“Hello, habari, my name is Onesimus.”
I was met at 9 PM by the World Medical Mission http://www.samaritanspurse.org/what-we-do/world-medical-mission-2/driver at the exit from the international terminal at Kenyatta Airport. “Habari” means “What is the news?” but suffering from fatigue and episodic politeness I responded “Nzuri”…”Good.”
I am back in Kenya and again among those whose names ring like a New Testament to the faith of much of East Africa. Onesimus was indeed “Useful.” The flight from Atlanta on the 20th July was uneventful, the seat uncomfortable and the food unmemorable. I had gotten through the Forex line, the visa desk, luggage retrieval and customs in only 45 minutes and Onesimus and I exited into the cool diesel-fouled night.
Although Nairobi is essentially on the Equator, its altitude keeps it cool year round. Onesimus caught me up on Kenyan politics (much better than 3 years ago) and the local rains (“It was a good year but we are now in the dry season”) on the trip to the Mennonite Guest house in the suburbs north of the city. Despite my fatigue I re-packed my bags, sorted out various denominations and nationalities of money, showered and changed into something less lived-in before dropping off to the sounds of a nightjar in the distance.
By 10 the next morning Onesimus had picked me up and we were off to Kijabe…after a trip to the local Nakumatt, sort of a grocery store cum Wal-mart crossed with several varieties of cell phone stores. On our way again after buying victuals, we started along Waiyaki Way, a major road along the north of Nairobi. Driving in Kenya is a marvel to behold …as long as you have made peace with your Maker ahead of time; near-misses, abrupt turns, lumbering trucks with a loads that seem to be attached only by bonds of habit and inanition and the occasional pedestrian of fleet-foot or suicidal ideation present themselves at regular intervals.
We pass Kibera, one of the biggest slums on the continent; a brown-grey sea of tin shacks undulates over hills and valleys into the smoggy distance. It is home to over a million people. We pass onto the Eldoret-Malaba Road and pass Kikuyu. We continue through Limuru. A sign across the road say “If you feel that you want to stop lying…” ends in mid-sentence due to some traffic mishap.
The fields open out, the soil the color of ground coffee. Cabbages grow luxuriously along the peculiar “green-stick-stuck-in-the-ground-and-sprouted” look of cassava. The road splits around the Escarpment. To the left the road slants down to the Great Rift Valley before heading off to Narok and the Lake. We take the right-hand road and pass shops built along the road and half-over a cliff. I can look back along the Rift and see the Ngong Hills in the distance.
Kimendi comes and goes before the highway is reduced to two lanes. We pass disinterested sheep and cattle grazing at the verge of the road, oblivious to the streams of earnest automotive traffic. At intervals, my concern seems well-placed as there are road-side kiosks demonstrating for sale suspiciously familiar sheep and cow-hides. Onesimus dodges bicycles, triple-burdened motorcycles, and trucks belching black smoke as we continue to climb away from Nairobi. At an intersection festooned with signs we turn off; one of the older and smaller ones says ”Kijabe Hospital.”
The trip down into Kijabe is an adventure of its own. We make hair-pin turns, the roads relocated because of wash-outs from the previous “long-wet” season of rains. We pass through a one-way underpass to avoid the Nairobi-Uganda railroad which represents the reason for Nairobi’s creation little more than a century ago and finally reach the hospital gate.
Kijabe has muchly changed. It is larger. The old hospital was one ramp-corridor up the valley wall with buildings sprouting from the sides. The new Kijabe has whole areas which are new and connected by slanting concrete foot-paths. A whole new section is becoming the Bethany Kids Hospital and all pediatric care will be translated there within the next few years.
We are now at about 7200 ft. and the air-pressure and thus the oxygen is on 80% of what we enjoy at sea-level. I find myself being winded just walking down to “Paediatrics” and back up to Heron House which I share with a Pediatric Neurosurgery Resident from the big national hospital in Nairobi, Jomo Kenyatta Hospital.
Like the hospital, the medical staff has grown; I was shown around my first day by Jennifer Myhre http://www.whm.org/give/missionary?ID=50134, a career Pediatrician-Missionary from World Harvest. She is one of three pediatricians on staff. In touring the nursery, we see the conjoined –twins who were born earlier in the day. They share a single heart. This is not going to end well. The nursery is kept unusually warm, in the 85-88 degree range as they have few incubators and radiant warmers. Inconsequence they have many infants with fever, a rare occurrence in the states. One of my private goals is to try to make temperature control a priority. For that reason I have brought along a few combination outdoor thermometer and humidiometers as well as more thermometers and space-blankets.
An interesting note: I was taking some pictures and came upon a gaggle of mwazungu (westerners, i.e. visiting relatives of one of the missionaries) who were examining a gorgeous green snake which had been dispatched by the side of the road. I was admiring him, even in his languor mortis until I got a good look at him and realized he was a green mamba. Perhaps a bit more concerning was that I realized that the scene of his repose was the road in from of Heron House. I spoke with a local mzee (old like me) who said that there used to be a lot of snakes around Kijabe although this mamba was a “bad snake although he doesn’t eat people just rats. 
Apparently the cattle take exception to sharing the pasture with snakes and have eliminated most, but not apparently all, of them.
Apparently the cattle take exception to sharing the pasture with snakes and have eliminated most, but not apparently all, of them.
One more item:
Many of my patients’ parents do not have the funds to get what we consider basic medical services. X-rays, ultrasound exams, and (surprisingly) surfactant. This is one of only two medications which have been developed specifically for babies. It provides a replacement for lung fluids which are absent in premature infants and is the root cause of Respiratory Distress Syndrome. The cost is prohibitive. A common laborer makes about $22/month in Kenya. Surfactant costs over $150 a dose (as opposed to $1000 in the USA). Kijabe Hospital has created a fund which is managed by those of us who actually treat these babies. I ask you to please consider funding this effort to bring treatment to the smallest of my patients. Please see below.
Kijabe Hospital is a 240-bed hospital in the rural, central highlands of Kenya. The hospital is operated as a Christian ministry by Africa Inland Church. Many of the children who receive care at Kijabe are desperately poor, and their families are not able to pay for the care that their children receive. The hospital operates a fund that helps to meet expenses for services such as CT scans, echocardiograms, ambulance transport, surfactant treatment for premature babies with immature lungs, and general inpatient care. Donations to the fund in US dollars may be given as outlined below. Donations are tax-deductible.
Donations by check should be made out to:
Bay Leaf Baptist Church
Please include “Gessner/Kijabe Needy Children Fund” on the memo line
Checks should be mailed to:
Bay Leaf Baptist Church
12200 Bayleaf Church Rd.
Raleigh NC 27614
USA
All funds donated go directly to cover patient expenses, and no administrative charges are assessed by Bay Leaf Baptist Church http://www.bayleaf.org/or Kijabe Hospital.
Members of Bay Leaf Baptist will receive a record of their donation on their quarterly statement from the church. Non-members will receive a receipt via US mail within three to four weeks of the time of their donation.
