Week #4

Well, a whole week has passed and no more hospitalizations...I'd say that's an accomplishment for me!! On Sunday I went to church with two other volunteers and our housekeeper, who had invited us to go with her. I definitely had a lot to be thankful for after the past two weeks. What an experience...the 3-hour service was held in the newly constructed church--corrugated tin walls and roof, and if you can just imagine the sounds of all those voices joining together to sing and worship resonating off the tin...it was incredible! I even recognized a few songs...Blessed Assurance and Oh Happy Day!! And God provided the perfect illustration for the pastor's sermon...there was a terrific downpour midway through his message on baptism!! He had to shout so we could hear him because the rain was coming down so hard against the tin! Since we were there visiting, they translated everything into English for us, so it was one sentence English, then repeated in Kiswahili, which we were very grateful for.

Monday was absolutely wonderful as I went back to the orphanage...I was so happy too see the kids. Tuesday I made a visit with some other volunteers to a school called Hidden Talents in Kawangware, the same slum the orphanage is located in. It was an amazing project and one we're trying to convince i-to-i to get involved with. The school was started by a pastor, who began his work back in 1993 feeding orphans on the streets of Nairobi. He then gathered the funds and ground necessary to build the school, which now houses about 1250 students. Since they only have less than an acre, they've just built upwards, and are also building additions to the primary (elementary) school across the street and working on acquiring funds to build satellite locations all over Kenya to send orphans to live and attend school. This man had probably one of the strongest visions of bettering his community that I have ever encountered...he was truly inspirational as he told us about his work and the center's motto: "We do everything by faith," and his belief that every child has a talent, it just needs to be nurtured. So they focus on both athletics and academics. The part that affected me the most though was seeing the line of people waiting outside the school, and learning that these were guardians waiting to be interviewed by the pastor in order to bring children to the school. Then seeing the files full of death certificates that the pastor has stacked in his office, stapled to the guardian certificates he's received from the government indicating that he is now responsible for the orphans the individuals have left behind. I couldn't stop the tears as I read certificate after certificate, and I was reminded that it never says "AIDS" as the cause of death, rather some form of immuno-suppression. It was a sobering reminder that this disease has far-reaching effects, never stopping at just one generation...even if the children are blessed enough not to be infected during birth or in infancy, they most likely will be orphaned at a very young age. The visit to the school ended with a stop in the pastor's office, who beamed as he showed us trophy after trophy of various graduates...the fastest runner in Kenya for the 100m dash, a football (soccer) player for the French World Cup team, and the list goes on and on. I hope to get involved with this school at least once a week for the remainder of my time here, as they have about 40 teachers, who are all volunteers.

Wednesday, I had a follow-up with the doctor after getting my blood checked. My numbers are stable and he was very pleased with my progress, not wanting to check me again for two weeks, and if those numbers are ok, he'll see me once more before I fly out to Tanzania and set me up with enough warfarin/blood thinners to last me the 6 weeks I'll be there, and then I'll be able to test myself while I'm in Tanzania with my portable INR/PT self-test machine that is on its way to me. Quite the set-up I know, but has to be done. I was reminded this week of how blessed I was that it wasn't worse, as another volunteer flew home early with typhoid and his fourth go-round with malaria, and another volunteer was hospitalized and had to undergo surgery to have his appendix out. My leg is almost back to normal, only aching when I find myself sitting with my legs down or standing for a long period of time, but it goes away if I start moving around, which the doctor said is completely normal. My muscles are getting stronger every day--the kids at the orphanage are seeing to that! As it was Valentine's Day on Wednesday, we brought in special heart stickers and a huge new set of markers, crayons, and colored pencils--and they just loved it--by the end of the morning, we were all covered in stickers!

Thursday I made a trip to Nairobi Hospital again, only this time it was to meet with the occupational therapists there!! I talked to them for about an hour, and it was neat to hear their work is very similar to mine back home--seeing patients bedside as well as on an outpatient basis. For all those OT's out there, cones are universal--they had a stack there in the outpatient gym! They also gave me a list of other hospitals and clinics in Nairobi that employed occupational therapists, so I hope to get to one or two a week and see what they do at each facility.

Friday has been the best day so far--I went along with one of the other volunteers to her project, which is a support center for women with HIV/AIDS. Their main focus is garment and accessories construction for these women to earn an income, and the other volunteer had ordered school uniforms for all the kids at the orphanage I'm volunteering at, purchasing them with funds she raised by doing an 8-mile run back home prior to coming here. Picking up the uniforms at the women's center, and seeing those women with huge smiles on their faces, so proud of the work they had done, and then getting to the orphanage and helping distribute the uniforms...the kids couldn't wait to put them on, not even bothering to take off what they were already wearing!! The girls twirled in their dresses and the boys were strutting all around in their shorts--it was fantastic!! The teacher just kept saying, "Now they look like a real class!" It was great!

As for expanding my cultural experiences, I tried Ethiopian food for the first time a few weeks ago--eating from a huge communal plate with our hands was definitely a highlight! As a house, the other volunteers and I went out for Indian on Valentine's Day. Really looking forward to having a nice juicy steak though when I get home, as the fear of Rift Valley Fever is limiting meat consumption in the whole region. My command of Swahili increases daily, as I learn new phrases and am reminded of those I've already learned, just forgot :)

The weather here has continued to be warm, with plenty of sunshine every day, although midday storms have been rolling in a few days a week, and the rain is a welcome refresher, cooling everything off and settling all the dust!

So that's what I've been up to...hard to believe I only have 3 weeks left here. And I find myself looking at my to-do list and wondering where the time went, as there's still so much I want to do!! Granted, 2 weeks were spent "sojourning," as one person put it when I shared that I felt I had wasted 2 weeks..."a little diversion the Lord provided to give you a new perspective."