Mbita Island: Trip 2 out from Kisumu

Approaching to greet

Mbita was great. The drive to the ferry was wonderful, until the last few kilometers which were terrifying. The matatu was late (as we had been sitting in the bus stand for well over two hours) and it needs to meet the ferry at the dock in order for us to get on the ferry, and them to pick-up ferry passengers and take them to Kisumu. The entire trip, the conductor had been hurrying people on and off the matatu (“fanya fasta fasta”) was what he kept saying to the passengers as the driver took off before both feet of the new passenger had left terra firma. And by the time we were just outside of the ferry, the driver was being motivated by other matatu conductors who were coming back from the ferry who were gesticulating that the ferry was leaving. Each matatu we passed made the driver accelerate harder and check his speed less. And there we were barreling at who-knows the speed (because the speedometer is either broken or disconnected) towards the lake, downhill and around curves without ever really breaking. We made it—on the ferry and to the island.

I arrive at the island and everyone wants to know if I want a taxi—no I don’t because I don’t really know where I would go. So I walk. And I just walk around and people greet me friendly and little children run to me and say hello. People ask me to take their picture—and I oblige and have some cute pics of little kids. I just walked and talked and took in the environment. It was really hot, very dry and dusty and quite beautiful.



Piga picha

I ate lunch at a small shack on the “causeway,” which links together Mbita and Rusinga islands. I got a big old fried fish with ugali and cabbage and sat and ate for about an hour listening to the guys next to me babble back and forth in a mixture of English, Swahili and a tribal language I don’t know. I paid and I left and slowly walked back checking out the stalls along the way.



Sandals made from old tire



The entire time I was on the island I was greeted so warmly and I was never asked for anything, at all. Except for one situation—I passed a group of young men sitting under an open air shelter and they approached me with a notebook and asked for a contribution (mchango). This is a really common thing to do for sports teams, schools or other community efforts—everyone around donates what they can and maybe something happens.

The boy, the youngest of the group, approaches me and asks me to contribute and shows me the book. This is an old school book with a list of names ~100 long who have donated anywhere from 10 to 200 KES (0.10 - $2.50). But there’s a picture on the front of this notebook, and the boy says that it was his brother and that he passed recently. This is another common tradition is for the community to contribute to the expenses of the funeral as well as the well-being and future of the family. So I looked at the guys one more time, always in the back of my mind wondering if I am about to be taken, but I went on my gut and I had been so well received and so comfortable in my visit that I pulled out 50 KES and gave it to them. I always look at the contributions and at the one that appears most often and go a denomination or so above.

As I pull out the money, and sign my name in the book, I see the guys behind my young friend smiling and welcoming me to the town and Kenya, thanking me for the gift and wishing me good luck with my journey.

Picasa Update--

https://picasaweb.google.com/MatthewJMeyer/KakamegaForest?authkey=Gv1sRgCLW647rOqs65wAE#

https://picasaweb.google.com/MatthewJMeyer/MbitaIsland?authkey=Gv1sRgCLug_ribyrLRqgE#

https://picasaweb.google.com/MatthewJMeyer/AroundMumias?authkey=Gv1sRgCMC829nPtYOEGg

Three albums worth of photos--not too many, but you need to link through these to get there.

Bus Standi

Main bus stand in Kisumu

I got Friday off from work. The bosses were gone to a "retreat," whatever that means, and I had finished my work for the week, and maybe longer (interesting story, call for details). So I decided to see what the world had to offer me around Kisumu. Since I don't have access to a car myself, this meant a "matatu" ride. For those of my readers who are related to me, which is many, a matatu is a little, little gentler version of a "daladala." And the only reason they are a little better is they seem to be newer, I think they send the broken down matatus to Tanzania and breathe life into them and then call them daladalas. I really do.

I got to the stand early, because if you're going to travel anywhere by an over-stuffed mini-van you want to start early because these things move slow. I got there at 7AM which is earlier than I arrive for my transport to work--I was motivated, amped and ready to go. And you know where this goes, I was the only one. The Kisumu bus stand is timid as far as my experience in East Africa goes. I got there and had to find someone to ask where my bus was located--usually, I can't get within 100m of a bus stand without being offered transport to the far reaches of the planet. But here, I had to find someone, and basically rouse him from his stupor of collecting $0.50 from each bus that exited the stand. He pointed in a vague direction, which was really all that I wanted, and off I went.

I find the bus and the driver says, get in-- I look in, and its empty. Not a good sign if you want to leave soon, because it ain't leaving until its packed. So I look at him and say I'm off to get chai (breakfast) and he says, I'll join you. And then says I should leave my bag in the front seat to reserve my spot. I'm trusting, but seriously, I could just hand my stuff out to people because then I would at least get to choose who made off with my goods. I told him I would take it with me and get whatever seat was remaining. Honestly, the front seat is the choice seat, as long as the person between you and the driver (you didn't think we wouldn't use the "seat" where the stick shift was) isn't fat. The other issue with the front seat is you can actually see what is on the road and the ridiculous / dangerous driving choices your driver has opted for--passing on a curve, passing on a hill, passing on a hill and a curve, passing into oncoming traffic, nearly hitting a person / motorcycle / goat, driving too fast, pulling off to pick up a passenger when there is no shoulder, etc.

Chai came and went, and back to the matatu. My seat still remaining, along with most of the other ones, I hopped in and sat, for two more hours. Fortunately the bus stand is pure entertainment. I would say 90% of the people (and this is probably a dramatic underestimation) at the stand have no intention of getting on a bus, maybe ever. They make their living at the bus stand (making a living may also be a bit of a stretch, but it's their source of money). This includes all sorts of employment or mischief: bus drivers, conductors (guys who cram themselves into the matatus and collect the fare from you, and cram more people on the matatu), police officers, transportation officials, people hawking ALL sorts of goods (including, but certainly not limited to, bananas, CDs, DVDs, socks, pad locks, sunglasses, hanker-chiefs, wallets, underwear, water, biscuits, gum, candy, hot-dogs without the bun, buns without hot-dogs, newspapers, phone cards, toys, chains, rope, and soda), pick-pockets, prostitutes, drunks, beggars, people selling meals, people selling produce and dry goods, bicycle-taxi drivers, regular taxi drivers and touts.

I want to focus on the touts, because they are my favorite. These people will do anything for any sum of money. You name, they'll do it. As soon as a bus pulls into the station the touts flock to it and usually there will be two or three on top of the roof (because that's where all the goods are stored that travel with the bus, obviously) starting to unload before the bus has parked. Usually these guys (and they're always guys) are between the ages of 15 - 30 and they just "hang-out" at the stand hoping to get a little change here and there for assisting.

Once the goods have been unloaded from the top of the bus, they usually are handed down to another tout on the ground who packs them on his cart--I don't have a picture of the cart but I hopefully will get one so you can see how impressive these things are sometimes. They are home-made at a welder's shop or constructed out of wood and they load these things like you absolutely wouldn't believe. And then they hop in front of the cart and just start dragging. Seriously, world's strongest man ain't got nothing on the huge amounts of weird things these people will pull places--and all for much less than a dollar.

Other touts work for the bus companies, and I think work is way to generous, I'm not even sure if they are associated with the buses in any fashion other than they try to bring people to buses and ask either the person to pay something for the help or the conductor to throw some shillings their way for helping them get a person to ride. And these people will try anything to get someone on board.

They'll shout at you, they'll block your way to the other bus, they'll grab your hand, they'll promise you the world just to get you on the bus they want you to be riding. I even saw a young tout trying to talk the conductor of another matatu to get on our matatu. Now this would be like if an apprentice for a store clerk at Hudson News in JFK Airport tried to talk the co-pilot, flying the Delta shuttle to Detroit, into paying for a flight on United to Durham.

After getting so bored that I actually purchased some CDs through the window, I took off for Mbita.

Kakamega Forest: Trip 1 out from Kisumu

Last weekend I went to Kakamega Forest with Aaron, my new friend who is a relatively new EIS (Epidemiological Intelligence Service) officer. It was really just an excuse to get away from Kisumu for the weekend. I don't think there are too many people who travel too far to visit Kakamega Forest, but I'm glad we did.

It was a very low-key weekend which involved renting space in a KEEP (Kakamega Environmental Education Program) banda--of note, the KEEP bandas looked exactly like Smurf Village--and eating all our meals at the local "canteen." The canteen looked like a run-down hunting cabin which housed the kitchen, a small store and a few benches and tables which was occupied by progressively fewer chickens throughout the day. The proprietor of this institution was a lovely woman with three children including a little guy who was about 1 and would respond to "Hello" with "Hello" and he would do this forever, Aaron must have said it 50x in a row and then he got bored but the kid didn't. At the end of each meal, we would order our next meal from a hand written menu. We never got what we ordered, but we weren't picky and the food was good, so...

We also took a guided hike in the morning. We were given the options of hiking to the river or to the hill. I asked what the difference was between the two hikes besides the 200KSH more for the river, and our guide, Elsie, said there were more open spaces on the hike to the river. The more open spaces meant more variety of plants and a better opportunity to see some of the over 50 plants with medicinal properties. We chose the hill.

Top of the hill

After she grumped at us for being late eating our breakfast--lets not mention that we were on time, our food was not, we headed out on our hike. She started out like a real tour guide, telling us all about the forest and the animals and the plants, and she turns to us and says, "Did you know there are over 50 plants with medicinal properties in this forest?" Why yes, we did, you just told us half an hour ago.

Aaron and our guide

Within minutes of stopping we have encountered a medicinal plant--it looks like a bush, shoulder high, with pipe-cleaners of fuzz attached to it. She gives us its latin name and says it numbs the throat and gives the mouth a fresh feeling for hours. She looks at us, and the entire time she is dressed in a safari outfit, with binoculars around her neck and sunglasses on that are crooked, looks at the plant, grabs a pipe-cleaner, chomps on it and continues down the trail. I think to myself, how messed-up is she going to be if she continues to sample all 50 of the medicinal plants in the next few hours? She didn't snack on or point out another plant for the rest of the hike, and she was actually quite pleasant and well informed.

Good Day

Today I went to a two year-old's birthday party. But this was no two year-old's birthday party, this was the son of my friend Rat who took me on the tour of the community in which my program does its surveys and gets its data. So I was very honored to be invited.

Rat lives on the outskirts of town in an area named Manyatta. I did not know where that was, so I hopped on a boda-boda baskeli (bicycle taxi) and told him where I was going. While he knew the general area of where I was going, he didn't exactly know but he didn't let on until he was asking people along the way--who also didn't really know where because where he dropped me off was not really where I wanted to be.

So as my driver took off to wherever he spends his time waiting, I gave a call to Rat and said "Nipo (I'm here)" and he said I'll be right there. As I stood looking around, I was welcomed into a little banda to sit in the shade with some guys and we chatted in the typical blend of swahili and english. They asked the usual question. Where are you from? What are you doing here? What's your name? How do you like it here? And one that I get quite often, do you like our Obama? I'd hate to be anti-Obama here because so many people take such pride in his success since he comes from their country, and for Kisumu, their tribe.

I get a call from Rat, "Where? I don't see you." That's not what I wanted to hear, because if he doesn't see me, I'm not where he is because I don't blend in. I asked my new friends, where I was and they said "Akambatu" which was not where I was supposed to be. Rat said I wasn't far and I told him I would walk myself there right away.

One of the guys says "Why not take a boda boda, its only 10 bob (shillings)." And another says, "Why don't you just take him, he's out guest." And the guy with the bike tells me to come along, and he pedals me a few minutes down the road so I can meet up with Rat.

The party, I learned was beginning at 2PM and I was there at noon, I hadn't quite planned on an all day event, but then I hadn't really planned on anything else so I was there for the long haul. He had invited me earlier to just talk--which I thought was really kind of him. I really enjoy hearing his ideas, and I think the best description of him would need to borrow from K'naan and be "dusty foot philosopher."

We spent a fair amount of time discussing the tree farm he is creating on a veritable piece of scorched earth inside the area where we run our study. He says it was dry, dusty and had a little brush on it, but he has decided to return it to a forest with indigenous trees. He goes out of his way to collect ornamental trees that are native to the area and hopes to preserve their existence on his property as an environmental effort with his own work and funds. We talked about the troubles he has trying to get the documents for the land and the importance of having the deed. We talked about how his neighbors didn't understand what he was doing when he started a little over a year ago, and how they're starting to see the results already and asking him about how they can emulate his work. We talked about how his friends ask him why he isn't trying to make a quick profit by selling firewood or growing fruit trees. We talked about how he will handle people looking to cut down his trees for firewood. He knows he may not reap all the benefits of his land but he looks at his son and says, "Maybe he will benefit or his kids" and goes on to explain that its a gift he wants to leave for the future generations through his sacrifice.

The party was great--plenty of soda and absolutely delicious foods. Chipsi cassava and sweet potatoes for snacks. And a beautiful dinner that had so much more food than was necessary--chicken and fish and meat, ugali, rice and chapati, and of course a cake. I also got to meet a few people at the party from work both foreigners and Kenyans. We covered great conversations about politics, work, life

It was wonderful to get out of the wazungu area and get to where the real Kenyans live to experience the Africa I had been missing.

Thoughts--

It is 90 degrees different between where most of the people are who are reading this blog, and me. Hah!

The vibrate / silent mode for cell phones is under utilised in Kenya. My favorite is someone's phone behind me says "Sorry Boss, but you have a text message" every time a text is received. A close second goes to someone on the other side of the office whose phone rings "O Little Town of Bethlehem" with each call. And the most popular person in the office (who doesn't have their phone on silent / vibrate) has the Travie McCoy (his first name is Travie) song "Billionaire" that I hear at least twenty times a day.

And is there anyway this is true? http://kenya.craigslist.org/for/2211420435.html
Or this? http://kenya.craigslist.org/zip/2150902833.html

Six and seven and eight and BUNCH

My desk--you can see the bananas on the left

I left the CDC campus today for lunch. I ventured outside of the gate in search of food. After one week, I am already tired of the menu options inside the compound. Actually, I think they just don’t use enough oil and salt when they cook, and truly, when you’re eating beans and rice, those are two ingredients that are needed in excess.

Immediately outside of the gate there are a few stands set up by entrepreneurs who sell breakfast, lunch, soda, phone cards, fruit and other incidentals. These people are collectively referred to as “Jua Kali” which means “fierce sun” and is slang for informal employment. I had been eyeing one of the stands on my way into work in the CDC special transport morning van for non-Kenyans, temporarily working in Kisumu and living on the right side of town. I am actually surprised it took me this long to eat there.

CDC van at the compound

My restaurant, or “guesti,” is called “Researchers Favorite Café.” How could I go wrong? And I didn’t. The best beans and rice I have had since coming to Kenya and for $0.50 we’re talking my price range too. But I was still hungry. Thankfully, there is always someone around who is able to help you out with what you need, when you need it. And there was a mama sitting in the shade, right by the CDC gate, selling bananas and some type of root. I chose banana.

But I only had a 50KSH ($0.65) bill and she, of course, had no change. “Why not buy 50 shillings worth?” she asked me. Now, sometimes this is a little of a trick, and sometimes the person doesn’t really have the change. I asked her how many bananas I would get for my 50KSH and she pointed to a whole bunch of bananas, like 10. Now, what’s going through my head is I paid 20KSH per banana last week and was expecting to get maybe three bananas for my money—I got screwed. So I bought 50KSH of bananas from her, ate one and handed them out to people I knew as I walked back to my office—I still have some to bring home.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I went skiing the weekend before I left for Kenya (actually off the slopes 18 hours before my flight departed). I thought it would be a good idea, and it was a great one: fantastic company, and two good days of skiing. Only problem was my second day did not end well. I was trucking down Timbuktu at Jay and went past the usual turn-off in search of fresh power—no problem, I’ll just take one of those trails that helps you cut back. Problem is, that area always looks different to me no matter how many times I ski it and I never know where I am, I just have a feeling for it and know when I need to cut to the left to avoid ending up either on Rt. 242 or hiking out.

This time I turned back a little early and didn’t hit either of the traditional returns. I thought I had gone too far and got worried. I have hiked out and it sucks. And I have waited for someone to hike out, and that sucks and I didn’t want to put anyone through that. So I figured, keep your speed and head towards the left. I did exactly that and the tracks that I was following went between two trees about four feet apart, and a little staggered—no problem, except I hit one, with my leading knee and it hurt. Long story short, I recovered (thanks Dr. Geer) but am still a little hobbly over here, and the walking portion of my morning commute sorta sucks.

The walk I had been taking is on a quasi-main road with very uneven paths on either side and I was occasionally walking in a ditch to avoid the “boda-bodas” (motorbike taxis) and “dala-dalas” (over-stuffed, under-repaired minivans). This terrain was not good for my knee as every step that I laid was uneven. Now I am doing fine (that’s for my mom), but it was just irritating and obnoxious to take this path (~20min) both in the morning and afternoon. I had begun dreading my walk in the morning, dodging traffic and tenderly protecting my knee and I had actually taken to grabbing a “bicycle boda-boda” to get to my van in the morning. Now I don’t have any complex about my fitness or health, but there is nothing like a young man riding out of his saddle and struggling to pedal his bike simply because you hopped on, to remind you of your weight. They definitely earn their 20 shillings for the 2K.

The new path

But today, I took a different path. And that path was by the Kisumu Impala Sanctuary. Now this isn’t the Serengetti. It’s closer to a zoo than anything sublime, but I did get to see impala this morning, as well as a pacing lioness. Again, the lioness was pacing probably because she is caged in a large fenced in area and the impala are running around her in their own fenced in area. Still, this beats the hell out of any morning walk I’ve had in awhile, plus it gets me off the main road and that improves my own personal chances of survival.

The lion's area is in the fence behind the impala--and yes, I hear her roar every night when I am falling asleep

I think the best part was I wouldn’t have looked, except one of my neighbors was standing on a cement tank near the road and when I asked what he was doing; he signaled me over and shared the sight.

This may explain it all...

Kupotea njia ndiyo kujua njia -- To get lost is to learn the way

Field Work and Fact-Finding

The past two days I have been visiting the rural part of Kenya where my TB surveillance project will occur. I had the opportunity to follow a CI (community interviewer) to the compounds and households where the health interviews occur.

The gentleman who I accompanied is nicknamed Rat--which is short for the world elephant in Dho-Luo because he is a giant--not only in stature but also in warmth, personality and intelligence. He is now a TL (team leader) but was once a CI years ago in the village in which we were visiting. Everyone we passed greeted him and asked where he had been for such a long time. He passed on some sage words, "To succeed in this job you must have a huge heart and a small brain."

We visited 10 households and he patiently explained the system of interviews, and I am going to save you from the details but suffice it say, it's thorough and 25,000 people a week are run through this. Amazingly everyone I saw greeted the interviewers kindly, stopped their work and answered questions for 20-30 minutes.

Despite my living in Tanzania for two years, I entered as many mud huts yesterday as I had in all my time there. I did not take pictures of the inside (and I will get a picture up of the outside so you can appreciate where I am) but I will explain to you the best I can.

There is only one hut design in this area--you duck low to avoid the roof to enter the doorway set in the middle of the house. You enter immediately into a greeting area with chairs or couches with foam cushions aligned along the right side and the back with a table in the middle. There are a few pictures, a calendar or small decorations attached to the walls. The room is divided from the sleeping quarters by either a mud interior wall or a sheet. On the other side of the sheet is where the family sleeps--everyone. In the framing for the roof there are woven grass mats, farming tools and other possessions in storage. Small livestock are as present in the home as the family.

Upon entering the room you are immediately struck by how hot or how cool the structure feels and this is completely dependent upon the roofing. Grass roofs are very cool but need to be replaced twice yearly. Metal roofs make the hut a sauna but you can collect rain water from them and they need to be replaced every 5-10 years.

During the interviews which were conducted in Dho-Luo, a language which I am sure I will pick up some--got "ahonda" for cough and "deip" for diarrhea and a few greetings so far, I sat and watched the interactions. Interviewees would very rarely give a "yes" or "no" but would respond almost nonverbally with cues that were mutually understood by everyone but me. I also watched the kids who were in the house--more than a few times it was mentioned that I was the first white person ever to visit their house, or the first their children had seen outside of a car. One little girl asked her mother if I was a woman--I hope she was associating the color of my skin with gender and there wasn't anything else I was giving off, especially considering I have a pretty solid beard right now and I consider myself masculine. At the end of the interview I would squat next to the kids and give them a high-five or let them touch my skin--a lot of them like running their hands through the hair on my forearm.

The next day I visited the hospital where our study will be centered and met with some more people. I also had a chance to have a little clinical experience as I learned about the work-flow of the office. The head clinical officer and head of the hospital asked me what a normal patient load was for a physician in the US. I said a busy family doctor might run a few rooms at a time and see 30-40 patients on a long day. He saw at least that many in the morning session, including five members of the same family.

Almost amazing I haven't mentioned much about the food I ate, but lunch for the past two days has been at a little guest house a few hundred meters from Lake Victoria where everyone comes to eat. It has been recommended to me by two of my co-workers out in Lwak Hospital doing field work for the IEIP. And guess what, when Senator Obama came to visit before launching his first campaign, he ate at this little guesti as well. The food's quite good and the company is even better.

Work

I am in Kisumu, Kenya and I am staying in a furnished house associated with a big guest house nearby. I can sort of see Lake Victoria out of one of the windows in the house, and I am told that I will be having two house mates at some time.

My condo development--looks like Florida

I got three hours of day light to establish myself in town, before I was told I was late for work. Seriously. Expecting a full day of figuring out where town is located, getting there and picking up some food and goods--since my furnished apartment only has a single towel which triples for pot holder, shower towel, kitchen towel and mop. I was surprised when a worker from the guest house came and told me that he had received a call from the CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) / KEMRI (Kenya Medical Research Institute) and they had been expecting me this morning. Funny, because while they have been great so far, I had no idea how I was supposed to get there, when I was supposed to be there or where it was located. This was kindly settled and my boss, himself, came to pick me up.


Plans always change. Always. I had made very few plans in my head as to what my experience would be like in Kisumu and working with the CDC. I knew I would be doing tuberculosis (TB) surveillance (didn't exactly know what surveillance was all about until the CDC Hubert Fellows orientation in Atlanta, so thank you for that) and I figured my office would be small since it is outside of the capital. Plans change. I will most definitely be involved in TB surveillance, in fact, I will be taking over the position of TB Coordinator for a woman on maternity leave for a project which goes live at the beginning of March. Moreover, the office where I am working is not small, but a huge campus which employs nearly 2000 people and has many, many more employed in the community.


There are some amazing things going on here which I would not believe exist, except I have seen them. This outpost of the CDC is in charge of the monitoring the health of nearly a quarter million people--this is called the DSS (demographic surveillance system). Every four months, each household gets a knock on the door and answers very basic questions regarding births, deaths, pregnancies and people moving in or out of the area. Impressive.


I am involved with the IEIP (international emerging infections program) which takes a small subset of the population (10%) in the immediate vicinity around our main hospital and visits them weekly, asking them an entire survey full of questions, about everyone in the house, babies, grandmas, renters--everyone. And then if one is sick, he is briefly examined and referred to the local hospital or clinic (which CDC / KEMRI run). And when he goes to the hospital, their every everything is documented and tracked. Health care is free if the illness pertains to the study.

Conference center where we have our field trainings for the "Community Advisory Board," 

"Village Reports" and others associated with our surveillance and outreach

And now TB health care will be free in the area--although it is already dramatically subsidized nationally by The Global Fund. IEIP is overlaying research regarding TB onto the questionnaire that exists, beginning in two months from March 2011. Beginning in March, we will be knocking on every door (~6000 doors / gates / curtains) looking for anyone over the age of 5 (~22000 people) with a symptom which could indicate TB--meaning if someone has a cough, fever, unexplained weight loss, or experiencing frequent night sweats, they will be presumptively diagnosed with TB. If a person answers "yes" to cough, fever, weight loss or night sweats, then they get a chest x-ray (CXR).


Its March in equatorial Africa: it's hot, it's dusty, the harvest season is months away and I sweat during the night--my bet is everyone is getting a CXR.


I, alongside of people far better versed in this world, will be coordinating these efforts in the coming months, and I am going to have some good stories...

Karibu Tena!

I have talked about East Africa a lot since I last left. And that may be grossly understated. You all probably now better than I do how much I have made it a part of my life. And so I am back and nearly a week into my stay.

So many thanks to the Manyuru family who picked me up at the airport and made me feel entirely welcome and at home. Tuesday / Wednesday feel a little dream-like and I know its a combination of the hospitality I was shown, my new residence in Kenya and being very jet-lagged (and hobbled, but I'm recovering, Mom). I cannot express how wonderful it was to be received upon arrival so warmly. So thank you and I hope to visit more with you all during my stay.

Warning

The thoughts, comments and posts presented here are only those of my own and in no way represent those of any organization with which I am affiliated. I hope you like them.