I planned to write a whole bunch of update posts about everything that has been going on here, but I've already been at the post office for an hour and a half, and this is the first time I've even gotten this thing to load. My favorite part was when the power went out to half the computers, including mine, and none of the staff felt any particular obligation to try and fix it or give us our money back. So I sat for over a half hour to get onto this crazy computer that keeps making things disappear and doing other weird things. In a lot of ways it's a very good thing I'm going home on Tuesday because my patience has worn mighty thin, waiting waiting waiting for people to do their jobs, to be somewhere when they say they are going to be (I sat somewhere for FOUR HOURS on Tuesday because of that - no need to call and inform people you'll be late, completely unnecessary) for pretty much everything that goes on, there is an obscene amount of waiting. It does not jive with my midwestern background in the least.
I'll write about all the cool crazy things I have seen and done over the last two weeks as soon as I get home, and hopefully get some pictures up. Between then and now, the Kenyan computers are not worth the point of rage I have been brought to the last several times I tried to get everything done. Plus I have to walk a mile and half both ways just to get here!!! Bahhhhhhhhh
I am leaving Maseno Monday morning and will arive in MSP around noon on Wednesday. Get in touch with me because I want to make plans for the rest of the summer and see as many people as I can - and do some really developed countryish stuff for a change!
Friday, July 14, 2006
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Two straight years with no fireworks.
Sigh... and I really really like fireworks.
I celebrated my 4th of July by going on rounds for two and a half hours this morning at the hospital and then closing up my used book stand in front of the hospital a bit early. I've been selling donated books to make money for the seminary, right in the middle of all of the fruit and soda and cell phone card vendors for the last week and enjoy it thoroughly. We are charging half of what books usually go for, and I've been able to generate some decent income for the seminary rather than having the books sit on the shelves at the bookstore they operate on campus. The lady who works at the bookshop absolutely refuses to leave the seminary to sell them, and so she probably sells about two books a month to the handfull of westerners who come and stay at the seminary. She is the daughter of the archbishop, so she doesn't have to do anything to make her paycheck. Nepotism is everywhere here and I'm beginning to get thuroughly disgusted by it, especially with how rampant it is within the church. So I will continue to do this woman's job for her on a volunteer basis until I return home. It really is a good time - I get to see a great variety of people and students from Maseno University, get to know what's happening at the hospital, and am really getting to know "the face of a corner" as the saying goes.
For further celebrations I plan to shower (although it hasn't quite been a week since my last one so there's no real rush in that department) and wash my underwear by hand in a plastic bucket. Exciting I know, but try not to let the extravagance of my celebrations detract from your own festivities!
I celebrated my 4th of July by going on rounds for two and a half hours this morning at the hospital and then closing up my used book stand in front of the hospital a bit early. I've been selling donated books to make money for the seminary, right in the middle of all of the fruit and soda and cell phone card vendors for the last week and enjoy it thoroughly. We are charging half of what books usually go for, and I've been able to generate some decent income for the seminary rather than having the books sit on the shelves at the bookstore they operate on campus. The lady who works at the bookshop absolutely refuses to leave the seminary to sell them, and so she probably sells about two books a month to the handfull of westerners who come and stay at the seminary. She is the daughter of the archbishop, so she doesn't have to do anything to make her paycheck. Nepotism is everywhere here and I'm beginning to get thuroughly disgusted by it, especially with how rampant it is within the church. So I will continue to do this woman's job for her on a volunteer basis until I return home. It really is a good time - I get to see a great variety of people and students from Maseno University, get to know what's happening at the hospital, and am really getting to know "the face of a corner" as the saying goes.
For further celebrations I plan to shower (although it hasn't quite been a week since my last one so there's no real rush in that department) and wash my underwear by hand in a plastic bucket. Exciting I know, but try not to let the extravagance of my celebrations detract from your own festivities!
How I spend my daytime hours...
So I didn't bother to haul out my 50lb box of books from Dr. Hardison's office just for the sake of this photo, but here is where I perch all day, getting premanent curb-butt and a stiff neck while half a dozen local chickens peck around my feet. I've been reading a book a day for free while I sit there, and get to talk to some pretty interesting people as they come and go, so it's a pretty great gig.
And here are the (mostly) angry produce sellers about five paces away from me across the street who all speak English but leave me out of the "in" crowd. I'm still nice though and warn them when the monkeys sneak up behind their stands to grab their avacados and run back into the trees. I've been warned to never take a camera out here because people are not impressed with mzungus taking pictures, so that is why I don't have a picture of me actually selling the books, and had to take these in stealth mode, even though they obviously caught me. The one sitting on the little stool is actually really friendly and came over as soon as I started setting up the first day to check things out. I buy bunches of miniature bananas from her (they are the size of a finger and oh so sweet - so much better than anything at home) and eat them throughout the day.
The little turn-off to the left is the hospital gate and where I sit for hours. In the distance you can see a group of Maseno University students heading back to their school's entrance gate, which is another half-block down.
Monday, July 03, 2006
The Maseno Hospital
The Women's Ward
My absolute favorite hospital cat - inside the women's ward.The husband of the lady who runs the seminary where I stay is the head doctor at the Maseno hospital. The Hardisons also provide at least 50% of the money to run the place, despite the fact that it is supposed to be an Anglican hospital. The church here doesn't give a dime to run it, beyond putting up a big sign in front saying it belongs to the Diocese of Maseno. That's a common thing with the church and many other benefactors here. They want to be able to claim it, yet they do nothing to support it.
The hospital is like nothing you can imagine if you've never seen it. This one is nicer than the government hospitals in the respect that they don't put more than one patient to a bed, but it's still pretty rough. A walk through any of the wards will show you people laying in bed dying. Not getting better, or even really getting medicated in most cases, just slowly dying. I've met some people with heart conditions who need valve replacements, including a little boy, so they will die soon because valve replacements don't happen here. They don't even have a surgeon - one has to be called in from Kisumu and paid a hefty fee to do any of that work. Don't worry if you need a c-section though - everybody is trained to do that. C-sections and apendectamies are the two things that all Kenyan doctors do. I'd compare it to an American hospital of the 1940s, but I honestly think that would be much too charitable an assessment. I don't think this one goes that far.
The hospital has no oxygen machines. They have no bandages, and if you want sterile gloves, bring your own. I've watched Dr. Hardison mess around with IV lines and get himself covered in HIV infected blood and never blink an eye. There are stray cats walking through every ward and there are no screens on the windows to even attempt to keep out any of the malarial mosquitoes. I fully intend to come home testing positive for TB for the rest of my life, because everyone here has it. Just because I have it in my system won't mean that I will necessarily ever get sick from it, but all it takes to become infected is to inhale one spore, and it stays in your system for the rest of your life.
The Kenyan doctors and nurses (with some exceptions) have absolutely no idea what they are doing. When I am at the hospital I actually feel like I know a lot more than some of the nurses just from working with people with disabilities for two summers. I had to convince one of the nurses at the mobile clinic for the orphans last Saturday that diarrhea was about consistency, not frequency. She was trying to convince the guardian of a little girl that there was nothing wrong with her because she was only having diarrhea two times a day. You'd think that would be fairly basic Nursing 101, but the two American med students and I just sit every day and shake our heads because we are at such a loss.
If the training they receive is inadequate, the patient care they provide is just sickening. 95% of them do not care about the patients whatsoever. They are there to collect their paychecks, not make sure that the person with meningitis who was supposed to get an IV six hours ago ever gets one. They are rude, they force the family members to do most of the care, and pretty much stand around and act incompetant all day long. I think the stray cats get more attention than the patients ever do.
When a woman is giving birth, it is considered the job of the nurses to BEAT the woman if they don't think she is trying hard enough or pushing hard enough. They BEAT women while they are giving birth, to "encourage" them. That pretty much sums up the Kenyan health care system.
I've been hanging out at the hospital a lot and going on rounds with the two med students and American doctors because I am so fascinated by everything that goes on there. I've seen people with meningitis, tetnus (he has to be kept in a dark room so he doesn't freak out it makes you so crazy!), rheumatic heart disease (one who can't get the two valve replacements he needs, so he will die) and a whole score of everything else. I try to get the younger malnourished kids to eat some extra and I watched a child who I thought was nine months old and turned out to be three poop worms once they started him on the deworming meds. It's a fascinating place and I think that in my next life when I am smarter I might go to med school. But third world medicine is heartbreaking to observe, and it doesn't take long to realize that there really isn't much medical care going on, just beds being provided for people to die in.
The hospital is like nothing you can imagine if you've never seen it. This one is nicer than the government hospitals in the respect that they don't put more than one patient to a bed, but it's still pretty rough. A walk through any of the wards will show you people laying in bed dying. Not getting better, or even really getting medicated in most cases, just slowly dying. I've met some people with heart conditions who need valve replacements, including a little boy, so they will die soon because valve replacements don't happen here. They don't even have a surgeon - one has to be called in from Kisumu and paid a hefty fee to do any of that work. Don't worry if you need a c-section though - everybody is trained to do that. C-sections and apendectamies are the two things that all Kenyan doctors do. I'd compare it to an American hospital of the 1940s, but I honestly think that would be much too charitable an assessment. I don't think this one goes that far.
The hospital has no oxygen machines. They have no bandages, and if you want sterile gloves, bring your own. I've watched Dr. Hardison mess around with IV lines and get himself covered in HIV infected blood and never blink an eye. There are stray cats walking through every ward and there are no screens on the windows to even attempt to keep out any of the malarial mosquitoes. I fully intend to come home testing positive for TB for the rest of my life, because everyone here has it. Just because I have it in my system won't mean that I will necessarily ever get sick from it, but all it takes to become infected is to inhale one spore, and it stays in your system for the rest of your life.
The Kenyan doctors and nurses (with some exceptions) have absolutely no idea what they are doing. When I am at the hospital I actually feel like I know a lot more than some of the nurses just from working with people with disabilities for two summers. I had to convince one of the nurses at the mobile clinic for the orphans last Saturday that diarrhea was about consistency, not frequency. She was trying to convince the guardian of a little girl that there was nothing wrong with her because she was only having diarrhea two times a day. You'd think that would be fairly basic Nursing 101, but the two American med students and I just sit every day and shake our heads because we are at such a loss.
If the training they receive is inadequate, the patient care they provide is just sickening. 95% of them do not care about the patients whatsoever. They are there to collect their paychecks, not make sure that the person with meningitis who was supposed to get an IV six hours ago ever gets one. They are rude, they force the family members to do most of the care, and pretty much stand around and act incompetant all day long. I think the stray cats get more attention than the patients ever do.
When a woman is giving birth, it is considered the job of the nurses to BEAT the woman if they don't think she is trying hard enough or pushing hard enough. They BEAT women while they are giving birth, to "encourage" them. That pretty much sums up the Kenyan health care system.
I've been hanging out at the hospital a lot and going on rounds with the two med students and American doctors because I am so fascinated by everything that goes on there. I've seen people with meningitis, tetnus (he has to be kept in a dark room so he doesn't freak out it makes you so crazy!), rheumatic heart disease (one who can't get the two valve replacements he needs, so he will die) and a whole score of everything else. I try to get the younger malnourished kids to eat some extra and I watched a child who I thought was nine months old and turned out to be three poop worms once they started him on the deworming meds. It's a fascinating place and I think that in my next life when I am smarter I might go to med school. But third world medicine is heartbreaking to observe, and it doesn't take long to realize that there really isn't much medical care going on, just beds being provided for people to die in.
I live on the equator.
Chris, Katie, and myself, staring directly into the blinding sun.Well not quite. It's more like a long throw from the outfield to home (don't you love how I gauge distances? whenever they say anything to me in kilometers here I just don't even try to figure out how far it is) to where the actual line is. But I cross it every single day as I go to the hospital and back to the seminary. It's pretty fascinating, the equator being such an abstract concept to someone who lives so far away from it, and I've been told that if I flush a toilet in the north end of Maseno, the water will indeed flow in the opposite direction of the toilets at the seminary (we have two!). I want to check this out, but that would involve finding a flush toilet on the other side of the line, and a month here is probably not long enough to make that amazing of a discovery.
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