Kakamaga, Kenya

Today is Sunday April 26th. All of this year’s team arrived safely at the Nairobi Airport during the evening of Thursday April 24th, weary from a 24 hour travel period. Our van was ready for us as well as a bed at the Rosa Mystica Guest House, an active convent of Dominican nuns, who fund themselves by taking in guests..
We left Nairobi at 8:30 am somewhat refreshed but still struggling with jet lag. Our trip to Kakamega was 400 kms in length but the drive still took 8 hours. We had two brief stops, one to see the Rift Valley and another in Naguru, the home of the famous pink flamingos. Unfortunately, we had to content ourselves with a brief stop at a mall to purchase airtime for our CNFA cell phones. The mall had a Starbuck style coffee shop, which seemed to be well attended by our group.
The roads in Kenya are vastly improved thanks to the Chinese who are providing expertise to renew this country’s infrastructure. The road south from Kakamaga, which is the road we will use the most, is still under construction, and presents its share of delays. The weather seems hotter than other years and so far, it rains mid to late afternoon on a daily basis.
On our drive to Kakamega, we saw zebras, elands, impalas, and baboons along the roadside. Our Sheywe Guest House compound is home to at least one cow, a dog or two, a cat, and two goats…I will let you know if the menagerie increases. The internet is unavailable here and it won’t be repaired until “next week”. I really hope that means “this week”, not early May.
Today we travelled to Kisumu and picked up our medication order, all 62 boxes, from Bavesh, our pharmacist, who does a terrific job of filling our order and ensuring we receive a quality product (no drug knock offs). We will reorder items as the clinics progress.
Tomorrow (Monday) we start our first clinic. It is a privilege to be able to help the poor and sick of this community. We wouldn’t be in Kenya if it wasn’t for the support of all of you back home. As one of the nurses said tonight, “there is no us and them”. We are all a community only some of us we very lucky to be born in Canada.

This Post Has One Comment

  1. Jan

    Glad you all arrives safe and sound!
    Enjoy, will be thinking of all of you
    Jan

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