David Nawrocki at Maseno, Kenya - Chapter 2

Chapter 2   A Night in Nairobi, the Dry Landscape and the Trip to the Airport   I spent the night at the Anglican Guest House (a boarding house for missionaries traveling through Africa from one mission to another).  John, my cab driver picked me up the following morning to take me back to Jomo Kenyatta international airport for the flight to Kisumu, the third largest city in Kenya.  The rainy season has been slow to come to the eastern part of Kenya where Nairobi is located.  The land in Nairobi is very dry and the drought is visible everywhere.  Buzzards by the hundreds are seen in Nairobi in the trees and on top of lamp posts waiting along the highway for their next meal.  There are huge gates that you travel under as you leave the highway from Nairobi to the airport with hands sculptured and clenched in partnership at the top of the archway.  The archway celebrates the building of the highway by the mainland Chinese government as a token of their friendship to Kenya.  Once we passed under the archway, we were stopped by Nairobi police and forced to get out of the car for security inspections.  At one point I thought my trip was over.  The police eventually allowed us to get back in the car to proceed to the airport.  Once at the airport I checked into African 540 Airways, my connection to Kisumu.  American Airlines had been very gracious allowing my overweight bags with medical supplies to fly from Boston to Nairobi at no extra charge.  African 540 Airways asked for my backpack and pants pocket contents along with my bags for a grand total weigh in to calculate my overweight allowance and extra charge.  I was allowed to keep my clothes on at the time of weigh in before flight.   The Flight to Kisumu   As you leave Nairobi and travel due west towards Kisumu, the color of the land turns from a dry parched brown to a lush green carpet of tropical foliage with small lakes, jungles and crops visible from above.  The Kenyan landscape is divided into two distinct halves; the eastern half which slopes gently to the coral-backed seashore, and the western portion which rises more abruptly through a series of hills and plateaus to the Eastern Rift Valley, known in Kenya as the Central Rift. Kisumu sits on the shores of Lake Victoria.  Approaching from the air, the lake's edge at Kisumu looks like the Mississippi River delta with its muddy water and brown river banks.  This is the beginning of the rainy season which starts on the western side of Kenya making its way across the countryside to the east explaining the muddy runoff in the lake.  There were numerous fishermen in wooden dug out boats visible from the air placing their nets over the water as we landed.   The intensity of the daily tropical rains make you pause and wonder if the building you are in can withstand the intensity of the rushing water.  Each day the skies turn from a bright blue around 4 pm to a dark grayish blue with the sound of rolling thunder and lighting in the distance.  The winds pick up as the sky becomes darker and the rain begins to fall.  The rain eventually becomes torrential similar to a category 5 hurricane for about 30 minutes.  The storm passes, the sky clears, and the sounds of crickets and night life return celebrating another contribution from the sky that is so desperately needed in this part of the world.  Rain in Kenya nourishes and nurtures the life that exists here.  The afternoon thunderstorms here in Kenya are part of their biannual rainy season and the lifeline of their existence.  Life as we know it in Kenya would not exist without the rains that perpetuate its existence.   The Ride to Maseno   The ride from Kisumu to Maseno by car leaves sea level at the airport and climbs 4,865 feet into the mountains of western Kenya. The main highway is filled with Trans African tractor trailers that crisscross the African countryside with goods and material of all kinds.  There are speed bumps on the highway when you approach small towns that require a 4x4 vehicle to get over them.  Local people are seen along both sides of the highway with their cattle which are highly valued in their society.  There is tremendous poverty visible in the country side balanced against the majestic beauty of the land.  The search for food and water is not reserved just for animals and is common for many families in some of the rural areas.  It is not uncommon for people in this part of Africa to go with one meal a day and maybe potable water.  The average life span of people in Kenya is about 48 years of age with 50% of the population living below the Kenyan poverty line.  The approach to Maseno and the Mission Hospital is a dirt road that meanders through the countryside.  It passes beautiful farms that lie below in the valley with rolling hills visible in the near distance.  As you approach the entrance to the gated Maseno Mission Hospital compound, you pass through a small area of street vendors, shacks, small entrepreneurs and a bar that caters to life outside the gated mission hospital compound and the local university which is down the road from the hospital.  The street is filled with chickens, dogs, cats, children and people carving a means of living that involves selling anything that a passerby might buy.  The bar sells a local brew called "chunga" that is intoxicating and as lethal as Kentucky moonshine.  There is no electricity in this area so movement and business transactions at night are conducted by candle or gas lit Coleman lamps.   As volunteers at the medical mission compound, we are not allowed to leave the safety of our cottage and the compound at night, let alone the area just outside the gate of the compound due to the crime and uncertainty of the area.  We are locked into our cottages at 6:30 pm at night and not allowed to venture out of the cottage and back into the compound until 6:30 am the following morning.  These precautions we are told are for our own safety.  Drunken men with machetes are the specific danger we are told.  It defines a very different way of life that makes you incredibly thankful for all that you have at home and how little we think about it sometime.  Despite the dangers there is an innocence of human frailty that plays in this part of Maseno every day.  Little children covered in dirt and tattered clothes with symbols from the US, travel in small groups asking you to take their picture when you walk by. "Picture, picture please mister!!"  You take their picture and then show it to them on a digital camera.  They dance in delight at their image and remember you the next time you see them.  "Asante sana", thank you very much, "kwaheri" good-bye.   Crossing the Equator   A little further down the dirt road from the gate to Maseno Mission Hospital is the gate to Maseno University which lies directly on the equatorial line.  Each time I post an email to everyone, I walk back and forth across the equatorial line.  The number one question everyone has asked me about the equatorial line is which way do toilets spin and flush on either side of the equatorial line?  I have not done the experiment yet so stay tuned.  I will find out the answer before I return home to Plymouth and Falmouth.  I do not feel any different when I walk across the line.  Maybe I am doing something wrong?   I still walk in a straight line.   The Maseno Mission Hospital   The Maseno Mission Hospital has several buildings that are located in a guarded and fenced in compound.  The buildings include an outpatient clinic, pharmacy, maternity ward, two clinical wards, a surgical ward, two operating theaters, X-ray facilities, administration buildings, an open air chapel, nursing school,and buildings in the back portion of the compound for the nurses, nursing students and people who work at the medical mission.  Many people here still gather firewood to cook their food on.  All water consumed on the compound comes from water that is collected from the roofs of the buildings which is why rain is so crucial. Large collecting tanks located at strategic points on the compound collect and store the water.  The underground water tanks have hand pumps locate above ground that 5 year old children can operate.  Late in the afternoon, children of all ages are seen traveling with large plastic containers to the storage wells to pump and carry the collected water back to their homes.  Some children carry the containers on their heads that would give most of us neck strain and probably a headache.  The children carry jugs and baskets of all types effortlessly along with the men and women in their communities.   Most of the buildings on the compound were built in the early to mid 1900's with a few more recent.  They are the minimal requirements that sustain life in this harsh environment.  Some of the buildings are filled with well intended donations from foreign countries that were poorly thought out.  Sterilizer units from Switzerland that required electrical power that this part of Kenya cannot produce, Handicapped walkers that cannot function in this wilderness environment.  Medical supplies for health promotion programs that never materialized due to poor planning by donating countries.  The medical equipment, hospital beds, anesthesia equipment are severely dated.  Hospital and medical supplies are typically in short demand.  On two occasions, temperatures could not be taken with patients during the past three days because thermometers were not available.  Mercury thermometers are often used here because digital thermometers eventually require batteries that are not available here.  The little electricity that is here is unpredictable.  It is not uncommon for nurses to have to place an IV in someone's arm during the night by flashlight or candle light because they have no electricity.  Despite its antiquated equipment and lack of supplies, the Maseno Mission Hospital provides healthcare to hundreds of people every day that would otherwise have none.  People that cannot pay nor have no money are never turned away.   The Wildlife Reserve Experience at the Maseno Mission Hospital Compound   I was surprised when I first saw the cottage I would be living in for three weeks with a cow tied up just outside my window. There were other cattle tied up in the front yard so I realized that this was just the way of life here.  Okay, just watch where you walk before you go into the cottage.  As I was walking in I noticed a creature with a very long tail causally walking across the perimeter of the yard.  I looked into a nearby garden and noticed more tails and a few heads poking up between the leaves of the plants. MONKEYS!  Yes the Maseno Mission Hospital is home to a troop of Rhesus Macaque monkeys along with cats, dogs, chickens, roosters and cows.  The monkeys roam the compound like it is their home.  Females travel with their infants on their backs.  Juveniles chase each other from tree to tree.  They walk down the sidewalks and roads of the clinic compound like they are there for their annual examinations.  They climb up on the porch of your cottage and they sit in the windows.  If hand fed, they welcome themselves into your cottage and steal your food along other items that are not locked up.  One medical student who was visiting here recently here left his cell phone in his room unattended.  Later that day he came back to his room to make a phone call and found his cell phone missing.  He finally had someone else call his cell phone out of desperation in hopes of locating it.  Another medical student standing on the porch heard a cell phone ringing up in the nearby tree vigorously being shaken by a monkey wondering why it was ringing.  Cats walk through the clinical wards. Chickens scratch immediately outside most of the medical buildings.  Monkeys frolic in the trees and bushes around you.  Yesterday when we went to the outdoor chapel for morning service, we had to pay homage to the monkey hanging off the entrance to the chapel as we tried to enter the physical space.  The day before that, a rooster walked into the outdoor chapel during the middle of the church sermon between the church pews challenging the minister giving the sermon to see who speak the loudest.  It is not uncommon to have chickens, roosters, monkeys and cows in the choir as we sing our morning spiritual hymns in Swahili at our 8:00 am devotional service each morning.