My new friends

We are starting to make friends in Kenya. I’ll tell you about them. I will try to get pictures of them and will update this post as I get them.
Pasqualina
She is a nurse that works at St. Theresa’s. She worked here last year when the other students were here, but has been away for a while and she just returned on Monday. I spent a bit of time with her on Monday, more time with her on Tuesday, and most of my time with her on Wednesday. I told Allison that I was having a great time on the maternity and surgical units with Pasqualina so she joined us and also had a great time! Pasqualina seems to have high standards for her nursing practice and has shown us some very clever tips and tricks- skills, she ensures us, we would never learn in school! She is incredibly sweet and very smart. I have heard her speaking several languages (English, Swahili, Kimeru, Spanish…) and I hear from one of her friends that she knows many more. After work on Wednesday, she led us around the hospital and kept saying: “We will go here and do this, and then we can go.” We did a few things, and when it was finally time to go, she led us between buildings, introducing us to hospital staff and pointing things out. She said that she wanted to take us to her home- her castle- a place called “Number 5.” We saw a row of apartments, and she led us to the door marked “Number 5!” It was a small room with very few things. But she just moved in a few days before. She had two chairs and offered them to Allison and I. She showed us two photo albums: one that Cheryl (one of the UPEI students that was here before) had sent her, and another of her own. She told us stories that went with the pictures, and when she finished showing them, she told us that we are welcome to visit any time. I am sure we will be visiting often. Today, we opened the fridge and realized that we had a ton of left-overs. We heated them up and brought them over. She wasn’t home, so we figured that she was at the hospital. We found her and another nurse, Carole, on the maternity unit and handed them the leftovers. I hope they enjoyed the meal.
Josephine
Josephine was one of the first people that we met. She is also a nurse on the maternity unit at St. Theresa’s. She also does HIV and AIDS outreach on Thursdays. We accompanied her last week and yesterday. In Kenya, most people do not own cars, and they travel by taxi, or matatu. So last Thursday, we (me, Allison, Stephanie, Amy, Kim, and Josephine) walked up to the Kiirua market and stood at the corner waiting for a matatu. We didn’t wait long. We were soon swarmed by men offering to drive us wherever we needed to go. Josephine brushed them all off until she found a car that she thought we could all fit in- which was difficult, because they are all small cars, and we are not the slimmest folks around (which the Kenyan people never fail to remind us about!) So, 6 of us, plus the driver piled into the car and headed up the hill. It was quite uncomfortable, but a lot of fun. The drive home was much the same, as was the drive yesterday when Allison and I went with her to another place called Ntemburi. Josephine asked us, on the first day how old each of us are. She told the other girls that she would be there mother while we stayed in Kenya, but said to me that I was old enough so didn’t need her- I assured her that I do, in fact, need a mother, and she is more than welcome to be my Kenyan mother while I am here! Yesterday, we went to a school to meet some kids. One of the teachers is Josephine’s sister. We talked about siblings. She told me she has 6 sisters and brothers. She asked how many girls are in my family. I misunderstood. I thought she said “How many cows?” I responded: “HOW MANY COWS??” and she laughed her head off. For the rest of the day, she’s spontaneously break into laughter and say “Ha ha ha, how many cows!” Pretty funny. We went to a restaurant that butchered and cooked goat. Yes. I ate goat. While we waited 3 hours for our food, we talked about the differences between Kenya and Canada. I told her that I have 2 dogs. She asked if they are allowed to enter the house. I said yes, of course they are. She asked if they have names. Again, yes. She asked if they are disciplined. I said… well, kind of… She laughed really hard and said that if I lived in Kenya and had dogs that slept in my house (and sometimes my bed) and I named them and talked to them, I would most definitely be sent for psychiatric treatment. She laughed some more.
Denis

Denis is a lab technician that works at St. Theresa’s and at the Machaka dispensary. Machaka, as you may remember, is where the children’s home is that we have been visiting. The dispensary is kind of like a public health office. People come for immunizations, child health clinics, etc. He comes with us and Josephine when we do outreach. The program has just recently been approved for doing HIV testing door-to-door. Previously, the outreach workers would go door-to-door and encourage people to go to the hospital to be tested. This hardly ever happened, because people do not have money for transportation to the hospital. So this new development is great progress. Denis does the testing and it takes about 10 minutes. It is amazing. If people test positive, they are counseled and advised that they can go to the hospital for free treatment. If they test negative, they are encouraged to be tested again in three months. So, Denis… He is very funny. He is not a tall man, and not an incredibly thin man, but he is a man that insists on commenting on how we Canadian nurses are rather large. The first time we met him, he looked at us and didn’t say anything, but made a hand gesture that outlined the roundness of our figures. Awesome. Yesterday, me, Allison, Josephine, Denis and another lady were in a car with Father Joseph, on our way to Ntemburi. At our first stop, he got out of the front seat and told me to get in the front because I was the fattest. Also awesome. Later, he asked Allison how many kilograms she weighs. We told him that we don’t really know- we use pounds. He told her to convert it. I told him that in Canada, it is rude to ask a woman how much she weighs. He didn’t catch on. So at the goat restaurant, Denis walked around the grounds and picked an orange from a tree. He went to the outdoor sink to wash it and got bit by a duck. We ate the orange while we waited for the goat that took 3 hours. We met up with him again today at Machaka. We were going to visit the kids and he wanted to do more outreach because we didn’t really get anything done yesterday. So we, along with two vet students, walked around Machaka handing out de-worming medicine to the folks we met and we tested one person for HIV. By the way, everyone that we have tested so far has been negative. He taught us some works in Kimeru. Kimeru, by the way, is a local language. The official languages in Kenya are English and Swahili, but there are many local languages, and the one most common in the area we are in is Kimeru. So he taught us some words, but I forget most of them now. He took us to meet some older women. We went into one house where there was an open fire and two women who looked to be about 95. It was incredibly smoky in the room (house). I took some pictures of the women but unfortunately can’t post them because I don’t have the software for the camera. Anyway, Denis is a very kind man who obviously cares for the people in the communities he visits. He is hilarious- despite the fact that he keeps telling us that we are fat. He told us that we can’t leave Kenya without eating a chicken that wanders around…. He said that they are much sweeter than chickens that are raised for grocery stores. He’s looking for one for us. I’m excited, as long as I don’t have to slaughter and pluck it.
Well, the power just went out and I am running on battery power, so I better publish this before the battery runs out. I will post pictures of my friends as soon as I get them. And there are many more people that we have met that I will write about soon.