Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Rotary Medical Mission kenya 23sep08




23sep2008

The bus left the hotel at 7:00 so George was to be there for me at 6:30 but didn’t arrive until ~7:00. Rineta drove me to the place where the cab drops him off in the morning so he wouldn’t have to walk the rest of the way to the house and then walked back by herself. George drove at breakneck speed toward the hotel. The only advantage was that I was still partially asleep and avoided conscious appreciation of the terror of the trip. As we were approaching the hotel we saw the bus coming toward us. I hopped out in traffic with George running interference with the car and was about to hop on the wrong bus. We have three sites and this one was going to another slum. Fortunately it was quickly followed by the bus heading for the Mukuru slum in which we were working.
As it wasn’t working out for my helping with the AIDS testing, today I helped register people with the help of an interpreter. Mostly this was David, a hospital lab technologist. Most of the patients were small children who were sometimes accompanied by a mother or teacher or friend. Some came by themselves. Often the mother and child has different names. Sometimes a mother would have two children and they all would have different last names. In some cases with certain tribes the mother keeps her maiden name and the child takes the father s last name.
We worked in a small gazebo that was mostly open. After interviewing the child and mother we would designate them for one of the three specialties; optical, dental or medical. Even if the child had more than one complaint they would only get one treatment to maximize the number of children who could be seen. Of course treatment was for the most important of the complaints. They would then go to another table to get a colored and numbered arm band and a de-worming pill if they handing had one recently and were over two years of age.
After their treatment the children and mothers would go to the pharmacy to get their medicines.
It is Spring in Nairobi and the weather very pleasant. In general, although being close to the equator, Nairobi has mild weather all year never getting to hot or too cold. My host’s home while being very nice has no heating or air-conditioning.
After arriving at the hotel George came to deliver some medicines and solutions for the next day and take me home. Darsi was on a business trip and I had a very nice dinner of pork and mushrooms in gravy with Rineta and her sister Bridget.

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