Where to even begin. I am finding it really hard to put this experience into words. It seems so surreal. I went to Africa. I took a risk and it paid off big. I know it will take me a while to fully process everything that happened, but I need to start writing things down before the chaos of life starts to steal my memories away. I figure everyone has been patiently waiting for a recap of what we did, so I will start there. I will do it in a couple of posts.
Thursday October 16th-
My Mom and Jack took me to the airport where my team was gathering to board a plane for our long journey to Nairobi. We would take two flights, one to Amsterdam and then one to Nairobi. I knew they would be long and I was really anxious about not being able to sleep. Unfortunately, my fears came true and the flight to Amsterdam was pure hell. After settling in and eating dinner most of the team had a nice dessert of Ambien. I am not exactly sure what happened, because I have taken Ambien before, but soon after taking it I got dizzy, the flight got turbulent and over the next 8 hours I christened every bathroom on that Airbus. I literally threw up all the way across the Atlantic. I was a mess. I in fact felt so poorly I had decided I would just get a hotel room in Amsterdam and come home, because there was no way I could face getting on another plane for 8 more hours. Thankfully, once we landed in Amsterdam my team helped me rally and God intervened. When we boarded our KLM flight to Nairobi, I was in the front row, with two empty seats next to me. I swallowed some dramamine and life began to flow back into my body. I stared out my window at the beautiful sky and remembered His plan and my confidence returned, as well as my ability to keep down food :) At one point during that flight I walked around to see some of my teammates and Sarah commented "she is back." I'm sure I looked 100 times better. We landed in Nairobi late Friday night and after successfully collecting 23 people's belongings and all the team's medical supplies, praise Jesus, we loaded a bus for a short nights stay in a Nairobi hotel. Oh and I must not forget the one eventful part of that flight. As we came in for our landing in Nairobi, right as our wheels were touching down, we suddenly felt the plane begin to pick up speed and ascend again. I looked at the flight attendant in front of me, with what I am sure was a look of fear and said "is that normal?" He said, probably not, but more than likely the runway was not clear. Thankfully, after another approach we were able to land safely, this time with no planes in our way. Who knew a 747 could get off the ground that quickly....
Saturday October 18th-
After a restful nights sleep the team was ready to get the party started. It was time to get to work. We loaded back onto our bus and begin the drive to Ngaamba to see where we would be working over the next week. I don't think any amount of preparation could have prepared me for what I would see or feel when we got to Ngaamba and I touched on it in my post, Worthy. The welcome we received was incredible. It was definitely the first time anyone danced in the streets in my honor. After a beautiful welcoming from the people of Ngaamba our team jumped into action. Some of our veteran team members told us it would take awhile to get the clinic set up and be able to see patients, but the 23 of us got the job done in record time. We saw 61 patients in around 2 hours that first day. When we loaded the bus at the end of the day we were exhausted and fulfilled. It was amazing what we had accomplished in such a short time and how incredible it made us feel and it had only been a few hours. We still had 4 days to go. Each night we headed back to our hotel, the Myriam Inn, in the town of Sultan Hamud. We had to leave the clinic around 4:30-5 each day in order to make it back before dark, as ordered by the Kenyan government. I think that was ok with all of us, because by 5:00 we were toast! Every night we would clean up and relax before having dinner together and then spend some time debriefing the events of our day. Our hotel was right next to a mosque and I will say the call to prayer freaked me out a little bit at first. It was both haunting and beautiful at the same time. At times I felt a little like Claire Danes in Homeland. Just kidding. Our debriefs were a special time where we could process what we had seen and felt over the course of the day. I usually cried. Shocker I know. It was impossible for me not to cry. I was feeling so many different emotions. It was hard to process it all. The very first patient Dr Tim and I saw just broke my heart. A mother brought in her young child, around 1 yr. Through the interpreter she told us the baby was not walking, sitting, crawling or talking. The baby was very hypotonic save for his arms which were drawn to his side. After Dr Tim and his wife Wendy looked over the baby, we decided most likely he was born with a genetic condition and there was nothing we had to offer. We then told the Mother her child would never be normal, never walk and maybe never talk and then sent her on her way. It seemed so unfair. In the US we would have exhausted all testing and resources to attempt to come up with some sort of diagnosis, whether it would have changed the outcome, who could say, but at least there would have been some options. It was a big slap in the face. This was a tiny village in Africa. There would be no expensive diagnostic tests or interventions for this child, I mean, there wasn't even running water. It was hard to tell what the Mother was experiencing as we talked to her. To say the Ngaamban people are stoic is an understatement. She just wrapped her baby back up and went about her day. I am sure she had a family to care for and there was work to be done. There would be no time to grieve the loss of "normal". The other remarkable thing about these people is their faith in God. I could spend a whole post on that alone. After the patients were seen by a clinician they went to a different room to be prayed over. One of my teammates remembered praying with this woman and her baby and just like the rest of the Ngaamban people she expressed her faith and trust in God and His ability to heal her child and provide for her family. I was angry and she was grateful. Isn't that interesting....It was the first of many experiences that I would struggle to understand. It was a totally different world with a completely opposite set of circumstances than my own.
What a week this was going to be. I knew my life was going to be changed by this trip, but I am not sure I could have ever prepared for exactly how impactful it would be. I have to stop here, because I want to make sure I don't leave things out and honestly, just thinking about this small piece of the trip exhausts me, or maybe that is still just the jet lag. Either way, I want to be thoughtful about journaling my experience, so I will work on it in stages.
Thank you again for your support. For providing for me financially and your thoughts and prayers. I know it was uncomfortable for many of you to send me across the world, especially to Africa, especially right now. Thank you for being supportive anyway. Thank you for standing behind me as I stepped out of my comfort zone and my comfortable life and took this daring adventure. I love you all.
Here are some pictures from the first couple of days.
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| The road to the clinic |
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| Our warm welcome |
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| Waiting for us to open the clinic |
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| God's children |
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