We are starting to settle in here and it feels great. This is our first "normal" week and the rhythm is set. We moved into our new room at Kipkaren on Saturday. It's quite luxurious... squatty potties down the trail, hot bucket of water at 7AM to shower... this is Kenya.
A missions team from So Cal is here for the next 10 days and it's been great spending time with them. I think Som and I both needed some American encouragement and some other people to talk to besides ourselves... haha.
On Sunday, I attended my 2nd church service. We were informed it was going to be short, and it lasted almost 3 hours! The majority of the service was dancing and singing, which is awesome. The Kenyans are really passionate in their worship. They sing loud and proud and dance at their seat and also in performances. Their only instrument is a keyboard. The children had quite a few dance numbers, and they pulled us up for some of the songs! They really showed us how to get down... We were on our hands and knees, doing the macarena, electric slide, and we shimmied! Haha... I'm not even kidding... It was so awesome. Even though 3 hours is a long time, I think it's really beautiful that Kenyan culture values their faith and community above time schedules. They take their time praying, worshipping, introducing themselves to one another, welcoming visitors, reading scripture, making announcements about the community. In America, time is money, and people are busy and rich, but in Kenya, time is free and people are rich in the love of their family, friends, and faith. It's really beautiful and I have a lot to learn from them, because I am quite guilty for complaining about long church things.
The reason church was "short" was because there was a burial service for a member of the community who passed away. The man's name was Thomas, and he was a patient of Michelle and Juli (The nurses at ELI). Juli managed his HIV and Michelle treated his tuberculosis. About when Som and I arrived, Thomas stopped coming to the clinic for his daily injection, and Michelle wondered if he had passed. Death is so normal here... but people are not desensitized. Michelle explained to us that pregnant women do not even celebrate, tell people, or buy baby clothes until the baby is finally born because it is not guaranteed that the baby will come. I have made 96 new friends at the Children's Home and every single one of them have lost their parents. Some of the ELI "parents" have lost their own biological children. It seems devastating, depressing, but yet they have hope. Their faith in God and love and support in their community get them through each painful loss. Funerals are much different here than in America. The community grieves hard with wailing, crying out, and collapsing, and soon after, they move on, look toward the future and leave the past behind. Not the mention that the burial took place in the man's own backyard. The entire village attended to support each other. Once again, a beautiful experience. While I sat in the grass of a stranger's backyard in Kenya, I thought about how this is someone's Jeremiah. As people spoke about Thomas in Swahili, I prayed for those people and also for my community at home mourning the loss of their friend, brother, son, Jeremiah. I prayed that they would be unified and that God's love and hope would be everything they need to have peace. Each attendee walked past the open casket one by one, and when it was my turn, I hesitated, but then looked at his face, and I saw that he looked empty. He did not look asleep, he looked empty. I was once again reminded that a person is not their body or face, but their soul, and Thomas is in heaven. He is in paradise with our Savior, and so is Jeremiah. Even after experiencing all of this, I still thought of Jeremiah last night in bed and half expected to see him again when I come home... huge grin, blue eyes, big enthusiastic hug, loud laugh, with a crazy story to tell. I miss him, but I have hope and peace in Christ's love. This is hard stuff to process through, but I'm here to grow, and I'm going to be a nurse in a year, and caring for the dying is an inevitable aspect of nursing. I pray that I would never become desensitized or jaded, but instead, so filled with faith, hope, and love, that it would overflow onto my patients to bring them Christ's peace and comfort.
Ok that's some heavy stuff... but on a lighter note, Somerlyn and I counted 60,120 pills on Monday! We are in the process of organizing, cleaning, and taking inventory of the clinic with the staff when we are not seeing patients. It's been quite a process, and also quite an eye-opening experience to 3rd world medicine. In America, we follow the "Gold Standard". Michelle calls Kenya's standard the "tin can standard". To count the meds, we poured out the bottle onto the counter, touched each pill with our glove-less fingers, and put them all back in the bottle. If one tell on the ground, we put it back in the bottle. I think I would be kicked out of the nursing program at APU if I did that at Huntington Memorial. The clinic's calamine lotion for chicken pox was in a vodka bottle! Kenya does not have access to medication like we do and people do not waste their valuable resources. While America has the highest standards, most sterile procedures, and strict policies, it is also quite wasteful.
Since the missions team has been here, Som and I have been spoiled with eating with them at the training center instead of the children's home. I found out that not all Kenyan food is horrible... Chippati is amazing! It's like the best homemade tortilla you've ever had. And avacados, mangos, and black currant fanta! (Did you know it's not grape?) A woman here is currently reading The Shack and apparently in the book, Jesus says Ugali is one of his favorite foods. That author has obviously never tried it!! Today for lunch, we had Maize. When they passed it around, I thought, "Sweet! Pepper!" but then I realized it was small dirt specks...haha. It was good though, it tasted it popcorn. And tonight is "American Night". Michelle hosts an american night once a week for the interns where we go on the internet, eat american dinner, and play a game or watch a movie. Tonight we are having lasagna and garlic bread.... mmm!
Today at the clinic we saw some interesting patients. We saw a boy with an infected tooth cavity and he needed to get it removed. The extraction was intense and pretty hard to watch. The dentist has tools and lidocaine, but no dental chair or spotlight or x-ray machine. ELI is looking into getting a dental chair and it would definitely be useful... the dentist just climbed over behind the poor boy with one leg up and loosened, then yanked the tooth out! By the way, the cost of this procedure was 400 shillings, which is about $5. The mom only had 300 shillings so the clinic covered the rest of her cost. We also saw many pregnant women and babies today. We examined them, palpated the funduses and positions of the babies and listened to their heart beats on fetal doplers. It is so fun! A girl we saw today is due on the 25th and we are really hoping to see her deliver.
That's pretty much everything! It's pouring right now which is great. The country is in a drought and the government decided to turn off the country's electricity two days a week. Also, Michelle is preparing for next year's increase in malnourished patients because of the decrease in crops. Kenya needs rain!! So do a rain dance for me everyone :)
I miss you all!!! Thank you for the love and prayers!!
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