First Day Back on the Job

So I finally made it out to Kisumu and had my first day of work. The range of emotions is slightly overwhelming. Much of what I am experiencing is very familiar – cramming into a van for a long bumpy ride over dirt roads… reaching through the bus window to buy a cob of grilled maize that gives your jaw a workout… fending off aggressive taxi drivers… eavesdropping on people who think I don’t understand Swahili… haggling in the market for tomatoes and beans… climbing into bed underneath a mosquito net.

But that familiarity also includes confronting sorrow, hardship, even tragedy head-on, over and over again. My heart screamed out with every new patient. Beautiful young women, frail old men, some looking healthy, others looking beaten down and in pain. All waiting patiently for hours to get their HIV medications and the chance to see a nurse or doctor briefly. The services at this clinic are fantastic by Kenyan standards and people travel here from very far to access these services. But it is still so far from what they need to live happy healthy lives. Although the nurses are some of the kindest I’ve seen in East Africa, there is still little patient privacy, cleanliness is still wanting, and space is very tight.

Every new woman who came into the exam room ripped at my heart and it took everything in me not to cry for their lives. I know that we have problems in the U.S. , that there are people suffering in every city in America, and that lack of access to care results in much unnecessary suffering and death in my home country. But I’m sorry, it just doesn’t compare. I think of the most severe pain and despair that I’ve ever felt and just know that so many of these people are bearing more than I can ever imagine. I have no fancy words to describe it. It breaks my heart. It just breaks my heart.