In which I kill some bats, and really want some apple juice

We always knew I was going to come to Sombo for 2 or 3 weeks, but we didn’t know when, and the time we scheduled it for changed twice before settling on the time I’m here now. I was wondering why that might be, and joking that something really rare and interesting was going to come into the clinic and God wanted me here during that time so I could see it. I think the real reason he wanted me here when I ended up here was to be here when the YWAM team was here. Not so I could enjoy the company of Americans, because I’d have been just fine among only Kenyans, but because I think I learned a lot from them being here. They spent 3 months together in Iceland before Kenya doing discipleship training, and so when they were here they were used to, and continued, doing daily team devotionals and prayer, and they used a lot of their free time to just have quiet time with God by the river, and so many of their conversations with each other were about what God was teaching them. It inspired me to be doing more of the same. Though I havn’t decreased the amount of time I was spending with God I felt like I needed to be doing it more, especially since I’m here and I have so much time to do that sort of thing. At Cornell the constant conflict was between finding time for God and people and schoolwork. Here, there’s no conflikct for me, there’s just a lot of time. So I should really be using it for God while I have it.

Some interesting medical things have happened in the clinic:
More interesting noises coming from people’s lungs…sometimes you don’t even need a stethoscope to hear it but it’s always exciting when I can clearly recognize a sound with one.
There was a 12-ish year old boy who had gotten cut with a panga (machete-ish big knife) and it was pretty deep and it would have needed stitches if it hadn’t been too long since the cut. To try and help, someone had put the contents of some medication capsules on the cut. They had no idea what the medication was, but they figured it would help. Luckily for them, all the meds we give out in capsules happen to be antibiotics, so it probably did help a little. He needs a tetanus shot, but we don’t have a refrigerator so we don’t have tetanus. We sent him to the government clinic but they’re out of stock, so he’s got to keep waiting. Oh yeah, and the cut was right above the knee, and the whole knee area is about the size of a baseball on this SKINNG little kid.
There was a woman who needed an antibiotic shot in the gluteus and when she lifted up her dress to expose the area we saw all these scars on her lower back region, and Margaret asked her what they were from, she said it was a treatment for paralysis, I guess she was paralyzed for a while when she was younger…apparently it worked, because she was walking just fine now. :P
And non-medical things in the clinic:
There’s a scale, a typical bathroom scale, for weighting the kids to see what dosage of a few differet medications they need, which are by weight. They are always so confused by it. They’re told to stand on it, so at first they often just rest one foot on it, then Margaret tries to get them to put both feet on it, but they’re still half sitting on their mom’s lap, so the picks them up and puts them on but they’re holding onto the table for balance…it’s so funny to watch them. Even a 14 year old girl, I had to get on the scale to show her what to do the other day. It’s so interesting.
Often, people don’t know how old they are, or how old their kids are. A woman who looked about 40 said she was 20, we were like ummm no. People with kids who are barely talking and came in being carried by the mom say the kid is 4 years old and we say uuuuum no. So oftentimes it’s just a guess. Or, they know what year the kid was born but don’t have the simple math skills to accurately count how many years it’s been since then.
Also, the setup is that there’s one chair outside the room, and inside there’s 2 big chairs and one tiny kids’ chair for the patients, besides the ones Margaret and I sit on. As soon as I stand up to go get something out of the cabinet,(or even if I stand up and pivot 90 degrees so I can put pills in a bag) whoever’s outside comes in an sits in my chair, almost without fail. Inevitably, the 2^nd or 3^rd patient will bring the outside chair inside, and most of the time 3 or 4 people will be crowding the door or standing just sinside the door. I don’t know why on earth they ALL feel the need to be in the room at the same time, if they just want to watch or hear each other’s business or just have a little Somali-party in the consultation room, but it never takes long for it to fill up, and I have to be really fast to get my chair back. Often I end up sitting on the exam table because it takes too long for my chair to open back up. And someone often joins me on the Exam table.
OH did I mention each of the chairs is occupied by an adult, and they usually have at least 2 children with them, who are often crying because they just got or are about to get an injection?
Sometimes it’s a zoo, but it makes me laugh a lot. J

Today we had the best non-medical adventure yet. Every morning there’s droppings that look just like mouse droppings n the floor, and there’s a big stack of boxes in the corner from which emanates squeaking all morning. So I assumed there were mice living among the boxes. Turns out they’re bats, and today we decided to move the boxes and get them out…so we started removing them one by one and the bats sounded like they were getting disturbed. So we look against the wall and we can see them crawling around back there. So we needed to kill them to get them out otherwise they’d just come back tonight…so we started smashing the boxes against the wall to squish them. It worked a little but then they went to the bottom and we couln’t get any more. So we started moving boxes, and then there were some that were too heavy, so we left them for a bit and discovered more bats behing the metal cabinet. There are boxes on top of the cabinet so we took this stick and used it to scare the bats into walking up the wall and then squished them with the boxes. We got 3 of them that way and a couple escaped. Then Pator David came in, and we had him help us move the really heavy boxes but that’s where ALL the bts were hiding. So we start moving boxes and as the bats started come out a LOT and pastor David and Margaret were beating them with the stick and a broom, they were climbing up the wall and getting whacked back down, or falling down after getting whacked in the head, or they would jump and try to run or fly away but all they managed to do was flap their wings on the floor before they got a blow to the head. It was really funny, we were all kind of jumpy and they kept jumping out at us so we were more fighting-them-off beating them than attacking-them beating them…all the while laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of it all. So when all was said and done there were somewhere around 40 bats dead in a huge pile of their own droppings that was more voluminous than the bats themselves. So I went through the pile and made sure they were all dead and not just knocked out, or not just suffering (at least that’s what I told myself- I was putting them out of their misery)by squishing their heads with the stick. Then we swept the whole droppings/corpses pile into a box and did the only thing you can do with things you don’t want in Sombo, and burned it.
It was basically the most fun I’ve had since I got here. :-P

I found out last night that that the trailer I’ve been sleeping in is actually what we’re going to use on Saturday to go to Garissa. Everyone piles in the back and the tractor pulls it the hour trip through the unpaved backroads until we get to the paved roads where there might police, and then we take a matatu into Garissa. I’m really excited for thist rip because 1. I think it will be fun to ride the trailer. 2. I can’t wait to go to Garissa and not be miserable from the beginning of malaria, and 3. I’ve developed a CRAVING like nothing else for apple juice, so the FIRST thing I’m gonna do is get some. I was joking that since we leave so early, I will just continue sleeping while everyone piles in the trailer with me and I’ll wake up when we get to Garissa. :D

My battery is going to die on the laptop soon so I’m going to try and post this now.

Also, I hate hate hate hate having a dream where I give Daddy a hug and then wake up to realize I can’t give him one the way having a dream like that always makes me want to.