Into the village we go

  Gloria decided I could not leave Kenya without seeing the rural village style of life. Every few days we walk into town to buy our fruit and veggie from a lady named Helen. Helen doesn't live too too far away from us, so she invites us to her home to experience rural life. When we arrive she lights a fire to boil some water in preparation to milk her cow. Every week she  walks down to the river to collect mud to re-build the stove. The mud is mixed with cow poop like I had described in a previous post. This gives it the right consistency and also keeps insects away. She says if they had better quality clay then she wouldn't have to rebuild it as often. She is nice enough to let me try to milk the cow. She is very very good at it and makes quick work of this task. I am of course, not so good at it but the cow doesn't seem to mind too much.

 After milking she makes us some porridge on the stove. She is even able to lift the hot pot off the fire with her hands and pour it into our mugs even though it had been boiling on the fire for 15 minutes. Gloria jokes that if she ever wants to apply for a passport that Helen would have no fingers prints left on her hands.

After our snack we walk down to the river to see where she does her laundry. The river is much smaller than I was expecting. I was picturing a rushing river, I call this a stream. 

There is a fresh spring that feeds this small river. The constant flowing water gives her a location to collect drinking water. On our hike back up hill we collect sticks we find as we walked the trail. This will save Helen a trip later to collect fire wood. 

The kids in the village are playing in a big group. They are organizing races and playing tag. I recently learned a song in Swahili so I am able to get the kids to sing and clap with me. Everyone but the very youngest knows the words. The oldest girl helped me lead the song, she also knows the subsequent verses I have not yet learned. Very cute of course. 

The kids are excited to pose for a photo and to see the results on the back of my camera. 
These two brothers are entertaining themselves by pushing each other down hill on this three wheeled scooter. 

We walk with Helen back into town where she sells the milk at her food stand. I am doing my best to sell some of her produce and fresh milk. 

The streets of Litein

Helen's home

To the equator

This weekend we travel back to Nakuru to visit Gloria's family home again. On Saturday Gloria's brother chauffeurs us to see some local sights. On our journey, I am delighted to see we are crossing the equator. During the last 10 years I have had many amazing opportunities to travel but I have never actually crossed into the Southern hemisphere. I call Ben to let him know I have finally journeyed into the Southern hemisphere. He promptly informs me that I have been living in the Southern hemisphere for 5 weeks and today I actually crossed back into the Northern hemisphere. That new information bursts my bubble of excitement but at least I can now say I have straddled the North and the South.

While in the big city Gloria takes the opportunity to do her hair at her favourite salon. I finally get to see her real hair that is hiding under her weave. After spending a few hours in a salon I now have a new found understanding for the challenges of black hair. Women work very hard on their hair styles spending hours in a salon every week or month. While waiting I have my eyebrows threaded and a pedicure done. This is my first time ever having a man thread my eye brows. He does an amazing job. It is not even painful.



Back at home we get busy in the kitchen preparing everyone's favourite side dish, Ugali. In fact, it is so popular people expect it at almost every dinner. Some might not even call it a side dish but perhaps a main.

Karaoke in Kericho

It's Wednesday night and Gloria and I travel to Kericho to meet up with one of her friends from university. The drive is probably less than an hour. Even though it is gloomy and raining the tea fields are still gorgeous bright green. When we arrive at the restaurant I am delighted to learn it is Karaoke night. Wehooo!!! I haven't done Karaoke since my wedding day.

Since we arrive well before dinner time (we arrive at 6, dinner is usually around 9 pm) we have the whole restaurant to ourselves so we take a private room. It feels like we are eating in someone's living room. It is common for the waiter to bring soap and water to where you are seated to assist you in washing your hands in a basin. I too do this for our guests when Gloria and I host new medical students at our home, like we did last week.





Dinner is delicious. We have my Kenyan favourite,  BBQ meat, but of course the highlight is the Karaoke. We have a great night, singing, dancing and chatting. During the night I have the chance to share my testimony with Gloria and Daniel. It is a blessing to reflect on the last three years of the journey I am on, and really see just how far God is taking me. He is leading and guiding this journey.

Despite being up way too late having fun in Kericho, I  get up early to do the Friday morning Continuing Medical Education (CME) lecture. The topic is Adult and Pediatric BLS (basic life support). Even though this is reviewing the basics skills of CPR, I put more of a focus on what needs to be done to prevent these events from occurring and the importance of being well prepared with equipment and staff for when they do. I encourage the staff to be courageous and speak up when they feel something isn't quite right. I hope to inspire some people to start the process of organizing a resuscitation team.

Every gathering is opened and closed with prayer and often we also sing a worship song. Of course, for me being a Karaoke lover, I can't think of any better way to start a gathering.

The beginning of Goodbye

This is my last week in Litein so I am starting to say my goodbyes to all the friends I have met.

Tuesday I provide more new born baby resuscitation training. The first time I was based in the newborn unit/labour and delivery. This time I did sessions within the OR to cover the babies born via C/S.

Wednesday morning, I have the opportunity to lead a small group bible study.

Bible Study

Later that afternoon I meet with the medical director and hospital director to discuss what I have observed here at Litein. They are both very friendly and have open door policies. It is great to see them relating so closely with their staff. In fact, the residents break room was taken over by a team of community workers doing a week long project, so the medical students and residents now have tea in the medical directors office. For the meetings I was asked me to write up a list of suggestions for the hospital and discuss future changes for Litein. In preparing for the meeting it is fun to reflect on all my experiences over the past month. It is a great pleasure meeting with the directors and they are very open and engage in great dialogue. We come up with goals for new strategies that are free/cheap to implement. Some of the issues I observe here are certainly not unique to this hospital but larger universal issues we experience around the world (hand hygiene, staff apathy, teamwork, communication).

Staff meeting

Thursday is the last staff meeting I attend, so I give a short speech and say goodbye to the Litein hospital staff.

ICU mech vent training sessions

Thursday afternoon we continue our staff education sessions on mechanical ventilation. This time I am able to get the anaesthesia nurses to join us. Having them part of the ICU is essential as they bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to assist the ICU team in ventilating challenging patients.

Friday, I return to the OR to apply the theory we had discussed theoretically the previous day. This is great to reinforce understanding. Even though everyone speaks English there are still barriers in understanding when in comes to challenging concepts so getting this hands on practice is essential.




I know I have already mentioned it, but everyone at the hospital is extremely friendly. Family members greet the families of other patient's upon entering a room.  There is a family in ICU this week with a sick little one. This morning when I came into work she waved me over to the bedside. I thought she wanted to ask me a questions about her baby but she actually just wants to touch my hair. She spends 2 minutes patting my head and running her fingers through my hair. It was quite comical. My hair looks and feels very different than their hair so this has not been the first time people want to feel my hair.

Goodbye to the security team

Sunday in Litein

This Sunday was very relaxing. We start the day by going to church. Gloria helps lead the children's ministry so she leaves me to enjoy the (English) service while she heads off to Sunday school. There are lots and lots of kids that trail up to the front for prayer before heading off to their classes. They are very cute.

After the service she meets with the young adults who are the Sunday school teachers. It is nice to see a group of young adults taking on such a big role in the church.

 After church we have a movie marathon on the couch. We watch three movies in a row. There is nothing like a little down time after so many busy days spent travelling. For dinner she shows me how to make Chapati which is a Kenyan flat bread. Of course it is quite a bit of work which gives me an appreciation for the Chapati we have been eating at the hospital cafeteria. In the house we have a single gas burner so it is quite time consuming to make a meal. It takes us over two hours to prep our meal tonight. We have an awesome lentil dish, a broccoli dish and our chapati. Luckily we have left overs so we will not have to cook tomorrow. Cooking on the single burner can take time but it is still easy to do. I can only imagine how much more difficult it would be to gather fire wood to cook on.

There has been no running water in the house for a couple days and our water buckets in the house have become empty. I head out to the rain tank to fill some up and sadly the tank is empty. AND this is the wet season!! Hours later God provides what we need. A huge rain storm rolls in and fills up our rain barrel half way. I go outside during the storm to put all out our buckets so we won't have to tap into our freshly restored water tank. Once again there is water in the house. I am able to take a luxurious bucket bath and wash my hair!! Life is good. 

Adventures in Kisumu

Jeff and his wife Brenda with my fav animal

Another weekend brings another road trip adventure. Gloria has done such a great job making sure we are making the most of the short time I have here in Kenya to see the sights. This Saturday we travelled to the lake side town of Kisumu.The driver came to pick us up early in the morning. I learned the driver had a wife at home so I invited her to come along on our adventure. I hate the idea of her being at home alone while her husband works on the weekend. Luckily, she was free and lived on the way to Kisumu, so we picked her up. So, we were four on our Saturday, lakeside adventure.

We visited Lake Victoria which is so large it occupies three countries.Of course being this close to the water it was a given we were to enjoy some fresh fish for lunch.

One thing I love about Kenya is how everyone washes their hands before they eat. I usually do the same thing back home so it was nice that there are always hand washing facilities available before partaking in a meal. The reasons hand washing is so common is because the food is usually eaten with your hands. In fact this meal was served to us without any cutlery. The white, mashed potato looking item is Ugali.

It is made with corn four. It is served with almost every meal. It is very heavy so much to everyone's disappointment, I can usually only eat 1/4 of a piece. The ugali is picked up with your hands and then mushed in your palm with the tasty fish and greens. This meal was delicious.

Our tour of Kisumu involved visiting a the Impala Sanctuary. There were some animals to see in enclosures like cheetahs, giraffes  and lion.

The highlight was visiting with the animals which were running loose in the park. There were zebras, impalas and lots of monkeys. Ok, I have to be honest, the monkeys were not actually a highlight. They are scary! They get way to close and try to take things from you in hopes in will be food.

After the Sanctuary we visited a museum. Our tour guide did a fantastic job teaching us about the displays. The most interesting part was learning about traditional tribal living. The walls of the houses are made out of mud and cow poop. How creative!! It was lovely and cool inside the buildings.Today, while out shopping in Litein for some fruits and veggies at a local food stall I learned the owner of the shop was exhausted as she had been busy over the weekend re-plastering her walls with mud and cow poop, so this technique is still used even today. 

Monday Morning

Today we started the morning by doing prayer rounds on the pediatric wards. The men from the maintenance department were also assigned to the pediatric ward so they joined us too.  There were three different wards (plus an isolation room) we visited. Each ward Gloria was able to encourage a woman to lead us all in song, then the rest of the women sing along and echo her lead. It is really a beautiful worship. What a cool way to start off the morning.  After singing one song Gloria read a verse from the Psalms, took prayer requests and I finished with prayer for the sick children. It was really a lot of fun.Once again I don't have a photo of the kids as I would want to ask permission before snapping photos. I would love to take a video of the singing, perhaps next week I can get Gloria to ask for permission from the parents.

Yesterday evening I had the chance to take a walk by myself through the tea fields behind our house. I was enjoying the peaceful quiet walk, taking in the beautiful lush scenery until.... I was discovered... It is not every day a random white lady comes walking by your house so I can sometimes cause a bit of a disturbance. A group of children playing on the side of the road erupted in laughter at the sight of me walking in their neighbourhood. This insisted on following me laughing and skipping. The younger ones ask me over and over "How are you, How are you?", 

I think this is one of the first phrases they learn in school. The older two (not giggling but walking right beside me) Joyleen and her cousin Joyleen would like to know where I have come from and what I am doing in the tea fields. I am not sure if my answer, "I came from my house which is right beside Litein hospital" was quite the answer they were looking for. These two ladies joined me on my walk as we were heading in the same direction. Most people's English is very good so I have only learned about 25 words in Swahili. 

 It is hard to believe I have only been here for two and a half week. It feels like I have been here much longer. Two weeks flies by in a flash while I am at home. I know my time here is very short so I will try to enjoy my last two and a half week and not think about home and my hubby who I miss very much.