Missing Kenya #7: Walking to Work

We can get to the hospital in about 3-4 minutes, uphill all the way there, downhill all the way back. This has several implications:

1. Home Call: In residency, I was allowed to take home call to Chelsea Hospital. If I had to go in, I would field a phone call, get in my car and drive 35 minutes of highway to the little hospital, then arrive to do whatever work. Usually it was a larger amount of work, but here I can go up to the hospital, receive a newborn baby, ensure they're OK, and be back home before my precious ice cream melts (Though we would keep it in the freezer just in case. I mean, you never know how long it will take for sure, and ice cream is precious).

2. No Hospital Parking. Parking of UM was ridiculous. Parking at St. Joe's for Rachel still meant a longer walk to the hospital than we currently have from our home. Plus, it's free.

3. Little Driving in General. This is nice particularly given the nature of driving here. When your job and all your friends are within walking distances, and there is nothing else within short driving distance (schools, stores, church, etc.), you almost never have to drive. We leave the walking distance of our home maybe twice a month. This can lead to a bit of cabin fever, but usually it's nice, and a little bit of African travel will easily cure this sensation.

4. Close Medical Care. We can walk to all of Maggie and Ben's doctor visits in less than 5 minutes. We walked home with Ben when he was two hours old. But sometimes that's just too far, so we just go downstairs to talk to Alyssa, or next door to show John a red eye.

We're not expecting anything like this in the US, in fact we'll probably be in the car often. And though US roads sound awfully nice right about now, I'm sure there will be times when we miss never needing to get into the car.