Breakfast 6.30am leaving 7.30am as we’ve got a 2hour drive ahead of us to reach the village of Olo Soit, where we’ll be running the clinic. The last leg of our trip was through fields and fields, no road signs to be seen, so consequently we got lost, gratefully being rescued by Pastor Daniel who arrived on a “picky-picky” to lead the way. A good sized mud classroom was where we ran the clinic; desks and chairs were removed and the Kalenjan young warriors did a wonderful job of organizing the patients in and out of the clinic, keeping it orderly.
Cases that stood out: a 3 year old boy with grossly deformed and shortened legs (tibia’s) ?due to thalidomide use during pregnancy. His father was embarrassed but hope that his son could be helped motivated him to come to clinic. Lyle will discuss the options available for him ie possible surgical intervention and will contact him via Lillian and Rosemary. After clinic, a group of young women dressed up in their special finery: beaded head gear, necklaces etc and performed a wonderful dance for us in gratitude.
The children absolutely loved the bubbles and balloons they were given. Weary after a day of travelling and running clinic we were looking forward to resting at a hotel nearby. However, it appeared that the hotel was now over-booked. Fortunately Rosemary had relatives who lived in the area and we found ourselves on another adventure via atrocious roads, where we had to alight several times to lessen the load on the van. Arriving finally we enjoyed a wonderful reception from Rosemary’s family: her younger brother Augustine now owns the Chemene family home – tradition dictates that the youngest (the “Simba” not the oldest inherits all) Went for a lovely walk –MORE walking- through their property and watched the African sunset, aaaah.
Returned to find the evening meal prepared, although a few of us had a go at making Ugali (porridge/bread made out of maise staple food) Our evening meal was simply delicious, the best we’ve had so far: Ugali, rice, creamy potatoes, Mbuzi (a goat) and chicken that had been especially slaughtered in our honour. All but Lyle, slept in the main mud house (he had his own mudhut to use) and we enjoyed quite a “girly night” sleeping on the floor and enjoyed an authentic Kenyan experience. Lyle was impressed; despite there being no running water or electricity, mobile phones had good service despite our being in such an isolated place.
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