Kitale, Kenya
After a 48 hour journey, we arrived in Kenya to reside on the compound of Transformed International (TransformedInternational.org) for the next month. The TI ministry is three-fold, caring for orphans, assisting widows with micro businesses and providing a unique experience for interns.
Yesterday, we visited a hospital in Kitale where one of the orphans had been admitted, initially for malaria and pneumonia but later contracted meningitis, from a child with whom he shared a bed. To get a glimpse of this facility, see Amanda’s blog to which I previously referred.
There were many people, young and old, on each bed. There were eight beds in every alcove. It was unclear which were patients and which were family members, so each alcove of eight beds had about 32 people in the area of a common living room.
The orphan was released after ten days but during his admission, he was found to have contracted aids, probably from birth. His parents were deceased and his grandmother was caring for him.
A young woman kept calling out to us after we arrived. She had given birth to a child after seven months gestation. She asked us to pray for him as she had seen the team days before pray for children when they visited. The baby, the size of a small football, was writhing in an isolet, stuck in the corner of a room full of people. No one was attending to him. He had no nurse, no monitors, no special aids to keep him alive while he grew, just a band aid on his heal, where blood was taken, flapping open with each jerk of his foot. His fate was grim.
The strong odor of urine permeated the air. Faces were somber. The usual Kenya smiles were missing. Many children lay on beds, staring at nothing, expressionless.
