We left Nairobi Wednesday morning and arrived in Ghana around 12pm. We were carrying medications for the Ghana Village in our carry ons. We were concerned that we would be stopped and the medications would be confiscated. One of the ROS in Kenya reminded us that we should have the home office e-mail us the letter that they usually send to people bringing supplies. We got the letter. I was stopped in security as they saw the bottles on the scanner. There was no hassle, the Security person looked at the bottles and the letter and let me through. They didn't ask Elaine, but I was the one carrying the medicine in bottles.
We were met by the Health Care Nurse from the Ghana Rafiki Village, had lunch, went shopping and passed on the medicine. We filled our bags with newly required purchases.
The trip home was a midnight flight. We arrived in Atlanta at about 8 am and then on to Denver .
I am pretty tired. There were 13 flights in all jetways only in Ethiopia and the American flights. This meant going up and down the stairways, in and out of planes and terminals. Elaine would rope someone into carrying her bag up the stairways to board the plane. We walked through tarmacs to get to our plane or into the terminals. In Nairobi we had a long stairway to climb to get in and out of the terminal. When we left for Tanzania we could have easily boarded the wrong plane as there were 2 rows of people boarding planes. I have to admit it was rather strange boarding the Atlanta/Denver flight. It was full of white people.
In all we must have seen around 300 to 350 orphans, mama, employees and also some families of employees. We did general counts except in Kenya. This is all pretty tiring. The hardest part is all the plane changes, lugging heavy luggage in and out of countries. We kept saying were weren't going to shop anymore but we both did. There is a lot of the same stuff everywhere, but you can find beautiful and unique things. The best shopping is in the dusty market places where they try to sell you everything you look at. My best purchase was a giraffe carved from Rosewood for less than 20$ from a wood carver's shop in Tanzania. You can buy carved giraffes everywhere but the really nice ones are costly and hard to find. The one I bought was an unusual find.
As also we have a chuckle or two. When we went to the Mall in Kenya, our driver was asked by the security people at the mall if he was the driver for Madeline Albright. They thought Elaine was Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State under former President Clinton. Elaine didn't think that was too flattering. Apparently Madeline Albright had been in Kenya the previous week. I think the only similarity might be hair color. Elaine is much more attractive.
Other than our trip to Kilimanjaro, this was a working trip with some quick shopping trips. It was less stressful than the community clinics I have done. The people we saw were for the most part healthy, but there was a mama who had a tumor the size of a 6 month pregnancy that will need surgery. The good thing is that the tumor is benign. There was a sick 5 year old day student that walked 8 km to and from school. They wanted to bring her into the orphanage but found out she had a mother. There was a little boy that had just been admitted to the village who came to be seen several times with an allergic reaction that is believed to be from eggs.
It is hard to imagine the situations many of the day students come from. It is hard to imagine a little girl walking that distance to school, but people in Africa walk long distances. It is not unusual to see children walking along the roadsides, sometimes alone, sometimes with another child.
I marvel at how they can walk so tall that the can carry baskets and all kinds of stuff on their heads. It is mostly women and young girls who are carrying these loads. You see a lot of old bikes on the road. The roadways are filled with all sort of unusual sights from big open trucks hauling people from place to place to men pushing heavy carts.
Life in Africa is not easy for most of the people. There is much corruption in the governments but some of the leaders are really trying to help the people.
In Kenya, we met a young man who grow up in Kibara, one of the worst slum areas in the world. A missionary sponsored him to go to nursing school. He still lives in the area and is working with young HIV patients and wants to volunteer with Rafiki. He is a midwife. That may sound unusual for a man, but in some places in Africa when you go to nursing school they tell you what field you will be trained in. He was interesting to talk to. His goal is to go back to school to get a degree.
It takes me a while to process all I have seen and experienced. Africa is a reality check. It keeps life in prospective.
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