I'm not eating corn for 10 years when I return to America

This week has gone by so fast! The village looked like pure chaos because of the annual youth camp going on. The missions team from so cal ran it and hosted seminars on topics like furthering education, business, making choices, and also spiritual disciplines and forgiveness. "Youth" in kenya are between the ages of 12 and married or 30ish so it was older people with the kids. Somerlyn and I stayed busy at the clinic but we could hear the music and preaching all day long, and we fell asleep and woke up to it everyday. The older kids from the Childrens Home attended and it seems like they learned a lot and were inspired to go to college and start a business or do some other type of work which is awesome. It's truly a miracle that these children who are orphans are now given homes, parents, food, clean water, healthcare, and education because of ELI.

The clinic has been fun! It goes through waves of being really busy to really slow. When we work n the treatment room we see all sorts of patients and I like that experience much better than the mama/baby clinic. Last week we pulled a 4 inch stick out of a little boy's thigh! We also saw a man with an eye infection that was hit with a nail in May. We examined it under a slit lamp microscope and saw scar tissue on his cornea. We also saw a broken hand from a piki piki (motorcycle) accident, a boy with mumps, and many malaria, typhoid, and upper respiratory infections. Today we had a woman with widespread swelling and rash. I thought she was 60 years old because of her facial swelling but she was only 28! She was on all sorts of medication from the last clinic she went to so we thought the worst case scenario was Stevens Johnsons syndrome or maybe allergic reaction so we sent her to the hospital. We also had a woman with severe abdominal pain and vomiting for 3 days and we ran some tests and found out she was pregnant. She also had right lower quadrant rebound tenderness which is classic for appendicitis so we had to send her to the hospital as well. The 2 nurses here work as doctors diagnosing diseases and prescribing medication so it's been fun having that role. I love the mystery and challenge of each patient. I've always thought I wanted to work in the ER and this experience is confirming that idea. The mama/baby clinic is good too, just redundant. But I'm getting lots of injection practice which I'm happy about. We had a couple funny visitors today. One was a man who wanders here often obliviously wearing a shirt with the F bomb on it in huge capitol letters. Another was a man who was drunk off his own corn brew from a clorox bottle sitting in his pocket selling a large bag of grass. No matter where you are in the world, hospitals and clinics attract the most interesting of people!

On Monday we went with social workers on home visits to see patients. They told us about their lives and struggles and we listened and prayed for them. First, we saw a man with tuberculosis. He looked miserably sick and frail and weak. He said he could not eat and has no energy to walk or work. The treatment takes 8 months so he has been sick for a long time. The next house was a single mom who had HIV and so did her 6 year old daughter. The social workers found her at her home in 2008 weighing 24 kg (50 pounds) and tested her for HIV, and now they take her for treatment every week. Now she weighs 60 kg! The last patient was a man who also has HIV. The inside of his mud hut was decorated with magazine pictures for wall paper. He wasn't doing well because he fell the day before, but he told an amazing story. In 2003, He was sick for a long time and accepted that he was dying, until Juli, the ELI HIV nurse found him at his home one day. He thought she was an angel because she was the first person to touch him in so long. Very little was known about HIV in 2003 and the community avoided him because they were afraid of getting it. She took him to get tested and treatment, and now 6 years later he is still living and living well. He got certified to be a home based AIDS caregiver to care for others and he works at HIV/AIDS campaigns because he is passionate about spreading hope, especially to those newly diagnosed. He was very inspiring and told me and Somerlyn to take his story back to America to give HIV patients in America hope, too. HIV is now considered a chronic illness instead of a terminal illness because of the Anti Retroviral treatment, which is amazing. These mothers and fathers and children now diagnosed with HIV can truly have hope in living many more years.

I'm getting closer to the kids at the Childrens Home and it is so fun! Nivah is my little shadow. She is really bashful and really precious and follows me everywhere. Magdalene is sassy and has an attitude and gets mad if don't sit next to her at dinner and plays with my hair every night. Stella is a diva and loves to take pictures and videos of herself with my camera. Viola is always happy and smiling and loves to wear my purse. Brian Kibet is ambitious and asks me tons of questions about America and speaks english really well and plays the keyboard. Shadrach is a troublemaker and gets a kick out of freaking me out with bugs. Cornelious plays the harmonica, and Eliud always makes sure I've eaten enough. They are all so unique and gifted and loving. They are also incredibly mature. They wash their own clothes (by hand), clean up everything after every meal, and run their own devotional service every night with reading scripture, sharing memory verses, telling testimonies, and singing and playing their songs. As orphans, they were robbed of a childhood, yet they are still full of energy and life.

I love hanging out with the kids, but the food is an entirely different story. We have corn for every meal and it is becoming painful. It's not the sweet, crunchy, American corn, but thick, hard, bland maize. For lunch, it's usually an ear or two of corn, and for dinner, it's Ugali with cabbage or Kale (aka grass). It's getting rough. Somerlyn and I talk about American food all the time and I dreamt about thai food the other night. I've dreamt about all sorts of crazy things since I've been here...thank you Mefloquine! We started a countdown and we only have to eat ugali 10 more times! WOOHOO!

Driving around Kenya is exactly like hte Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland. Tan safari jeep and all! We drove home from town in the mud on saturday and it was quite the adventure. I have to leave out the details because my parents read this, but we spun out once into a ditch while I was crammed in the backseat with Somerlyn, our night watchman Benjamin, and the camp speaker. It was exhillerating!

This week we've had visitors leave and the Kenyans host "goodbye ceremonies" for their visitors. It's really formal and awesome because the two groups really express their mutual gratitude for spending time together and getting to know one another. There are songs, tribal dancing, hand shaking, gift exchanges, and speeches. I feel like in American culture, we avoid goodbyes and dread them and hate them (I know I do), so it's been awesome seeing a goodbye from a completely different perspective. It's so filled with gratitude and joy and love, and the two groups feel so edified and encouraged and appreciated. This culture is so fun to be a part of.

It's Somerlyn's 21st birthday on Sunday so wish her a happy birthday!!! Christians do not drink in this culture, so there definitely won't be any alcohol, and birthdays aren't a big deal so it won't be a big celebration, so give her some American love. In town, I bought her a weird, hard, pink, heart-shaped cake that says "happy birthday" upside-down because it was the ony thing I could find! Maybe it will be the most delicious cake ever. We will close our eyes and dream that we are eating 21 choices or pinkberry or pizookie.

We have less than 2 weeks left here! It's been such a fun adventure but I'm starting to look forward to coming home. I really miss you guys! Please pray that I stay focused and present here. The missions team left so we are feeling a little lonely. But on the bright side, we moved into a "luxury" hut today! Clean, running water, a shower, and a toilet! So that is REALLY exciting. I love you all so much and hope that you are all doing well! I'm learning a ton and taking tons of pictures, so I can't wait to share it all with you when I'm home. I miss you guys! Thanks for the love and prayers!