Earlier this week, during a visit to the Lwala Primary School to watch Japolo teach, I was asked if I would like to come teach English. Visions of assisting the school's English teacher and letting students listen to a true American accent filled my mind. Boy was I mistaken. I was handed a copy of the seventh grade English book, roughly shown where the teacher had left off, and told that tomorrow the English classes would be combined and I would begin teaching 70 students on my own. I was a) horrified—thinking “what am I going to teach/do with 70 kids?” and b) shocked that the headmaster of the school would just hand over full responsibility of the entire seventh grade. Despite these initial fears, I have actually enjoyed teaching, and my students appear to be understanding my lessons. At one point, a little girl looked at me in confusion as I tried to tell her to use “were” instead of “was” when speaking about more than one person. After a few moments, another student finally whispered “Waaah.” It was then that I realized that these children had never heard an American accent before, and thus were only accustomed to the British pronunciation of “were.” Despite these minor barriers, teaching has been fun. I sometimes switch over to a British accent to make my English easier to understand, and just to see if the kids notice. So far no one has had the courage to call me out.
The past few days I’ve been spending my afternoons at the clinic helping wherever I am needed, though it usually means taking patients’ temperature, weight, and blood pressure, and occasionally listening to their lungs. Rose, the clinic nurse (though it would be a huge understatementto leave her title at that), single-handedly handles all of the clinic’s patients. Most are children and most are terrified of the idea of going to the clinic, let alone having a Mzungu stick a foreign metal object under their arm (thermometer) or touch their back with a cold, scary-looking contraption (stethoscope). Most cry incessantly, creating the sort of “doctor’s office from Hell” environment that we all feared as children, and I witnessed one poor soul even wet his pants right there on the examination room floor.
Yesterday, a severely malnourished four-year-old boy was brought in, although he looked around two. Because of the extreme degree of malnutrition, he was experiencing several extremely painful and life-threatening physical effects (the graphic details I will spare you), and was driven to the hospital in Kisii (40 km away from the clinic inLwala) by Omondi, Milton and Fred’s older brother who oversees the clinic operations and development. This little boy was so lucky to have come in when he did, during the daytime and before the rain, and to have Omondi willing and available to drive him to Kisii. Not all patients are as lucky, as I discovered a day earlier.
Godfrey, a father of five who appeared to be in his mid-forties, quietly took at seat on the couch, hardly noticeable in the room full of singing and cards and chess by the light of a kerosene lamp. All of this was the normal commotion just before dinner time, around 9 o’clock or so: unfamiliar faces who turned out to be family friends or relatives, amidst a crowd of laughing and chatting about the day or life at home, mostly in English but with a few Dholuo phrases detectable every so often. So it was quite a surprise to us Americans when Grace, Milton and Fred’s eighteen year old sister, came in and told us this man had been bitten by a snake and hoped that Dr. Young would take a look at it. To us, it seemed absurd that this man had said nothing about his foot, but for Kenyans, it would have been rude to interrupt or talk “business” without first being social.
Godfrey explained that he had been walking outside his house and stepped on the tail of a small black snake (what we now believe was a baby Black Mamba, one of the deadliest snakes in the world) that responded by biting him on the foot. At first glance, there was no difference in his feet, and there wasn’t even a visible bite wound. As a few minutes passed, however, Godfrey’s foot grew larger… and larger… and larger, until his entire leg had swollen. It was apparent that something needed to be done, but with no anti-venom at the clinic and night travel dangerous in Kenya, the only option was to stabilize his foot and wait until morning. The men around helped transport Godfrey back to his hut, which was located down the road. With no bicycle or wheelbarrow available (the two most common means of transportation to the clinic in Rongo—9 miles away—for emergency healthcare before the Lwala clinic was built), Japolo carried the grown man home on his back. The next day, Godfrey was taken to the hospital in Kisii, where he has been for the last two days.
Luckily, Godfrey will be fine. However, I had never experienced that aspect of Lwala. My concept of Lwala was people going to the clinic with health problems. I had witnessed people unable to pay for much needed testing and medicine not available at the clinic, but I had never truly felt the complete and utter lack of options. It was frustrating that all we could do was watch, like useless spectators. I was angry that the potential dangers of driving at night kept us from reaching help. It seemed that getting Godfrey to a hospital was most important. But who pays? The question of money is one thing, but moreover, is it worth risking the livelihood, or worse, of other people? In my mind, the question remains unanswered.
So as not to end on a depressing note, earlier this week a woman in her early twenties came into the clinic, pregnant with her second child. The mother of one of the volunteers here donated a fetal doppler to the clinic, which is something entirely unknown to the village. I can’t explain the woman's eyes light up when she heard her unborn baby's heart beat for the very first time.
And with that, oritu!
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