Monday May 3, 2010

7:00 am this morning saw us all up and ready for breakfast. We left the guest house later than expected as time doesn’t seem to be as important to the Kenyans as it is to Canadians. We arrived at Emusire, the site of a hospital and medical clinic, which is about to open. The government officials were present and proceeded to take as much credit for the clinic as was possible. We had a large banner stating Canadian Nurses For Africa. At one point, we paused registration of the 400 people who were present when we arrived to watch the governor of this province cut a blue ribbon, and shake hands with us in the presence of television sets. Right now as I write this, I have four to six young children sitting beside me, and one little girl named Euice Kageha reads English as quickly as I write it. She is bright as a button and one day, I believe she will be very special to this country.
This was day one of our medical mission. We treated about 300 men, women and children. The majority of them were very ill, with malaria and malnutrition being the main diseases. The line ups were long and people stood all day in the sun waiting to be treated. We never got to the end of the line and finally had to cease registering patients. That was one of the harder parts of the day.

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