Mbita

We left Jinja and crossed the boarder back into Kenya and were met by our giant tank-like safari busses (which I cannot wait to show you all pictures of because you are not going to believe these monstrosities). We drove to Sauri, which is the pilot project of Jeffery Sach's millenium village projects. It was really interesting to see what had been done and how the theory worked when it had been put into motion, and you could definately tell there was progress being made. The goal is for the communities to be self-sustaining in 5 years, and since Sauri is only at the 4 year mark we are just going to have to wait and see how the pull-out part of the plan is going to work. We camped out for the night near the water and discovered that 2 HIPPOS (which by the way are the craziest, most massive and terrifying animals I have yet to lay eyes on) had also set up camp 50 feet from where our tents were set up. Luckily, there was no midnight stampeed that turned us all into tented mush, so ultimately the Hippos were just really really cool.

We spent the next day travelling and took the ferry across to Mbita (I love that vowels are optional here - its litterally pronounced Em-Bita). We've had some lectures from some local MDs and health workers about the problems in the area (mostly HIV and Malaria, not so surprisingly) and then we got to go into the village and visit the hospital (which believe it or not does not actually employ a single doctor - the doctor is at the bigger hospital which is about 20km from here)
Today was much the same as yesterday but with more emphasis on AIDs and a visit to the HIV clinic. All very cool. More updates to follow. And thank you for leaving comments, it makes me feel so warm and fuzy to know you are slogging through this rambling. Miss you all!