Abarri
I really don't know how to start this. I have been away for almost a month now. It doesn't really feel that long. AS my fellow volunteer put it " It is like living multiple lives". In this month I have had a Norway life, an Ireland life and a Kenyan life. Europe and Canada seem like ages ago because this experience is completely different.
Day after day I am amazed by the beauty of the Kenyan sky. I can look for miles and see only blue sky and green sugar cane. The farm is completely rustic but at the same time luxurious. The farm that I am staying on is be far the richest property in the village. The things that I am grateful for now are wildly different then before. Two of the most exciting things are mangos and chappati
I thought I was ready for African time, but I had no idea. I get to the clinic by 9 every morning and every day we don't start seeing patients before 12 or 1230. I spend the majority of my time in our mobile clinic van. This van gets fixed every day once on the way there and once on the way back. The van also cannot start unless people are pushing it. Sometimes I only do three hours of work a day and then they all tell me to take a rest. For someone use to working twelve hour shifts or at least eight hours days I always feel like I am just getting started.
The work I am doing with the mobile clinics is always fascinating. Every day some one comes in with something they think is mild and we have to send them to the hospital. I have seen severe severe meningitis, a women with a blood pressure of 280/160 (walking stroke waiting to happen) and a five month old who was having a severe asthma attack for a month. I have only been working for a week and a half but I have already learned an amazing amount.
Things I have done so far.
Almost suffocated in my first mosquito net
Been offered marriage five times
Been courted with bananas
Went running with at least 20 children
Felt like a queen on the back of a motorcycle waving at all the kids
Took a picture of a snake and then after wards found out it was deathly poisonous
Chased monkeys
Been hailed as a rain queen because I brought the rainy season a whole month early
That's all for now
My next adventure is the Kakamega rain forest
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Hi Sheila, Cara just fixed me up with a gmail account, so now i can log in. It's great to have so many computer resources in the family. We're just home from a powerful native Canadian service at UCG. It feels like such a bonus to be able to share that with Cara on top of a fabulous Hillside Inside. You were there, dancing to The Stars, right beside us, except... we couldn't quite see you. We could hear you though when K'naan sang "When I am older, I will be stronger. They'll call me Freedom, like a waving flag." Love Mom
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