Kenyan Roads

I've begun working again a little at the hospital. There were several of my missionary patients who are staff here that wanted to have surgery over the school break, in order to not miss work. Kammie drank her first bottle of pumped milk last week and loved it according to Fridah (our houseworker). When I was at the hospital yesterday, there had just been another large road traffic accident on the big highway near us. The emergency room (they call it "casualty") was completely full with extra patients scattered around on stretchers and benches. At least one person had already died, with several others in serious condition. Unfortunately, it's an all too common scenario here. The highway here, between Nairobi and Nakuru, has been called the "highway of death", because it has the highest number of fatal traffic accidents of any road in Kenya. It's actually a pretty good road, but that means people drive on it like it's an interstate at very high speeds. There are also lots of huge and overloaded trucks going very slow, because they can't go any faster. It's a two lane road, so the fast vehicles are always having to pass the slow ones. There are lots of curves and hills, so the visibility for passing is mostly not good, but people pass anyway - thus leading to lots of head-on collisions. We see close calls every time we go on the road. I would say the biggest source of anxiety from living in Kenya for me is the trip between here and Nairobi. Driving in Nairobi itself is fine actually. Because the traffic is so heavy, most accidents are just fender benders, because they don't involve high speeds.