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. 

Now This Is Africa.

WOW! Now this was the Africa I have been wanting to see. This weekend me, Gloria and four of her office mates made a 20 hours round trip journey to the border of Tanzania to see wild animals on the Serengeti.  It was absolutely amazing. Words can not even describe beautiful the scenery.  I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to enjoy His creation. 

A Lioness napping in a tree

God must have had His hand on our journey as everything worked out smoothly. The road was incredible bumpy. I am surprised any vehicle can survive under these conditions. The driver has to be extremely alert, he veers the car constantly from one side to the other to avoid giant pot holes. I am sure the vehicles here must be constant maintenance to keep them running. During our journey on the way to the park we couldn't help but notice the scenery was changing, I had the sneaking suspicion we were lost. About an hour later the men finally agreed to stop and ask for direction, YUP, we have been travelling for over an hour in the wrong direction. While making our three point turn to turn around our vehicle stopped working. It sounded like it was out of gear, it would no longer go forward or backwards. After 10 minutes of trying to get it moving it finally started moving forward again. THANK GOD!! We were in the middle of absolutely no where. I honestly don't know what we would have done. I had not seen a gas station for about 3 hours. The only people around were some locals who keep animals in the fields. 

Why won't it go??

When leaving for the safari (which means to travel in Swahili) I was hoping to see a couple animals. I couldn't have been more surprised by the number of animals we were able to see.

I guess I was thinking about whale watching back in BC. Sometimes you can spend a whole day out whale watching but not see a single whale. I was expecting the same thing.
Maybe the animals didn't want to be seen today,perhaps they had other plans that day. To my surprise they were everywhere.

I think my Kenyan friends were probably entertained by my delight when we rounded a corner and I made my first spotting of zebras. STOP THE CAR!! STOP THE CAR, I screamed as I jumped out of the car to take some photos before our vehicle scared them away. Boy, was I excited. Again, to my surprised the zebras were not bothered by us, they just continued grazing on grass at the road side. Even before we got into the conservation park we were able to see heards of zebras, antelope, gazelles, bufflo and wilder beasts all roaming around. 

AfterTowards the end of our day we were heading in the direction to leave the park when I spotted three men with big guns waving from the bushes "Do you think they want us to stop?" I asked. "Of course" reply my car mates. "Do you think it is a good idea to stop?" I asked. No reply, just laughter from my car mates. As it turns out the waving gunmen wanted a ride. They were part of the border parole protecting the Kenyan border since we were only a few meters from Tanzania. They were moving to a new post. We drove each of them for only a few minutes and one by one they got out of the car at a new post and headed back into the wilderness. 

Hippos

Enjoying the spectacular view

Jackal

The road to Tanzania

We were actualy allowed to get out of the vehicle and walk around at our own risk. We didn't even have a guide with us. We were allowed in the park to exlpore on our own. 

 I was as in love with these beautiful tress as I was with the wild life. I just can't get enough of the pretty little trees. They are all so evenly spaced I wonder if they have been planted. My favourite animal was the giraffe. It just amazes me. The whole trip was breath taking. Once inside the park I was lucky enough to spot one lion. We saw lots of warthogs, beautiful bright birds, jackal, hippos, otrich, and elephants just to name a few of the visitors we had come close to the car.

We were able to get very close to my fav animals

Can you spot the giraffe and elephants in the distance?

The wilder beasts were very shy

Locals doing some laundry in a shallow lake

Locals children are always delighted to wave hello

Always laughing

The whole trip was a lot of fun. The guys kept us laughing all the way. What a blessing it was to share it this trip with Gloria's friends . I would love to do it again and again. 

Baby Day

Last week I had the opportunity to teach neonatal resuscitation (newborn CPR). This is a specific algorithm we learn to use on a baby who is just born but needs some help transitioning to life.  I was very excited to teach this class because it is actually very effective at saving lives.



Unlike adult CPR which has sadly has quite poor outcomes, a few simple steps in the first few minutes of life for a baby can make all the difference in the world. I was able to teach multiple groups of student doctors and student nurses. We all practised together on baby dolls. The groups of learners were very new so it was fun to teach them the very basics and watch them progress as the session went on. The learners were very keen and we had a lot of fun.










Today I was approached by one of the doctors who was doing on call over the weekend. He was excited to inform me he already had the chance to put his skills to the test.

Home made CPAP

A baby was born premature and required some assistance at birth. The baby was transferred to their newborn unit for further support. Today I had the chance to go visit the baby. The baby is on bubble CPAP. I don't have any pictures as I want to protect the confidentiality of the patient. but to the right is a (not so great) photo of what our bubble CPAP looks like on a doll. It is simple a set of adult nasal prongs that would normally  be used to provide a small amount of oxygen to an adult patient. The tubing of the nasal prongs are split. One piece goes to an oxygen flow meter set around 4-6 lmp, the other piece of tubing is put into a bottle of distilled water. The tubing is securely taped so it is exactly 5 cm under the level of the water. This provides the baby with 5 cmh20 of CPAP pressure. CPAP therapy is absolutly critical of a premature baby. Litein hospital was introduced to this therapy recently so I have been able to do some teaching about it to make the use of it even better. Please pray for this little one and her mother as she has quite the battle ahead of her. She weighs less than one pound which is very very challenging to care for in this setting.

If I had the opportunity to make an improvement to the CPAP therapy it would be to make it heated and properly humidified. RTWB is in the process of trying to get heated CPAP systems to Nepal so hopefully we will be able to get one of Litein as well. I know it would be put to good use. Ideally it would also be nice to have a way to run this system on pressurized air as high amount of oxygen can be harmful to these small patients. Unfortunately these little ones are so sick the high oxygen is often necessary just to keep their oxygen levels high in the blood.

So far this teaching session has been the highlight of my trip here. It made me happy to see an excited group learning life saving skills. Sadly, seeing this premature baby has been the lowest part of my trip. I feel discouraged and helpless knowing this baby has a poor prognosis. It can be very overwhelming to see such need for more resources but knowing we are doing our best with limited supplies. 

Life in Litein

I am half way through my second week in Litein. Something I had not yet mentioned was our lack of flowing water inside the house. I guess it slipped my mind because it was surprisingly easy to adjust to. I would have imagine a bigger inconvenience.

When I first arrived we had water flowing in the pipes at our house. The water is visibly dirty and only cold water comes out of the tap. My third day in Kenya the water stopped flowing and it has not yet come back on. The water is turned off as a conservation method. This is such a normal, every day occurrence Gloria is well prepared with an outdoor tank that collects rain water. We purchase large bottles of water from town for our drinking water. Part of our daily routine is carrying water buckets into the house to wash hands/dishes, flush the toilet, have a bath.

 She is not capable of carrying the bucket on her head but I have seen other ladies in town gifted with a wonderful balance to carrying things on their heads. I sure makes me wonder, with all the rain we have in Vancouver, why we don't have a rain water tank to be used inside the house. I can certainly appreciate we only have a short walk from the tank inside the house. It would be hard to imagine how difficult it would be to carry water for many kilometres.

If you want to have hot water for your bucket bath you boil the kettle. So far we have only had one power outage. It was probably an hour long, but since it was at dinner time we ventured out to eat at a restaurant with a generator.

I finally snapped a few photos of Litein Hospital. The gates are guarded by 24 hour security. They check bags of the visitors before entering the grounds. There are also security guards at the stairwell to monitor the comings and goings of patients and visitors. There tends to be security everywhere but it still feels very safe. I think they are just trying to take preventative precautions.

I was told part of the job of security at the stairwells is to take away plastic bags from the visitors because they flush them down the toilets and clog our plumbing. Not because they are being melicious but because they are used to using a pit toilet at home and are unfamiliar with this type of plumbing system.

 Here I am having morning tea with Gloria's office mates, Eric and Eric. We are eating a traditional meal of maize and beans. Yes, we are all sharing off the same plates. Tea time is 1030 and most of the staff are pretty diligent at breaking at this time. Since the staff are busy with tea, a worship service is put on for the patients who are waiting to be seen in the out patient clinics. The songs echo through the halls. 

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