Kenyan Road Trip to the Valley

           This weekend a team of 22 doctors, nursing students, med students, social workers and other volunteers went to the village of Lodengo in the Kerio Valley to do a community clinic with the Pokot people who live there.  Although Kapsowar is quite a rural location, it is nowhere near as remote as this village.  It takes about 3-4 hours to drive there depending on how the roads are.  To say the road is bumpy would be an understatement.  We were driving over former riverbeds and through small streams at times.  The view of the valley from the mountains was amazing to see, though, so it more than made up for the difficult travel. 

            I’ll give a brief history of how Kapsowar hospital got connected with the Pokot people.  Dr. Kyle Jones is an American family doctor who started working at Kapsowar hospital 3 years ago.  During his first year here, a Pokot couple brought in their 6 month old baby who had bacterial meningitis and was so sick that Kyle didn’t think he would survive.  He treated him as best he could and prayed for healing. He said that if the child survived, he would travel to Lodengo to the couple’s home for the follow up visit.  Miraculously the baby lived (he was at the church service we went to this morning!) and Kyle went with his family to Lodengo.  When he arrived, there were about 40 other patients seeking medical care and immunizations for their children.  He wasn’t equipped at that time to fulfill all of their requests, but promised to return with medicine and immunizations.  Since that first visit, he’s been going with teams of people every 6 weeks to provide medical care.  As word spread about the Pokot people and their need, Kyle received donations from friends, churches, and others to help build a permanent clinic.  Most of the construction is complete, however there is still no source of water to make the clinic sustainable.  They’ve tried 3 separate times to drill wells (most recently 2 weeks ago) with no success.  They are exploring other options and praying that God would provide a source of water to get the permanent clinic up and running. 

            Now back to our trip this past weekend.  Lodengo appears much more like how I would have stereotypically pictured Africa to look.  It’s in the desert and is much warmer than the climate I’ve experienced in Kapsowar.  I felt like I’d stepped into a scene from The Lion King as we drove into the valley.  We stayed at the home of the local pastor who is a Kenyan missionary and has been partnering with Kyle on the clinic project since his work there began.   For the afternoon clinic, the team was split in two groups, one working the regular clinic and another group that was going to head into the village to reach some of the people who haven’t heard about the clinic before (a mission group).  I was originally assigned to the mission group to work the pharmacy and assist with medical care along with one of the other physicians on the trip.  Unfortunately, the other doctor got sick and wasn’t able to accompany us for the clinic so I was given the task to be the doctor for the mission group.  We all met first at the regular clinic site to introduce ourselves and some of the locals sang songs to welcome us before we split off into our separate groups.  I was quite nervous about being in charge of the medical care at the mission site and was secretly hoping that not many patients would come.  I prayed the whole drive to the site that God would give me wisdom and confidence to know what to do for any patients I did have.  When we arrived at the site, some of the members of the team set up our speakers and sound equipment while I looked around for a suitable place to set up a makeshift clinic.  There really was no appropriate site, so I chose a group of a few large rocks and took one of the nurses and our mini-pharmacy with me to wait for our patients.  As soon as the team announced who we were and our purpose, patients started lining up.  It was late in the afternoon, so we didn’t have much time to see them before dark, but we worked quickly to see about 10 people in the couple hours we had.  Meanwhile, the rest of the team shared the Gospel, sang praise songs, and gave testimonies for the other people gathered there.  It turned out to be a great experience and a lot of fun. 

            I think God often teaches me the most during the times when I feel the least confident in myself.  As we were driving back to the pastor’s home for the night, I felt so invigorated by the day.  I had an overwhelming sense of peace and confirmation about my calling to be a family doctor.  It may not have been life-changing for any of the few patients that I saw yesterday, but in those few hours, God reaffirmed the skills that He has given me to enter this profession.  Although it’s often difficult and frustrating (and I feel really dumb most of the time), I know I’m on the path that God has for me. 

            We stayed the night in Lodengo and went to the Africa Inland Church at Chebilion this morning before heading back to Kapsowar in the afternoon.  There’s so much more I want to share about this weekend and the reflections I’ve had on the past week, but it’s too much to write in one blog post so I will conclude with a few pictures that capture the essence of the weekend.

 View of the Pokot clinic from the front

 Women and children waiting for medical care and immunizations

 My roommate Katie and me

 Left to right:  Alfred (nurse/pharmacist), me, and David (translator) and second clinic site

 Other members of the team speaking to the community

 Pokot women praying

 

 Driving through Lodengo

 Africa Inland Church - Chebilion

 Goats being herded for the "goat wash" before church this morning

          Kids singing at church