Day 4 cont



Baby helping her mother sell corn

In the slums, most of the adults sell some sort of food item to make money.  They usually prepare their food for sale in the morning and then whatever they would make from the morning would be used to buy their lunch and then whatever money they made from afternoon sales would be used to purchase dinner.  They do not have a refrigeration system so they eat all meals fresh.  When they buy milk it is straight from the cow or goat and they drink it room temperature.  The people in the slums do not own crop land, but they find an area that is not claimed, such as a ditch, and they plant on it.  So as we were walking to get to the slums, there were multiple crops being grown on a very small area of land.  These people are very resourceful and have to use anything they can get their hands on to survive.

One of the streets in the slums!

After our morning in the slums we went back to the church for the medical clinic.  Since it was the first day of the clinic, our roles were not clearly defined unless we were medical personnel.  I happened to be standing in clinic area where the doctors were seeing patients.  Danny Bass, the medical missionary that has been in Africa for 6 1/2 years, gave me the job of office manager.  That meant that I was to make sure the patients in the waiting area kept moving to the front of the line and the patients that were ready to be seen were seated with the appropriate doctor.  We had four Kenyan doctors along with our medical staff.  Some doctors only wanted to see adults, some preferred peds, etc.


One of the doctors from Calvary

On this first day of the clinic, there was a young man that was brought in that had been in motorcycle accident a couple of weeks prior.  He was wheeled to the clinic on a cart that his brothers pulled from the slums.  He had broken his leg and had a nasty wound to the top of his leg.  Unfortunately, he didn't have the money to go back to the doctor for additional care and the wound to his leg was so infected that gangrene was setting in.  We didn't have the ability to properly treat this man so he was sent to the hospital immediately.
Some of the money that we paid to go on this mission trip was used for medicine for the patients and additional money was set aside to help send patients to the hospital for additional medical treatment.  This man would have certainly lost his leg or life had he not arrived at our clinic.  To those of you who sponsored me, please know that your contributions directly affected people's lives. 

MY FAVORITE PICTURE

I have to end this post with my FAVORITE pic of my trip.  As we were leaving the slums, this little boy seemed so content just playing in this pool of water on the outskirts of the slums.  During the short while I watched the boy, I was overcome with emotion.  There is something about the innocence in his face that really inspired me to want to help others like him who can't always help themselves.