Nairobi

6/23

I was the last Mohican awake and watching the European Championship quarter finals match between Spain and France. Spain is up by one goal. It has become a family tradition to follow the European And World Championships live in hotels or at my parents' apartment in Budapest. Only this time we did not survive the first half. Not as a family. My meetings ended today, I left my poster  to get trashed.  The organizers did a great job and deserved to be proud of the meeting's success. The conference rooms were filled from the first to the final day. There was representation from entire Africa, although the topics tended to be geared to the sub-Saharan population. On the second day, they covered topics of education and research. There were few Neurology residencies in Africa, and these tended to be clustered in South Africa, Nigeria, and Senegal. Of course, Egypt and Tunisia were also more developed with respect to training programs. There were no Residency or fellowship programs in entire East Africa, including, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi, Somalia or Tanzania. William Matuja who had been the neurologist at the Muhimbili University hospital in Dar Es Salaam, when I was there in 1990, was semi -retired, seeing private consultation Nd no longer serving the hospital. A neurologist located in Moshi told me there were no neurology faculty at Muhimbili.  Research infrastructure was even less developed, which was not surprising due to lack of funds and other priorities. This was one reason I approached Gallo Diop, who was the Neurology professor and Chief at the university of Dakar, Senegal. Senegal was home to the Papio Papio baboon,  at was both photosensitive and epileptic, the first baboon model for epilepsy to have been characterized. I have been working with Papio Anubis and cynocephalus originating from Kenya and Tanzania, which were equally photosensitive and epileptic. I proposed that we apply for a training gran for neurology residents interested in epilepsy to receive training in clinical epilepsy and  epilepsy surgery in San Antonio, with a second year. To learn and study the baboon model. The only problem was that Dr. Diop was not aware of any colony in Dakar, for the trainee to continue this research path. Nairobi has a large primate research center, but no residency.  Yesterday afternoon we visited the only store with sports gear,  Extreme Sports at the Ya-Ya mall. We ended up only. Buying the face masks, any impermeable shells for the pants would cost $100 a piece, a full complement of  long underwear $200 a piece. We decided to just rent any missing items from Shah Tours in Moshi.  Miklos's appetite was decreased, and he frequently complained about nausea. He decided not to come to the Ethiopian restaurant, the Hashiba, which was in the Kiliman district, a well-to-do, neighborhood at the edge of town. It was full of mzungus (whites), and a full meal cost us three on $20, less than a fourth the price of the Italian restaurant. The food was delicious. The only problem had been the hotel taxi; the driver charged us $35 for the round trip, which was obviously exaggerated, but I had forgotten to inquire about the price or negotiated one when we left.  Usually the same taxi would drop you and pick  you up.  And city taxis were cheaper than the hotel taxis.

One more comment for future travelers to Nairobi. It is always better to have Kenyan Schillings when you go out, restaurants don't accept credit cards, and exchange rates for dollars, if they even accept them, are not reliable. 

This afternoon, we went to the Kenya Museum with a colleague based in Qatar,  Basim Uthman. I was disappointed by the ethnic or cultural sections, but the paleontological section was amazing. They had a 17 million year old skeleton from a "proconsul", a primordial primate. Other skeletons and skulls belonged to Australopithecus, Homo habilis, erectus and even sapiens, all retrieved from local Kenyan archeological sites, one near to Lake Baringa.  We also stopped at the  Maasai market. It was downtown and did not appear to have that much to do with the Maasai culture. We were swarmed by men who  were going to drag us to their stands. One was particularly sharp,  reading the label on Basim's bag from the First African Epilepsy Congress.  He asked me if I was a physician, telling me that his son had epilepsy as well, and so on and so forth. I did make a special effort to see his stand, filled by prints spread across the ground. He told me they were all made by epileptic children, of course that would convince me. We left empty-handed, not too pleased by the experience. In general, after comparing prices of handcrafts in museums, stores and the markets, it is clear that the offering price at the markets is about 2-3 times the actual value. So, even if you are a master at negotiating, ultimately the markets will end up as expensive as most stores. Maybe, the illusion of success and the happiness of the vendor is worth the game.