Goodbye Africa!

Well, my first (probably of many) trips to Africa has drawn to a close. What an amazing experience! I just can't describe what a blessing it was to work alongside an ENTIRE HOSPITAL of people ALL committed to healthcare for the glory of God. 


One of the coolest things about being in Africa was to see the way the people live. The faith people have and their passion for doing the works of the Lord is awesome. I have felt like the most spoiled rich kid ever in my disgust at little bugs in my kitchen, the strange smell of my shower water, too much fat on my meat, the poorly cared for restrooms with no toilet paper (especially the one in the Mara that was just a hole in the ground), the dirty, dirty floors, and hospital wards that smell like urine. The people of Africa walk around with ulcerated wounds for 20 years and esophageal cancer that has obstructed their esophagus so much that they are completely emaciated – why? Because they have to feed their family. I buy a $4 latte almost daily from Mod -- $4 in Kijabe buys a dozen eggs, 2 cartons of yogurt, 5 bananas, and a loaf of bread. It was truly a blessing to see the way people cared for each other, the way the praised and worshiped the Lord with their entire hearts and lives surrendered completely to Him, and their hospitality in welcoming me. I know I am guilty of questioning God because of a lack of ability to see Him at work in my life directly. Wow. Really? Nine people living in a room the size of my bedroom loving the Lord with all they are– a family of 14 kids, 7 of whom die in childhood because of starvation, and the ones remaining are all passionate about Christ and itching to share with others their thankfulness for such grace and mercy. What an eye opener for me.


I love this quote from a book I read that was at the house where I stayed:

We stand in wonder that the light of Jesus’ joy makes a rainbow in the tears on His face. John Piper “Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ”

Kijabe has helped me to understand what it means to be infinitely joyous in the love and grace of Jesus Christ. The above quote doesn't mean that I am to be uncompassionate or unsympathetic to those who are suffering but that it is possible for the mercy of the Lord to dwell so deeply within me and the knowledge of God's perfection and purpose to be so forefront in my thoughts that the overflowing joy in my heart makes a rainbow in my tears and I can clearly display God’s love even in times of sorrow and despair. I know I am not actually infinitely joyous but I do have a better understanding of what it looks like and that it's possible. I think for me it is about being lukewarm versus being on fire for God.

You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.  Psalms 16:11

Africa has pushed me outside my comfort zone. It has made me feel inadequate and prideful in so many ways. But, the Lord has shown me that it is okay to be far from perfect – and while it is great to strive to be as Christ-like as possible, I will stumble, I will fall, and I will never be worth. Grace – not Samantha’s works. 

Put them in fear, O Lord, that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Psalms 9:20

Well folks, that concludes the Medicine and Mosquitos saga. Thanks for following my adventures!

I will post a few more additional pictures when I return to the states. :)

Love and God Bless!

Happy 10.10.10!

Plaque stating His Excellency Hon. Kibaki opened
the theatre complex on 8 Oct 2010

Well the President came…that was entertaining. Lots of pick pocketers! My favorite doctor wife got her phone stolen! Cutest was probably the little Maasai girls who sang! I didn’t really participate in the festivities as I was occupied for a reason that I cannot specify at this time.

BUT Saturday I sat off on my journey with roomie Letizia and Kenya native Freddy and his girlfriend Clair for NAIROBI. We checked into our ‘top end’ hotel – the Hilton which was….interesting but a place to stay nonetheless. Then we grabbed a taxi and headed to Carnivore. DELICIOUS. They serve lots of crazy game like ostrich, crocodile, and camel. They have a huge fire pit where they cook stuff…see pictures…and then for $25USD you get the ’buffet’ where the chefs walk around with these huge sticks of meat and they just cut you off slices of meat until your tummy is content. HOWEVER, given my lack of an ability to eat $25 worth of meat, my guests and I shared 1 kilo of a variety of meats including ostrich which was really not that much different than any other meat I have tried. It was pretty fun. 

fire pit o' meat at Carnivore

BEEF - it's what's for dinner!

left to right - chicken, pork, beef, ostrich, potatoes

Letizia and I partying with the chefs

Kenyan with his vuvuzela

At night Carnivore turns into a bar, BUT we decided to head back to Nairobi as Kenya was playing Uganda in soccer and the place GETS CRAZY. Kenya lost effectively as it was 0-0, and everyone was extremely disappointed. For some reason there was still a parade which completely took over the road. I kept trying to go see the action and Freddy had to keep advising me against such nonsense as my purse and camera would have been quickly stripped from my body. Good thing they were there to keep me out of trouble!

Celebrating...the loss...?

Today I went to a really cool church service – I think it was Catholic although I still cannot be certain. There was a lot of singing which was way cool, the church was HUMONGOUS. On the outside it looked like a castle. The message was given by a woman from Nigeria, and it was over being thankful to God and sharing our testimonies so that others can see the grace and forgiveness of Christ. She said that the world has become ungrateful and that we have also become careless which shows we are ungrateful. We walk around asking what has the Lord done for me…but we know that he needn’t do anything for me. He has already given me the greatest gift imaginable.

We also had breakfast at this AWFUL native Kenya place. Samantha cannot eat undercooked bacon if she makes it herself so this stuff was completely not edible and the sausage…I could not touch. So, toast was for breakfast until we found this adorable little coffee shop where I had a delicious vanilla latte and a carrot cake muffin. Mmmmm. THEN I took Letizia to the Maasai Market at Yaya Centre and helped her bargain! I ended up buying more souvenirs and gifts which – there is absolutely no way I am going to get it all home…well, not for under the weight limit! My bag here was 48.5lbs, so uh…I think I am in trouble!

the $2 matatu that finally got me home
(they got mad at me for taking a pic of them!)

After shopping we went to the Hilton to lay out by the pool. Now, the deal was that our Kenya native friends were going to take me on my first, and probably only, matatu experience ever. Now, Dr. Keiser instructed me NO MATATUS BUT the Kenyans had me convinced it was okay. So, we call Mr. Freddy from pool side at 4:15pm, and he proceeds to tell us he would like to return to Kijabe tomorrow morning. That didn’t work for me as I have to be into the hospital to round super early. So, he briefly instructed me on how to get a matatu myself and told me the one to Kijabe left at 5pm. I have officially had my first and DEFINITELY last experience with public transportation in Kenya. I don’t know what I was thinking…we see way to many patients in casualty from matatu accidents, but me not being able to justify a 5000ksh (>$60) taxi versus 150ksh ($2) matatu ride…decide to try this matatu thing. After asking approximately 6 people I finally find matatu land and the one to Kijabe. As we start driving I bow my head and pray that the Lord keep us safe. Approximately 3 minutes post prayer I hear a loud BANG which apparently was the tire – so over to the side of the road we go and we all wait for a new matatu to pick us up. The new matutu made these HORRIBLE noises ranging from clown horns to metal on metal to metal on pavement THE WHOLE HOUR DRIVE. Needless to day, the Lord heard several more prayers from me that I would make it home. At one point this small matatu with only 15 seats had 24 passengers and only one was an infant. CRAZY!! BUT ladies and gentleman, I am safe and sound in my home back on the hospital compound. THANK GOD!

Texas and Samantha reunited this week!! YEE HAW!

The President is Coming!

So the President of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki is coming to the hospital tomorrow! They are opening up a new surgical (“theatre”) wing so he is coming for the grand opening. He has never been to Kijabe before and so everyone is WIGGIN’ OUT! They have been working day AND NIGHT repainting,  scrubbing floors, scrubbing exterior walls, smoothing out roads, making parking spaces, sewing new curtains for all the beds (there are huge rooms here with like 10 beds per room just separated by curtains), gardening (they created AIC Kijabe Hospital in the flower bed in front of the hospital out of these cute little plants), setting up these huge awesome tents…TIME STOPS FOR THE PRESIDENT. Surgery day was cut in half today so they could clean up the area, we can’t admit any patients tomorrow, rounds have to start early cause he will be here around noon – it is literally crazy. I think they should leave everything messy and let the President see how sweet the hospital is but how it could use some work and throw some money at it, but that is not how they do things around here! I was supposed to go to a rural clinic today, but the doctor was leaving super late so I helped out on the pedi ward instead. There is this huge wing called Bethany Kids Hospital that is just for the hydrocephalus kids…and I think spina bifidas/encephaloceles etc – there were like 20 of them! I saw the craziest hydrocephaluses EVER. Poor little kids. Loved the kids though! They were precious – I wanted to give them all silly bands, but I was afraid they were too small and would eat them.

Good thing I registered with UT Systems on this international travel site before I left because now I get all these great emails about things going on in the path of my travel. Turns out Kenya Airways – The Pride of Africa – had decided to go on an indefinite strike because of an unresolved wage dispute, oh when is that supposed to happen – oh the day I am supposed to fly out of Kenya. Did Samantha buy insurance on her ticket when she booked through Expedia. No, no of course not. Mom and sister are being amazing today and trying to get me out of here! I mean, I would stay – but pediatrics in Austin prolly wouldn’t appreciate it so much. Maybe I could get to the President tomorrow and see if he will help me out. I hear he has more guard peeps than the US President though, and they have been all over this week scoping out the area making sure it is safe so that may be hard to pull.

Tonight I had coffee and played scrabble (or WordPower) with a couple Kenyans and a couple Americans. So not to be a bragger…but I kind of dominated both games. I think it was a little unfair though because clearly I know more English words than them. They are just so fun. Tomorrow my roomie and I are hosting “video night” and making breakfast for dinner so I’m pretty pumped about that. Then Saturday after rounds we are headed to Nairobi to see the sights, probably go clubbing, and we are staying at the Hilton Nairobi thanks to Letizia’s husband who booked this awesome hotel – and that will probably involve some pool lounging so I can come back with a tan!

I had an English muffin (deliciously homemade by lots of the residents around here and they come to your door selling them) with Nutella for my dinner tonight. So so good. As mentioned in the title of my previous post....I guess this paragraph belongs there – I am literally living on bread. English muffins (8 cents), mdazis (12 cents), chapatis (30 cents), and the cafeteria sells some delicious cornbread (price unknown – only discovered it today and not sure how much it was).

Say a prayer that I get my flight worked out and get to come back on time…or that I don’t depending on what your preference is. 

Living on Bread

Howdy from the windy city of Kijabe. I have officially survived my night on call! It was so awful though – I don’t know ANYTHING! We had a 14 year old road traffic accident (they call them RTAs here) bleeding from the ears, asymmetric pupils, brain damage? probably but we don’t have a CT scanner so she had to wait until today to be sent to Nairobi for a CT. Two <1yr olds seizing, a 9 month old with a HUMONGOUS head and a hemoglobin of 7. A 24 year old also in an RTA with a right intertrochanteric fracture, right mid femur fracture, fractures of both tibias and fibulas AND a left ankle fracture – he also had asymmetric pupils. Guy with a super enlarged prostate with extreme spine tenderness and a huge abdominal mass which ended up being his bladder full of urine although he had a history of urinary incontinence. 14 year old boy who fell from a tree and had a crazy displaced femur fracture. 80 yr old with obstructive jaundice and a BP of 80/40. Oh, that’s to name a few.

So I’m still alive, that’s good.

Today I got to do a spinal nerve block for a c-section and watched a hydrocele burst into my surgeons face! SO GROSS. There is an anesthesiologist from UT Houston who wants to teach me so hopefully I’ll get to intubate someone next week before I leave! Tomorrow I’m headed out to a little remote clinic with one of the doctors.

The Fishers invited me over for dinner Monday night which was DELICIOUS tacos and ICE CREAM with strawberries and chocolate syrup! So delicious. Tonight was tacos with one of the new pedi resident missionaries from OU (ugh….Texas Fight!) and a visiting OT and PT from Virginia.

I decided to move out of my apartment down into a house with Letizia because they moved in some guys to my other place, and I was sharing a bathroom with a boy who I didn’t know who left the toilet seat up and…it was just real bad. It is way conservative over here too so I’m not sure why they allowed that to happen. BUT, the view from my new place is AMAZING. Tonight we are watching this awful super hero movie called Zoom. It is ridiculous – you should check it out.

Chapel today was 1 Cor 12:12 - The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. The message was about everyone’s important role at Kijabe Hospital and how we cannot function without all the parts just as the body of Christ needs each person and their specific gifts. It has been hard to continue to trust that I am in this place and in medicine for a reason, but God continues to take away my control forcing me to surrender to his perfect plan and timing.


I miss my family and all my friends back in Galvy! I’m kind of looking forward to coming back although this place has been great, and I’ll probably return! Less than 1 week left in Africa!

Outpatient waiting room

Outpatient clinic

Casualty

Treatment room

Theater

Cafeteria

Sawa Sawa

The hippo and I at the Fairmont

Maasai huts

Me and a Maasai 
(not as red and beaded out as they normally are!)

Baby giraffes

Cheetah on the prowl, little cub was following behind

Clearly -- these are elephants (ndovu)

This would be me with the RHINOS!

Zebra -- I think that is an Eland in the background. 

MUFASA

Thirsty little lions -- I didn't really know the women are the hunters

Buffalo before he got scared and ran off

My tent

Maasai Mara – Absolutely AMAZING! My friend Letizia and I ended up finding this really great deal through Tenweck Hospital for almost half price. Now, since we though we were paying half price we literally though we would be camping in tents – um, NOPE! We stayed at the Fairmont Mara Safari Club! Rivals for the nicest place I have ever stayed. After a 4.5 hour trek across Kenya with a short car change to meet up with our new friends Lyle and Stephanie who were doing mission trips at Tenweck Hospital and the craziest/non-roads ever – we were greeted with warm wash clothes that smelled delicious and some tasty mango juice! Breakfast, lunch, and dinner we all free and all delicious! Lunch and dinner had dessert and dinner was a five course meal. The ‘tents’ we stayed in were way different than the ‘tents’ we had expected. Our beds were turned down at night and prepped with warmers, we were served coffee and tea with our wake up calls in the morning…well, actually the hippo snorts from the river that ran right by the tent usually woke me up before tea! There was a swimming, a library, bar, an super huge, awesome fireplace that made me want to make a brick oven pizza! All the people were so so nice. You never passed anyone that didn’t say JAMBO (hello).

The rhino brothers

Ok so now for the good part! THE SAFARI! We got in on Friday and had an amazing buffet style lunch. Afterward we hopped in our Land Cruiser with safari tour guide, Wilson for 3 hours on the Mara (which means “spotted country” because when you look at it from above all the trees make it look spotted). Wilson would always stop for us to take pictures of animals and whenever we were done we would just say "sawa sawa" meaning okay, okay – thus the blog entry title. We saw tons of zebras, all kinds of antelopes, giraffes, warthogs, monkeys, wildebeasts (ugly and probably my least favorite), 1 hyena, ostriches, and then we stopped for a walking tour with Maasai warriors where we saw RHINOS! THEY WERE SO BIG!!!! I could not believe how beautiful the Mara was and how numerous all the animals were. It is crazy to see all of them just out grazing in the wild hoping they didn’t get eaten by lions that night. God’s beauty and presence was just EVERYWHERE – just a magical place! After the evening safari we headed back for a Maasai lecture. So Africa is made up of tribes and the Maasai are the largest tribe (I believe). They wear red garb so they are easily distinguishable – apparently they where this because back in the 1500s or so when they were crazy warriors they decided it would be good for hiding blood so their opponents would not be able to tell as easily when they were injured. Some other interesting Maasai facts – they are cattle herders, polygamists, cows blood is a big part of their diet, their children are now attending school to bring knowledge of the western world to them although they are very proud of their culture, they are circumsized at age 15 and must stand during the procedure with no anesthetic and cannot move at all our show pain, and they fight with spears. After lecture was a delicious dinner with crème brulee dessert and then bed time!

Mommy and the little cubsters

Rough night for Mr. Lion 
(bloody left side of his lip with a chunk out of it)

6:00am Saturday, Letizia we woke up had our delivered tea and coffee and walked outside our tent to check out the hippos. We got to see them come down the cliff back into the water. I couldn’t believe they didn’t just slide down the steep cliff with how massive they were. It was so cool to see them out of water. The snorts they make are so gross, but they are pretty cute when they fight with each other! We left for our morning safari which was super successful we saw ELEPHANTS! LIONS! CHEETAHS! HYENAS! We saw one male lion injured in battle from the night before and a female lion with its little cubsters. The cheetah we saw was with its little cub going to look for food. I really really really wanted to see the cheetah run (obviously) but no such luck. Hyenas are actually really shy, like warthogs (which run with their cute little tails up), but they have the adorable koala-like ears! Back to the safari club for an afternoon pool side and chapel with the staff! 

The crew - Lyle, Letizia, Me and Stephanie

The guy who took care of our room, Cyrus, invited us to chapel so Stephanie and I went and it was so cool! Their worship was just super awesome! I had no idea what they were saying, but they were just praising the Lord and the sound resonated in their little chapel! We read 1 Samuel 13:5 – a story about waiting on the Lord. They asked their sisters, Stephanie and I, to come up afterwards and “say some words”. We thanked them for their hospitality and told them how appropriate their message was because in Africa everything is slower and it is so much easier to be patient and take time out for God and trust and give your control to Him. In the US it is so fast paced and everyone wants everything right away. It was a great lesson for us, AND Stephanie and I had been talking about that early in the day by the pool – which clearly isn’t a coincidence! J Afternoon safari we saw our injured lion friend again look far more majestic (see pictures), buffalo, as well as repeats of some of the animals we had already seen BUT then it started POURING down rain so we went mudding in the land cruiser and then headed back for dinner!

Hippo kisses, i.e. fighting (the river outside my tent)

5:45am woke up to the hippo snorts. Sat outside by the river with Letizia and had tea. Morning safari offered no new finds but some splendid repeats and a gorgeous sunrise! AND Wilson go the land cruiser stuck so we had to call our buddy cruisers to pull us out. Back to the lodge afterward to eat breakfast, pack up, and head back to Kijabe. – Note about the trip home: I had my Hayes Carll CD which I offered to our Kenyan driver and his friend to play on our drive home – THEY LOVED IT! Their favorite song: I’ve got a gig. Shout out to Braz!

Golly – there is so much more I wish I could write, but it will have to come in future stories as this blog is already way long. I hope you enjoy the pictures. I can’t believe I only have 9 more days til I’m on a plane back to London and then home! Craziness. I’m so thankful for the time here to just enjoy God’s creation. It is truly a blessing and a un-replicable life experience.

That would be the sunrise this morning!

ROOOOOOAAAAAR. 
Ok so he is yawning, but it'd be sweet if he was roaring!

"You acted foolishly," Samuel said. "You have not kept the command the LORD your God gave you; if you had, he would have established your kingdom over Israel for all time. But now your kingdom will not endure; the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart and appointed him leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD's command." 1 Samuel 13:13-14 - Wait on the Lord’s perfect timing. He will keep his promises.

Those whom I love I rebuke and disciple.  So be earnest, and repent.  Here I am! I stand at the door and knock.  If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me. Revelation 3:19-20