Live.Laugh.Love.

Jambo sana!

It has been a few days since we have been able to get access to the internet because we have been getting adjusted to life here in Kisii Town, which is our home town for the next 5 weeks. We arrived here last Wednesday night (a week ago) and have loved every second so far. The drive here from Nairobi was the on a pot hole filled, half constructed road we were literally bouncing all around the car the entire time while weaving in and out of other drivers and people and cows crossing the road. I am glad that we will not be on that road for sometime now when we return to Nairobi for the last week of our stay in 5 weeks. The first night in Kisii we stayed at the ‘home’ of our host family in Nairobi. It was the home that the father was born in years ago. This home had no electricity and had pit latreens to go to the bathroom in, which are these scary out-house type buildings with just a hole in the ground. We arrived to the house just as the sun was setting so we had seconds to gather our things and make it into the house before it became pitch black, they then had to rush around and try to light all the lanterns in the house so we could even walk to our ‘bedroom’. This was a night that I will never want to revisit and I just look at it as a learning experience as what rural life is here in Kenya and most of Africa. There are millions of people just in Kenya that live this way with chickens and dogs running in and our of their house with no shoes on their children. I am more and more thankful and a secondly basis of what I have and how life is in the United States.

On Thursday morning, after surviving the night, we went to visit a rural dispensary which is a very very small clinic for those living in the rural communities and no way to get to a larger city to get treatment. It was incredible to see the conditions of this place and to know that on average they see about 50-60 patients on a daily basis with only 2 working nurses. There is no doctor. They also do not have any electricity. We got a tour of the place by one of the nurses and she was telling us about their struggles and how they deal with more serious cases and deliveries which shocked us. She told us that if they had a woman come in who was in labor and was at risk of any kind, she would have to be sent to a regional hospital for treatment and observation. The woman would then have to either walk…while in labor…or ride a matatu…which are the scariest things ever…to get to the hospital. This is normal for this part of the world, and I could not even fathom what it would be like to be in labor and having to walk miles and miles to get to the nearest hospital. After the tour of the dispensary we started to walk back to the car to travel to Kisii Town to have lunch with our new host family and along the fence there were tons of school children lined up ready to meet us and just shake our hands and greet us. So we walked up closer to the fence only to see a sea of children that was filled with about 600 primary and secondary kids wanting to see Cate and I. It was the most surreal experience of my life watching hundreds of kids running towards me just wanting to touch me. These kids have never seen a white person before and have only heard of us in books. They were screaming and laughing the entire time because we were trying to communicate with them the best we could using the Swahili we knew. The main phrase they knew was ‘How are you?’ and ‘Thank you’ so that is all they kept saying to us and laughing at our response. We got to meet with the principal of the school and went into every single classroom to personally meet the children. We then walked over to the secondary school, which is like high school, and they were all in this massive hall receiving a prayer. We walked into this hall and they stopped what they were doing to let us speak which we were not prepared for at all. I turned around and saw hundeds of students just starring at me and waiting for me to say something. I just told them how important education is and how that is the seed of life and to keep striving for more and how they can do anything, they then all laughed after I was done because they were all so bashful. We finally made our way to the car and as we drove away hundreds of kids were running after the car…it was like a scene from a movie.

So we finally made it to the host family in Kisii Town. It took only a few hours until we completely felt at home. I have fallen in complete love with this family. A week ago, I couldn’t wait to come home, and now I can’t imagine leaving in only a few weeks. Our host mother is Rosebellah, who is the most amazing, compassionate woman I have ever met in my life. This family has dealt with tragedy in only the past few weeks and we were quite nervous coming into it and we had no idea what it was going to be like, but I feel now like it was a blessing in disguise with our timing being here because everyone seems to be cheering up. Our host father is Reuben, and he is a member of the East African Parliament. He comes back to Kisii tonight, so we will get to meet him after work today. Then there is Oliver, who just came back home after spending 15 years in the United States studying. He came home to take care of his mother, Rosebellah. There is Dolly who is 22, Brian who is 17, Edwin who is 11 and Allan who is 6. The kids are amazing and I can’t wait to come home from work everyday to greet them with a hug.We have become members of their family for life. We feel completely at home here with this family and I can’t imagine being any where else in the world right now. It was for sure our purpose to be here right now and spend time with these kids who have gone through more than you even know. That can be discussed at a different time because I’m am still trying to comprehend what they went through.

We started working at the hospital on Monday, two days ago, and I have seen things that shake me to my core. We will be working 3 weeks in Maternity and then 3 weeks in pediatrics. Sometimes I wonder if this can be considered as a hospital because it is pretty much an outdoor facility and has extremely minimal privacy for the patients if any at all. There are sometimes 2-3 patients sharing a bed. Unsanitary use of materials everywhere. Doctors and nurses not wearing gloves, uncleaned dressings on open wounds, flies everywhere, babies crying, patients lying in the mud hoping someone will come and help them, security guards at every entrance into a building to control the chaos. It is truly a sight that I don’t think can be described but only experienced. I will try my best to convey the shock that I have felt. We have seen 3 births while being here, and on average there is at like 10 a day. These women get minimal help and basically no privacy during any time of their stay. These are the most raw births I have ever seen, and I can not even imagine giving birth in the environment that these women do. Cate and I are just watching right now but the staff has made it very clear that we will be delivering a baby within the next few days, maybe even today. We are going into surgery today to see c-sections, which they perform at minimum four each day and night. We are actually on our way to work right now, so hopefully I will get a chance maybe tomorrow to expand more on what we are doing at the hospital. I am getting the experience of a lifetime and I miss you all ever so dearly!!! Please email me any questions about life here in Kisii or working at the hospital, ash1ey1207@yahoo.com.  I know these postings can sometimes be a bit random, but I just type as things come to me…which there are many.

I love you all,

Ashley