One of my favorite times of the week here is Thursday night.  Every week, following dinner, all of the visiting students and residents come over to our living room for a "fireside chat."  I say  "fireside" as we actually do not have a fireplace in house; though with the sporadic power outages, we do occasionally have "candlelight chats."  That being said, with the room and floor filled, we engage in discussions on topics from the street children in Eldoret to the population problem facing the planet.  The goals of these discussions are to draw out the students to think about some of the bigger social and cultural topics that shape life and medical practice here.  For instance, it's one thing to know the lifecycle of the parasite that causes malaria, but it's a much different thing to know why the majority of deaths caused by this parasite are poor children in sub-Saharan Africa and how we might work to prevent it.  We want to allow these students a safe place to process their time and experiences here.  Fireside chats serve as this venue for them to voice their emotions with others and to wrestle with the many challenges in providing care and serving the sick here.

All are welcome on these nights, and often our Kenyan friends and co-workers lead the discussions.  Feel free to stop by the next time you're around on Thursday night.  And just as an added incentive to come, Chrissie, my wife, uses these nights as a chance to share some of her baking prowess with some of the most delicious cookies and desserts.