KENYA week 2:

Unfortunately our preceptor was unable to join us due to a family emergency, but lucky for us a member of the group Safe Passage to Motherhood (who were here 2 weeks before us working in Bware helping educate women about pregnancy, labor and delivery in an effort to decrease maternal/infant mortality) Lelinda (or Le ) volunteered to stay on with our group for another 2 weeks. Le is a clinical psychologist and her experience with the community as well as her specialty has been invaluable to us in the last week. We are all extremely grateful for her willingness to stay and help us process our experiences here in country.

Migori – The town itself is probably a medium sized town for Africa as it has a level 4 hospital (St. Joseph’s) and the main street has 2 supermarkets, 3 hardware stores and countless other shops. There are open market type of stands all over the side of the road and down side streets. It’s relatively safe to walk around the main street in town during the day, just be sure to keep your passport wallet on a string tucked safely inside your shirt and not wearing anything that looks valuable is a good idea. We always walk together in at least a pair but the larger the group the better. Last night some of the students from Medics to Africa program (they are staying in the hospital guest house further up the road) went out to a disco (night club) but we decided to stay in. Most of the time when you’re walking through town people are friendly and everyone greets you with “habari” (hello, how are things) to which you respond “mzuri or salama” (good, perfect) and they are big fans of the handshake! You shake hands with everyone, everytime you see them and the better you know them the longer the handshake is.

St. Joseph’s Mission Hospital – In a word… AMAZING… there are so many things about this place that are both inspiring and tragic. The people here are so welcoming and friendly; full of such love and kindness at times it overwhelms my heart to see how selflessly everyone here at the hospital gives to the point of exhaustion. The resources have made me cringe so many times I’m almost in a constant state of shock. At the same time they do their very best with the limited equipment and supplies they do have. The most significant thing about the hospital that stands out for me is how much death there is, for a hospital this size the number of patients that die every day is astounding. Most of the problem is that people wait so long before coming in, because of money or transportation, by the time they actually come in it’s nearly impossible to save them.

Bware – A quiet farming community just outside of Migori. We visited Bware primary school and the kids were absolutely adorable and so excited for the books, pencils, crayons, paper, erasers and other supplies we brought. By far the biggest hit was the football (soccer ball) we brought, they went crazy for that. Then we met with the Buchwa and BBEKAS ( Buchwa is the community health aids group that is made up of mostly women from the Bware community and BBEKAS, an acronym for all the primary schools in the area, is the headmasters from each school) had a meeting during which they gave us some information about the issues the community and the schools are facing and the things we could address while we are here.

After lunch we were taken to meet our host family, all three of us are staying with Alex and Lucy and their 2 daughters Angela (who is making me a skirt) and their 5 grandchildren Whitney, Willis, Vincent, Sharon and Wayne. We left our bags there and walked up the street with Le to visit the family she has been homestaying with. Marselline Koskei and her husband own 10 acres, their daughter Annett took us on a tour of their farm where they grow; bananas, mango, papaya, avocado, pineapple (Heather got to pick a fresh pineapple which we will enjoy tomorrow) soya (soy beans), ground nuts (peanuts), kale, maze (corn), napear grass (for the cows to eat), and cassava. After that we walked back down to Alex and Lucy’s where we enjoyed dinner and some entertainment provided by the children and then us as we tried to remember the Kiswahili words to the head, shoulders, knees and toes song. Then the two girls braided my hair, before we turned in for the night. The next day Le met us in the morning and we walked up the street to a neighbor’s house where a group of monkeys live in the nearby trees. Unfortunately we were too late in the day for monkey spotting, but the view from the top of the hill was breathtaking. When we got back to the house the children were all waiting to play with us Tammy played some football with the kids, the girls showed me how to weave grass and then Heather and I turned a jump rope for the girls and learned some Kenyan jumprope games. All in all it was a VERY good week.

This upcoming week we will be going on Safari Friday and Saturday so next time I should have some pics of the animals.