Hello from Nairobi, where I traveled uneventfully from Addis this morning. Lyanda and Claire are enjoying an afternoon somewhere in the environs of Heathrow Airport, and we are about 31 hours from rendez vous.

The joys of travel serendipity have already begun - I was in the immigration line at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi when I heard “Tom Furtwangler?” and turned to find my friend Dr Michael Chung and his wife and son, returning from a week long conference in Uganda. He’s a UW researcher who lives here, and one thing led to another and I here I am at their place, we’ll stay in their guest bedroom for the next few days, enjoy their company, and save a few bucks. Not only that, but another old friend from I-TECH, Emily B, happens to be in Nairobi this weekend, and we’ll have dinner tonight. (And just to complete the small world theme, Steve Gloyd and James Pfeiffer of HAI, who happened to be on my plane from Seattle to Amsterdam, happened to be on Emily’s plane today from Kampala to Nairobi… The reason for all this Kampala traffic was the big PEPFAR meeting last week, so these intersections aren’t all that strange, but it is still a little surprising to run into people you know so far from home).

Theoretically I just configured my phone to post by SMS, so the next post should be a text message with our local mobile phone number (I bought a SIM card at the airport). Feel free to text us, but remember we are 10 hours ahead of Seattle.

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