New Experiences

Katy’s Long Novella

I had my best birthday ever.  Thanks to God, I’ve had many memorable birthdays throughout the years, but I haven’t had an all-day celebration until I came to Kenya! 

            My 29^th year started out with Marta making delicious and beautiful German pancakes (the one that puffs up on the edges of the pan and is fluffy and delectable!) served with powdered sugar for breakfast.  (Normally, it would be served with powdered sugar and lemon juice, but the green skinned fruit I insisted was a lemon, was in fact, as Marta said, an orange, so we had powdered sugar and orange juice!)   I finally called my grandparents in Taiwan since I’ve been here, as well as talked to my mom again. Marta and I walked to town in hopes of getting some key ingredients for our dinner party at the Jones’ next door. We found the local market but could only find seed potatoes and not potatoes for eating, but we did find some carrots and mangoes. On our way back we stopped by a general store and got the only tub of margarine they had to get off the shelf, out from underneath and behind several  bottles, and dust it off for us (we later found many tubs of various sizes at a different store, but oh, well, we were supporting the less frequented little stores). We checked out at least three butchery shops, but everyone was either not there or not open. We later found out they only butcher cattle on certain days, and when I asked, “And you only have chicken on Tuesdays and Thursdays?” One local student nurse said to me, “This is Africa!” Oh, right J We did see one chicken along the road, and Marta invited him home for dinner.  I don’t know if the bird noted the double entendre, but he continued on his own way.  By God’s grace we found potatoes before we got home, but Marta thinks they had even more eyes and would have been better for planting than the ones they wouldn’t sell us at the market.

The road was quite muddy and sticky because it has been raining almost non-stop for three days, and their soil is a little bit more of clay consistency, being a deep brick red.

Once we were home Marta then made cinnamon buns from scratch, but there wasn’t enough sun or heat to make the dough rise properly, so I pulled out my hair dryer, but the valiant attempt only lasted a couple minutes before we decided to put it in the preheated oven. We made curry for dinner, and with only one package of chicken drumsticks left from Eldoret and no chicken to be bought in town, I came up with the brilliant and messy idea to de-skin and then de-meat the drumsticks…. Marta laughed at me, but I think the end result was tasty. Marta was quite a baker and made a chocolate cake for me from Duncan Hines, Grace put the Betty Crocker frosting over it, and Marta wrote out in home-made icing, “Siku njema ya kuzaliwa, Katy”, which we hope says, “Happy Birthday, Katy”

                We hauled all the food we had prepared next door. The Jones’ had a Happy Birthday banner up, with balloons and candles for decoration. Ces, a surgery post-residency fellow, joined us. I got presents from two of the little guys, including homemade cards. It was pretty special. After dinner we had coffee and a movie, a relaxing way to end a wonderful day spent with new (and old) friends.

                Okay, now for the parts you really want to know about.  J

                I’d like to share with you that we went with Kyle last Tuesday evening to a nearby village to show the Jesus video in their native language (Mariquet). We rode in Kyle’s SUV with the equipment, and the two older children (6 and 4) came along. Once outside of the school, we put up a white sheet for a screen and set up the projector, speaker, generator, and amplifier. About 50 people, mostly children, were already there, but by the time we started, I think there was well over 200 in the crowd. A lady from church led a few songs in Swahili, and then we realized we forgot the cord for the amplifier!!! While waiting for someone to get it from the hospital, we decided to have Grace and me hand out cookies to the audience. That was when things got out of hand. 

                I’m sure everyone has seen news footage of hungry people crowding around aid workers in refugee camps, but it’s the very first time I’ve in the position of seeing all these outstretched hands. The first couple of children I handed the cookies to were really hesitant and timid in taking them from me, but before long I was surrounded, and as the evening was setting in, a shield of palms was all I could see in the dim light. A local pastor tried to have them form a line but was not successful. I tried to make sure the little hands below get cookies, too, while trying to hold the box close and high, as some bigger hands were either snatching them from others’ hands or trying to get into the box. I soon found Grace by my side, calling out for order and closing my box for me. Later I found out the reason she was riled up was because several adults jammed their hands in her box of cookies, and took as many as they could grasp, wasting many in the process, and leaving her with nothing.  Kyle finally took my box away because it was getting frustrating, and I saw him giving cookies to the little ones who stayed around the projector and didn’t have a chance at the crowding.

I overheard people say that some children are “tricky” and would come back for seconds, but I feel like that’s just being children yet to learn how to look after others. At any rate, it was not the intended effect, and what we thought was a nice treat to share with the people there turned out to reflect more ugly and selfish human nature. I felt like it was a little degrading to have caused their shoving and crowding and trying to get more for themselves without regard for the little ones beside them, but I didn’t expect that, and all this for something they didn’t need. It would have been nice to have the cookies, but it wasn’t like the essential food and water. It would have been even more unbearable for me had I been the aid worker distributing to a famine-stricken land. I tried to tell them there’s enough (and there were enough if people didn’t take seconds or fourths), but it probably also has to do with the issue of trust. They didn’t know me; why should they believe what I was saying and not try to gather as much as they could for themselves while they were near the cookie box?

It really made me think of why we were there. As upsetting and surprising as something like this was, we saw that it was precisely this broken state of human relationships why Jesus had to come and save us from our depravity. He had to come to show how good God is, and how life can be good when we have been restored to our intended relationship with God, through the sacrifice of Jesus’ death on the cross. Without that, we cannot love others, we cannot trust God, and we’ll always think we’re in want. Even after we’ve become God’s children, how often do we hold on to God’s riches and not think about others’ needs because we feel like we won’t have enough if God gives to others, too? How much do I trust God when He says He is enough for me, no matter what happens?

After things settled down and the movie started; people’s attention was captivated. I wondered how many people in the audience had ever seen a movie like this before? I thought of my mom telling me stories of how when she was little, she would, with other neighborhood children, crowd outside someone’s window to look in at the rare black and white TV around. Being rainy season we started to feel some drops on our faces, but Hudson and I prayed, Kyle later said he was praying, and I was sure many prayed, that God would hold the rain and not cause a downpour, so people can finish the movie and hear the message in their mother tongue. It did just that; praise the Lord that despite occasional drizzle, no one left, and the movie was shown in its entirety. We went home tired but very happy.  [Marta here.  I was talking with a local pastor at the back of the crowd.  It was at the time the movie was playing a scene with a blind man receiving his sight.  The pastor said that in English, or Swahili, you hear the words, of a blind man receiving his sight, but in his own “mother tongue” he could hear the desperation, even before the action of the sight being restored.]

I wasn’t feeling well that day, but I was glad to have gone to the movie showing and had the experience and conversations I had. I hope by God’s strength I was graceful in my interactions, and I pray many there heard the message in their hearts.

The reason I wasn’t feeling well was, after deliberation among five healthcare providers, reflux disease exacerbated by doxycycline, which I was taking for malaria prevention. It was atypical reflux, though, as it first presented by waking me up in the middle of the night with chest pain. The chest pain persisted the next day, which was the day we showed the Jesus video, but it also included gassy upper stomach pain. Then it started to hurt when I drank hot water. The next day, taking anything, including water, began to cause pain. Breathing became painful, too. I started to feel feverish and weak and had muscle aches; when I woke up to Kyle’s phone call about a pediatric pneumonia admission, I found myself drenched in sweat. After learning from his wife, Vanessa, that I wasn’t feeling well, he had pity on me and went to see the patient himself. The next morning, he found Tecta (Protonix) for me to take, and thank God I’ve been getting better since then, just in time for my birthday cake.

What I learned from this was that it’s very hard to do missionary medicine, or anything at all, when one’s not feeling well. The devil plays mind tricks on you and there’s just gloomy thoughts all around. Thank you all for your prayers, and I’m thankful that when I was the most defeated on Friday, God heard our prayers and gave me a wonderful day, by His strength. Rounding went smoothly, then I got to do a few more ultrasounds; induced a couple of patients—one for post dates and one for intrauterine growth restriction; and did a cesarean section.

Okay, that’s a very long post. I just wanted to cover all the major points of this week. Thank you for reading!!

Marta’s:

After all that, what more is there to add?  Katy always seems to be busier than I.  When she was on Peds the first week she did several admissions a day; I had 2 all week I was on!  On OB she has been inducing patients like crazy! 

The other doctor, a Kenyan, had a few days off, so I saw all the Peds patients, Katy took care of OB, Kyle did men’s and women’s wards, and I saw many of the outpatients.  There were some hospital follow-up patients who had recovered and I simply had to provide reassurance, and refills if needed. 

The saddest case was a 7 year old girl who came in with her mom.  The day before, she didn’t go home from school for lunch.  She was abducted by a man working for her grandmother, who took her to his house, both parties were without underclothes.  What he did, I can only imagine, she will never forget.  Thankfully the examination did not reveal irreparable damage, but only abrasions.  After she was released from his bed, she went home, and hid under a counter, which is where her mom found her the next morning, with a tear stained face, and mud all over her legs.  Her mom came back the next day for us to fill out the official police report form.  It was extensive, 4 pages long.  Her mother added she was doing well, and that her incontinence of urine was improving.  Kyle did the initial exam and documentation, although I was there, but when her mom came back, I was doing the visit, so I was able to add my two cents.  I don’t know that anyone ever feels comfortable in these situations, but I wanted her to know that her daughter would need lots of extra love, support, and patience, and I told her mother that.  I had Kyle come up to sign all of the documentation that I had done on the police report, because I didn’t want the case to be thrown out on account of the fact that I had filled out the report but was no longer there.

Katy Again (No…not her again~~!)

After a restful weekend not on call, we’ll be starting medicine and surgery, so stay tuned for more happenings at Kapsowar….