Crazy Week - Part 2

As mentioned in my Part 1 blog, we did two food distributions to needy communities in our area. We had one more community a few days after that. This community hit people in more ways than the previous two; it left many of us emotional.

Kolongolo Village

Kolongolo (Colon-go-low) is a community that is deep in the bush. It is a village over an hour away from Kitale, most of it on rough dirt roads. It’s about 2kms from the border of West Pokot (Po-cot), which is considered a fairy violent tribe among other Kenyans. The Pokot people believe that all livestock, especially cattle, belongs to them, therefore other people living in the area of the Pokot, do not own cattle. If they did, the cattle would have been stolen and if people tried to protect their livestock, they would’ve been killed. There are very few people in this community who have livestock and if they did, they have permission by the Pokot to keep their own livestock. How they get the permission and from who, I don’t know.

Kolongolo is a very poor community. HIV/AIDs has swept this area and the high percentage of this place is widows raising their children on their own and grandmothers left to care for the grandchildren. We connected with this community because a Kenyan family that we are close to has their home out there. The mother/wife in this family has been connected to this community for years, has been assisting from their own farm and resources to help these women and children survive.

On September 30th, the Foster Group and TI delivered maize, beans, blankets and school uniforms to 15 families. The welcome was overwhelming. Here were women and children without anything, but together, they presented us with a large bag of corn on the cob and a dozen eggs as a thank you for coming and assisting them. They were giving us food, a gift of thanks. That in itself was completely overwhelming.

We had some of the children present songs to us, then some of the widows and grandmothers. During the time at Kolongolo, we found a few children who were really sick.

There was one boy, Isaiah, who the previous week had hurt himself on a bike. The wound in his ankle area had not been properly taken care of. Lauren R removed the dirty bandage to find it was infected and smelled horribly. The bone was showing; I had never seen a cut that deep, flesh so infected and exposed before. With the little resources that we had available, anti-bacterial wipes, a tank top and a Swiss army knife, she cleaned up the wound, tied it up and we arranged to have the boy taken to the hospital for further examination.

There was a young mother there whose husband had died of AIDs; she did not know if she or her child had contracted the illness from him. We recommended that they be taken to the hospital as well to find out. We gave these families transport money and arranged when we would meet them at the hospital.

We left Kolongolo that day even more so physically, emotionally and spiritually exhausted than we did at Maili Saba and Shimo. The Foster Group was deeply touched by this village and prayers have been answered in Kolongolo. We look forward to see what comes about over the next year here.

The Hospital

On October 2nd, Anne (our social worker), Lauren R and I went to Kitale’s district hospital, to meet with the families from Kolongolo that needed medical assistance.

The first was a little girl named Rachel. She hadn’t been feeling well for quite awhile. After testing, it was confirmed that she had Tuberculosis. The doctor and Anne thoroughly explained to Rachel’s grandmother, the importance and necessity of the medication for Rachel. The curing of Tuberculosis is a lengthy process and missing of treatment can lead to starting the treatment all over again.

The second was a sweet little boy named Kevin. He has had this sore in his belly button for awhile that we’ve been treating. From what it looks like and after a bit of research, it’s a common illness where the intestine pushes out the belly button. The doctor looked at it, gave him two injections (arm and bum) of something that I’m not sure of but knew that Kevin didn’t like as he cried for quite awhile, rubbing his arm and bum. He also got medication and will go back for a follow-up in the next little while.

The third case was that of Isaiah’s, the boy with the hole on his ankle. We got to go in to the ‘minor surgery’ room and Lauren and I were quite excited about it, thinking we just might get to see a bit of surgery done. We were sadly mistaken, although I’m sure Isaiah was thankful that there was no surgery. When the doctor removed the bandage that Lauren had done back in Kolongolo, he asked Isaiah’s mother when it had happened, she told him about a week before. The doctor glared at the mother and demanded to know why she didn’t bring him in sooner, to which Anne defended Isaiah’s mother saying she lived deep in the village where there is no medical care or finances. The doctor ignored Anne and attacked the mother again, to which the mother, put her head down in shame and said in Swahili, “I have no money to bring him here.” The doctor shut up.

The cost of transportation to and from the hospital for Isaiah’s mother is about $6. To us, that amount of money is nothing but here in Kenya, to a widow who has no means of income and has mouths to feed, $6 is unimaginable. And then there is the medication and the hospital fees to pay on top of that. Six dollars now turns in to $10 or $15 dollars, more than she could financially handle. So she cleans the wound with soap and dirty water, wraps it with an old dirty rag from somewhere around their home and prays for the best. That’s all she can do.

The doctor took the bandage off, rubbed it with alcohol, to which made Isaiah wince and cry and then covered a bandage in iodine, placed it on the wound, wrapped it up and told them to come back on Saturday and Monday. That was it! We were shocked at that; we could’ve done those ourselves. And so we made sure Isaiah’s mother had money for transport and medical care for those days that she was to return.

The fourth case was the wife whose husband had died of AIDS and her little girl Nancy. We all walked in to the pediatrician’s ward (if that’s what you could call it). We walked in to this large room and it was quite a sight to see. There were over 100 mothers PLUS their children in this semi-large open room. Some of the mothers looked as young as 13-14 years old, holding their children. I stared at them thinking, “These are children themselves, now raising children.”

The room was packed; it had benches lining the walls of the room and a few more in the middle. The only empty spots on the benches remaining were the ones we sat on when we arrived. There were two tables in the room; one in the middle, considered the “reception desk” that had doctors and nurses just hanging out at. They weren’t doing too much from what I could see, except for having a conversation among each other. The other table was to the right, in the corner. There were two doctors and a weigh scale for babies; they were busy working away as baby after baby was laid on the scale, the doctors writing something down, saying something to the mother and then moving on to the next baby.

A nurse came over to us and asked if we could be helped. Anne spoke to the nurse regarding this mother’s situation and the nurse took us to another area of the hospital. Lauren and I could see the nervousness on this mother’s face, knowing the rest of her life and what it may look like was going to be determined today. We went to the area of the hospital for HIV/AIDS counseling, medication, etc. The mother was told that she would be tested and if it was positive, she would immediately be counseled and assisted for the free medication provided by the government (and other countries) to help prolong her life and assist her immune system.

We were not able to stay with her during this time so we all went and had lunch with the other three families that we had assisted at the hospital and then sent them on their way back to Kolongolo.

Lauren and I went back to town to do some other things while we waited for the details of the mother and her little daughter Nancy’s status. We ended up meeting back up with Daniel, Anne, the mother and Nancy in town.

The mother and Nancy were tested positive for HIV. I hugged the mother for as long as I could and as tightly as I could. I kissed Nancy’s face over and over again until I saw that beautiful smile of hers appear. And before my tears could flow, I said goodbye to them and walked over to our taxi, told Lauren the news, both of us put our sunglasses on and started to cry. Two more lives devastated by a disease that I can’t begin to comprehend and despise more than I can ever explain.

And that’s all I can say for now…