.

My team should all be home by now, having arrived in Houston around 2pm Tuesday and hopefully back in Austin by 6 or 7pm.  It was my joy to serve with each of them, they all brought unique skill sets and lots of love  and good cheer to bear on the mission.  I thank God that they all answered His call on their lives to place service above self for the people in Waithaka.  I'm praying for good rest for them after the long journey and that none of them comes down with the virus because of my failure to recognize what ailed me.  I'm still very sad over that.  If there is one bright spot, it is that it was me who ended up here, an experienced traveler that will be able to navigate my way home one way or another.  I know how scary it can be as a first time international traveler, not knowing what to expect around the next bend in the road.

I'm hoping to make some good progress on pictures from the trip today and who knows?  Maybe I'll be able to get one or two of them posted if the intermittent power failures and weak Internet cooperate.  More to follow as the day progresses.  Blessings, my friends!