getting christmassy

Once again i've been letting my blogging slide and find that i have lots to update you on ... its been 6 weeks since i last posted and quite a few things have happened. I had my last r and r in Nairobi and just relaxed and read books in the garden .. also stayed overnight at a nice hotel in lake nakuru national park .. it was a real treat and we had a great safari seeing rhinos and lions and the flamingos that the park is famous for.
I returned back from r and r just in time for the opening of the new clinic buildings .... this was a mixture of formal ... (with speeches from the minister of health etc) ... and crazy with dancing and singing and general mayhem, it was great to celebrate along with the local staff and community and its been excellent being in the new clinic. So much better than the tents .. i have a room for nutrition which we have tried to make child friendly with pictures and toys etc ... still very basic compared to what we have at home but a massive improvement.
We have remained fairly busy with new admissions to nutrition and carrying on the supplementary feeding programme ... i'm becoming a bit frustrated with mothers who don't seem to be bothered to turn up when there children really need help.
I've also been challenged by dealing with staff issues .... 2 of my workers have not been working much due to various women problems .... or rather getting beaten up by the girls relatives for getting them pregnant without having enough cows to be able to marry her! Also i never really appreciated how many problems bicycles might cause and seem to spend a large part of each week negotiating who can borrow them and sorting out what to do when they come back damaged .... and i thought i was here to do nutrition?!
Now i've only got 5 more days here until we leave for christmas ... we have a conference for all the team in kenya the week before christmas and i'm also very excited as lucy and ruth are coming out to visit. We are having christmas parties this weekend .. one for the staff yesterday which was fun with lots of dancing and today we are having a team party .. I iced the christmas cake this morning so maybe it will feel a bit like home ... we planning on carols by candlelight ...its a bit strange doing christmas things in the hot weather. I'll get some pictures up soon!