Birthday

Last night the lights went out, and I walked into a living room that lit up all of the sudden and began singing to me. My host family was all dressed up. They sang "Happy Birthday" and "How Old are You Now?" After repeating 22 several times, I glanced at the table. On it contained a heart shaped cake with icing, two plates of popcorn topped with the Kenyan equivalent of jolly ranchers, 6 glasses of juice, and an envelope that read "Tommy." I was definitely surprised and very grateful. It was so wonderful to have everybody there to celebrate with me. They snapped several photos of the event, including one bizarre ritual where Kevin fed me a piece of my cake. I felt like I was in a wedding for a moment. A wedding with another man.

Work today was very busy. Mondays are the busiest days of the week so we had to register and bill many more patients than usual. Other than that my day was pretty ordinary. I want to shift gears now and talk a little bit about my life at the home stay.

Our home stay has many family members. Mr. and Mrs. Steven Kamau are the heads of the family. Steven is one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life. He is always laughing hysterically at things, even if they are not funny. He is always in a good mood and is an incredibly good host. He is a devout Christian who accepted Jesus Christ as his Lord and Saviour in 1977. He usually leads the prayer before dinner, and is always in attendence at his local church. Although I am not particularly religious myself, I know that Jesus would want every Christian to be like Steven. He is such a good person - not a bad bone in his entire body.

Steven has 3 boys and 2 girls. Samuel is the youngest, Daniel the middle and Peter the oldest. His girls are named Faith and Grace. They are both very young. The housekeeper is named Carolyn. Both she and Faith play cards with Kevin and I nearly every night. We sit outside on the sofas and play on the table. It is usually nice and cool and we hear many animals during our time playing. It is a cozy routine no doubt.

On an unrelated note, there seems to be a huge paradox here involving the fertility of the red-dirted soil. It is incredibly dry because of recent droughts, yet it produces the JUCIEST mangos I have ever consumed. I do not understand where the juice comes from. Apparently the red soil is incredibly fertile. Also, it is said that Mombasa (the Indian ocean coast where we are headed soon) has even tastier mangos! I cannot imagine a mango tastier than these. I can hardly wait!

I was supposed to meet with the head of my health center today regarding ways in which I can assist the hospital once I get back. Unfortunately we experienced a very high volume of patients today and he was unable to squeeze some time in for me. I have been thinking a lot about how exactly I can help. I have two ideas...

Soweto is a slum adjacent to the health center. Every day we bill about 5 or so people from that slum. This amounts to only 100 shillings, which equates to a little less than a dollar and fifty cents a day. It is within my budget to cover the expenses of these individuals on a day to day basis. With this idea, the entire slum of Soweto would not have to pay for their health care costs simply by donating a few dollars a month for their treatment.

Idea #2 involves paying for 1 day of treatment for everyone in the health center. This may sound overly ambitious yet the numbers indicate otherwise. We serve anywhere from 30-50 people a day. This equates to roughly 1000 shillings a day, or less than 15 dollars. If I donated the equivalent of 15 dollars twice a month for the next 12 months, 2 days of treatment would be virtually free for anyone visiting the health center that day. Although this option would be interesting to pursue, I am leaning towards helping Soweto first and foremost. The people are poorer, and it is more likely to be a sustainable project as it will not put too much of a strain on my poor college-life budget.

These are simply ideas, and I have yet to finalize anything I have thought up. If you all have any ideas, PLEASE comment and let me know. I am open to anything!

I must go now as Kevin has to use the bathroom pretty badly and can't hold it in any longer. Since I am not too good with directions, I must follow him home now. Thanks so much for reading! Take care.


- Tommy