Yesterday we had our last day of placement in Kisii, I at the hospital and Rilla at Emmanuel Light Academy school. The last week has been really good. I continued to help in the HIV clinic, testing more clients and patients in the wards. It is hard when someone finds out for the first time that they are infected with HIV. It is a really life changing thing. There was one mother who we tested in the ward the other day who was positive. All mother's need to be tested and she had been negative before. There is a window period of three months where a person may be infected but the test will turn up as negative because the virus has not fully matured. They recommend people get tested every three months. They referred her to the counseling centre where she will also be treated with ARVs which can suppress the virus. The big worry however is for the baby, one of the top three methods of spreading HIV is through breast milk, and since she was negative she has been breast feeding her newborn. Hopefully the medications can help, when I saw them the baby did not look fully healthy, but they will run tests to know for sure if he was infected or not. I have been told that the chances of an HIV+ baby living past the age of two are very slim. Let's pray that he has not been infected!
On tuesday I went to Emmanuel Light with Rilla to experience what it has been like for her to teach in the school. One of the teacher's told me I could 'assist him' in teaching his grade 6 science class, which he meant to mean I could take over for him. They had already finished the science book so I was to review food preservation methods with them. I ended up having them act out each method because it seemed like they knew it all already. In the grade 7 class we went over a test which they had previously written. I had the teachers answer key, but only half of the answers were marked, and a lot of them I realized were wrong. It was on a whole bunch of different topics. Some of the questions I actually had no clue what the answer was, they were in relation to various plants found in Africa that I never heard of, so I went with the majority of the class. One question was: What animal has scales, lives in the water and lays eggs...the teacher had marked 'duck' as being the correct answer. This is one which I changed for him. There was also another question asking what sport do you use skates and glide on ice. The only answer that was close was skiing. I am really wondering where they get those exams from. I felt bad that it was so poorly written, the kids seem really smart but I don't know how you get ahead when the teachers don't know the correct answers all the time.
On Sunday we attended church at an almost finished building! They have the roof set up and a couple walls. It ended up costing more money than they anticipated but what they have so far looks really good!It was our last Sunday with them so they called us up to the front and prayed for our travel's which was really nice. Pastor Robert mentioned us again in the sermon. After church I helped the kids take some of the rented chairs back up to Keumbu. I tried to mimmic their way of walking with the chair on my head, but after awhile decided to just carry it, it was more comfortable for my non-African head to manage. When I got back we had some dance lessons from one of the guys on the Praise and Worship team. He is a really good dancer and can never seem to stand still when the music is on. Man was it a workout though!! So much jumping. I was sweating a bunch. Rilla and I are thinking of making an 'African Gospel' workout class when we get back to Canada! It was great! I also got some of the young kids singing into the mic. These ones weren't scared of me so we had a blast. In Kisii there are only two kinds of children; ones that are scared of you and cry when you come to close, and ones that are fascinated by you. These are the kids you find stroking your legs and hair to see what it feels like, or repeating everything that you say because to them it sounds funny.
We have now made it back to Nairobi and met up with Caleb and Derek who we will be traveling with for the next couple months. It was sad to leave the people in Keumbu for good, but I am ready to move on to the next stage in our trip!
Next Stop...Mombassa.
