Branching out in the Kenyan Community

Bright and early Tuesday morning, I crammed into the front cab of a truck with two men in their late 50's and several nurses in the back seats, and drove almost two hours to set up a community health clinic at a local school. Tenwek's community health program does these visits to schools and churches all over Kenya to provide baby immunizations, pregnancy checks, and AIDS awareness programs. As we drove up, a few hundred kids immediately recognized there was a mzungu (white person) in the truck, and started running after us and crowded around the truck door as I got out; the driver actually had to push them back because they were all trying to touch my pale skin and blonde hair. The kids were all yelling at me, asking my name and where I came from, and when I sat down, they all got quiet and stared...until I reached out my hand to shake another kid's hand, and then they immediately rushed forward and tried to do the same! It was so entertaining.

As for the clinic, we set up in one of the school rooms, and I helped weigh the babies and gave oral immunizations to them. We probably had almost a hundred moms and babies come through our clinic that day! One of the school teachers asked me to teach one of the classes that day, so I gave an algebra lesson to a large classroom, which was really fun. And on the way there and back, I got to talk to the two men for a while about lots of random things; their families, nursing backgrounds, how they became Christians, what America was like.

Yesterday was spent in the pre-surgery and surgery areas; I helped do a few biopsies on patients, one of which was on an 11 year old child with a huge mass extending from her armpit to her hip. Another was on a woman with a large forehead mass, and while I was waiting for our next case, I was able to pray with her, which she seemed so thankful for; the people in the hospital sincerely appreciate any individual attention and care you give them. Then I scrubbed in on some surgeries; my favorite of the day was a woman who had had some complications from a previous surgery which had caused her stomach to stretch to be at least four times as big as normal! I also got to try some traditional Kenyan food for lunch: stewed beans and rice with ugali (crushed corn soaked in water; it's the staple food of Kenya). It was really good, except for the ugali, which I'm not a big fan of...but the Kenyans eat it for every meal with different beans, veggies, and sometimes meat.

Then today was the last day of the visiting OB/GYN, so I followed him on rounds and did procedures with two of the PA students staying in the guest house with me. I've never been in the OB/GYN department, and especially in Kenya, you can see some crazy stuff. The first two rooms we went in were mostly women in labor; a few of them were sprawled out on the floor, groaning in pain, with some blood splattered on the floor. The delivery room was next to these rooms, and contained three beds divided by curtains; the women have absolutely no pain medications, which is absolutely amazing, and the nursing students do all of the normal deliveries. They basically just put on some scrub aprons and gloves, throw a sheet down on the table, and coach the women through the deliveries. There was an incubator by each bed, for newborns to be placed in, and I got to carry around twins that were only an hour old! I also almost saw my first delivery, but ran out of time, so hopefully I'll be able to see and assist on one tomorrow!

Even though I missed seeing my first delivery, it was for good reason; we crammed eight of us and a driver into a station wagon and drove a few miles to a nearby orphanage with 40 or so children. We jumped rope and tossed footballs with the kids outside, and they absolutely lit up at all of the attention. While I was turning the jump rope for some kids, a little 4-5 year old girl kept coming up to me with "gifts" of hula hoops or ropes, so I eventually gave my job to someone else, picked her up, and she pretty much stayed attached to me the rest of my time there! I wanted to take her back with me so badly; she was really sweet, but laughed so easily and basically stole my heart within a few minutes. When it was time for their dinner, the orphanage director gave us a tour of the cow and chicken stables that help support the orphanage, and the rest of the orphanage facilities, and then the children sang a few songs for us. We got to pray over them, and they chased our car down as we drove away. I really hope to go back there before I leave!