Impressions, Reflections, Decisions, Experiences, and Hospitals SEPTEMBER 9, 2011

I haven’t written for a long time and so have forgotten I’m sure some VERY IMPORTANT things. Not really! But I thought I would like to jot down some impressions first, so this will seem random and disjointed.



A visit to royalty

We went to visit a young man, Gilbert, who is less active in the Church. He is probably 35 years old, the youngest son of a polygamous father. His father is of royal birth, descended from tribal chiefs.



There was one chief in his father’s generation with 2 brothers. They all receive many privileges and high esteem is accorded them because of their political station. His father had 8 wives (we met the most recent wife). She does not know how old she is, but she thinks she is about 61. She looks very, very old. Her husband died at the age of 96 in about 2003. Her name is Grace, and she has had 3 sons. Her husband had 45 kids—29 sons and 16 daughters total.



All of the wives live in a single compound—each with a separate mud house. They eat communally and the women all work in the fields. The youngest son, who we were visiting is a handsome man. As the youngest son, he inherits the father’s home and a larger portion of the farmland (which is extensive because they were royalty).



When the British Government carved out big tracts of land in Kenya to be given as rewards to soldiers who served England during the war, the land on which this family and tribe lived was not touched, so they have retained ownership without it being divided up like much of Kenya experienced.



He is given this bonus of his father’s house and a bigger portion of land because it is the youngest son’s responsibility to feed, clothe, and educate his father’s family after the father’s death. He was delightful to meet, and we encouraged him to come back to Church. His wife is expecting their first child, and she speaks no English.



Shocking news:

I called R to invite her personally to our Seminary Inservice meeting last Friday. She is going to be one of our supervisors, and we wanted to do some orientation with her. She is one of the people we visited earlier in the year to reactivate her and her husband. Since then they have been to the temple, and he is now in the Branch Presidency. He is the old patriarch of a very large family (actually two families). He is probably 65 or so and had 10 children with his first wife. After she died, he married R and I think has 6 children (teens and early 20s) by R. They are a good couple—very involved in community development where they live. Both work on health initiatives and do a lot of AIDs and sanitation training in the village.



Anyway, R speaks some English, but we do have a difficult time understanding each other on the phone. While cell phones are ubiquitous (Kevin), their quality is very poor in many cases, and it is difficult to understand each other because of the static we need to talk over—plus the language barrier complicates matters.



Anyway, she responded to my invite by saying her “nephew was slaughtered last night.” “What!” I said. “My 19 year old nephew was slaughtered last night in downtown N. Village. He was a motorcycle driver (for hire) and pulling out of the village up the hill, when he was attacked and slaughtered.” I still didn’t get it. I thought she was talking about slaughtering a sheep. “No,” she said. A gang of guys stopped his motorcycle, decapitated his head and opened up his chest with a machete. He called out for help and neighbors came, but the gang took his motorcycle and left him dead.



We were shocked! This is just a little village we visit every week. Apparently, that was the second murder to occur there in one week. One of the District Commissioners’ assistants was murdered at the commissioner’s office the same week, having been shot. That was a political assassination and maybe a little more understandable. This other motorcycle murder seems so random, so shocking.



African wisdom: “If you have a farm, you are very lucky, and you will not be a beggar.”



It takes 6 months for the River Nzoia (which flows through our area) to get to Egypt.



We are told that it is very common when a polygamous father dies, that the children will “chase away” the other wife/wives, particularly if they are barren. This is a very difficult dilemma for the woman, because if she has once been married in the villages (even just live-in traditional marriage), she rarely will be married again, and it is very difficult for her to find a place to stay.



We were told that most families go out into the tall maize fields and clear a small space to which they cart water to use as a shower. The maize is dense and filled with mosquitoes, but it is private and works perfectly for them.



Some legal matters; One of our investigators was robbed of several bags of coffee beans (large bags). He thought he knew who had taken it. He went to the police to file charges. He then accompanied the police, walking to the house of the accused to serve the search warrant. The robbers were caught because the investigator is the only person in the area to grow this special kind of coffee bean. The bags were found and the men arrested. We thought it was interesting that the accuser accompanies the police to do the search. Then the accuser can decide whether to have the police take the man to court or whether the neighbors settle the matter with mob justice.



Another matter: We received a phone call from a new branch president telling us the old branch president (released in April) was in jail. We were shocked. We love the old branch president—one of the finest men we’ve ever met here. He is 29 years old, has a wife and 2 cute little kids. He is an especially kind, hard-working man. He works with his father running a posho mill (to grind maize into flour), has a shamba on which he grows maize, has cows, chickens, has just built a new home (cement) patterned on the home he lived in his mission in Zimbabwe several years ago.

He also has a chemist (pharmacy) shop.



Apparently, he was selling, I think, some kind of poison/insecticide for farmers without a license. Both he and the woman clerk in the little chemist kiosk they own were arrested, and he was taken to jail.



The present branch president called to see if we could help him. He needed to pay 20,000 ksh (about $225) to get out on bail, and then was being fined 50,000 (about $520)…a king’s ransom here, plus the threat of a year in prison. The father of the accused branch president had raised 10,000 ksh toward the bail. So that was a huge dilemma. He finally got out of jail at 9PM that night, but was right back in jail a couple of nights later with more money against him. We have been in close contact with the District Pres and the Mission President on this one. We feel so badly for him.



We called another branch president in the branch closest to us to act as intermediary to keep us informed while we waited in the car. We have found that when we go into places, it just compounds the problems. So, we don’t know how this will all work out.



Another matter: We had a couples’ conference in Nakuru National Park this weekend. Almost all of the couples gathered in Nairobi and rode together to meet us in Nakuru (the park is between Kitale and Nairobi). Two couples traveled in each of 3-4 cars to the gathering. One truck with 2 couples was picked up for speeding on the way. They were told to be to court in the nearest city on Monday morning. The Elder explained that he could not make it to court by 8:00 AM (the assigned time for the hearing). They were released, and 2 days later, on Monday, they (the four of them) arrived at court at noon.



The Judge was gone to lunch, and they discovered there was a warrant out for their arrest for failure to appear—just like it would be in the states. They were sent to many different offices and had to stand for long periods of time in the sun without being able to sit. Finally, the missionary driver of the truck was asked to get into a truck with other prisoners to go to jail. His wife was down in another building trying to get all the reams of paperwork completed and to beg for clemency for her husband. When the other wife saw they were beginning to load the missionary driver into the paddy wagon, she begged and strongly asked that he not be sent away from all of them, that they needed to stay together.



It was touch and go for awhile. Ultimately, the wife of the missionary driver made connections with one of the clerks, was able to pay the fine, and they were released after an all-day stressful experience. It was a pretty traumatic memory for them.



Then to make matters worse, the 2nd couple—not the driver couple—stopped in Nairobi on their way to their flat in Tanzania. When they got to their country, they were driving along and a motorcycle driver flipped a U-turn in front of them, and they hit him. They had to take him to the hospital—he has since been released, so they had their share of anxiety over the weekend because they had to spend another whole day in another court.



Our traffic experiences this weekend: On our way to the conference, a big semi stopped right in front of us, and we crashed into him—dinging our car hood. That was unnerving. He didn’t even feel it because he had big iron bumpers on the back of his truck.



Then we had to go to the hospital parking lot (more about this later). Parking here is really difficult. There just aren’t any places to park in any of the medical facilities we frequent. Often Neal lets me out and just drives around several different complexes to find a place. So we had been driving around the Aga Kahn Hospital parking lot looking to find a place. We were late getting there (got lost), but told the guards we needed to be admitted and could they help us find a place. They showed us to a stall right by their kiosk and watched as we parked.



Two days later, when we were released and pulling out of the parking stall, one of the guards told us that another parker had filed a complaint saying we had hit his car. He had since left the parking lot and wanted a settlement. We explained that we had not hit a car in the parking lot. We got out and took pictures. We were inside the line for our stall, and he would have had to have parked into our space for us to have hit him head on. We gave the parking manager our card and called our car czar at the Mission to have him speak with the manager.



After the parking manager saw us taking pictures and then talking to the car czar, they let us go. We haven’t heard any more about it, but it has certainly been a traffic weekend!



Visiting teaching is difficult here because the distances are really far and the cost for transport prohibitive. We have therefore, told the branch presidents that we will take the R.S. Presidencies to the homes so they can do it. Last week we took the branch president, the R.S. Pres and R.S. 1st Counselor to visit probably the wealthiest home we’ve seen here among the members.



The father in the home is in the District Presidency and is a vet, who works for the Government. They have a lovely home and shamba. Their latrines are brick—something we’ve never seen anywhere else—still drop holes, but with cement floors and brick walls.



They have an outside kitchen (which everyone has), but theirs was really a nice one. The oven and stove combined were of smooth clay. One side contained an open fire into which they could put bread-like meals, they could cook on top, and then on the other side they had a hole where the maid could put chapatis (like Indian fry bread) to keep warm. On still another extension, they had made a baby chicken incubator with fencing in front of it. The heat from the stove permeated that section to keep the chickens warm. It was very ingenious. While there, the maid--a very old woman--no English, was making yogurt. They take a vegetable gourd hollowed out, decorate it with beautiful beads, and pour raw milk into it. They then poke a stick they have burned in the fire into the milk and stir and stir it and leave it to ferment. Voila! Yogurt. We didn't take the proffered sample.



They kept baby tilapia in the water trough the cows drink from. When the fish get big enough, they are transported to a larger pond. They have beehives on the place. It is a going concern.



Inside the house, they had a large car battery strapped to a chair. It actually looked like an electric chair with the wooden arms and all the wires going up to the ceiling. They used this battery in combination with solar panels to power their single dangling light bulb and TV. . . one of the few TVs we have seen. They also had a posho mill sitting in the living room to grind their maize.



They treated us very kindly and graciously. They had their hired help come in for the visiting teaching message. We probably had 13 people in the room. They have an old couple—she is about 80 I think—no teeth—from the Turkana tribe, who work for them doing the cooking and fieldwork.



The ladies did a good job giving the lesson. We had prayers and songs opening and closing. Then the family wanted to feed us. We try really, really hard not to eat when we visit, and then we worry about offending their kindness. On the other hand, if we eat there and then refuse to eat in other homes where people cannot really afford to feed us without taking food from their children, the word gets out that we are selective about where we eat, and that causes offense too. Africans are very hospitable and offering food to a guest is sacred.



So, we try to not eat anywhere so we are never in a situation where we are taking food from them that they need for their own family. I did explain that privately to the hostess, and I think she was okay with it.



The other issue connected with this is that she and her hired help started at 7AM to cook for us. Often when we arrive, the wife will leave the room to cook, and then we can’t teach and include her, so we try to always warn them before we come…”no food”. We did not eat, but the others did on this occasion. So, we were there for a visiting teaching appointment for about 4 hours. We tried to encourage the sisters to keep it to 15-20 minutes and no food in the future or it will take a LOOONG time to get their VT done each month.



They explained as we drove along in the car that it has only been since they have joined the Church in very recent times that they have been allowed to speak their husband’s name when he is in the room or to even speak at all without his permission. So, for them to sit as families in Church has been a real cultural taboo for them.



Bus Security As we drove down the road we saw an Easy Coach Bus. It is more expensive than other buses. The ladies said it is because it is safer. The driver wands the passengers with a detector before they get on the bus because on other buses, people have been robbed by fellow passengers.



We left that home and traveled to another far distant area in the branch. It was absolutely pouring so hard that we could not see in front of us much of the time. We wound our way down one muddy (big gouges in the road—up small cliffs only to fall in the abyss on the way down—sliding as we went). We came to the maize field around the house, and then we made a run for it—again slipping and sliding in the mud until we reached the mud house and bolted door of our next visit.



We threw the bolt and pushed into the darkness. The house was totally dark, and it took a minute for us to distinguish two women and several children huddled there in the blackness. I wonder what they thought as we burst in upon the midst of lightning and thunder. It was surreal to sit there in the dark with the rain just pounding on the tin roof above us. We couldn’t see the people or hear them as we melted dripping upon their dirt floor. We were really glad to meet L. one of the two women in the house.



She is 70 years old, and was cast out of her polygamous compound when she was a young woman. She was unable to have children for a long time. She gave birth to a stillborn finally, so her husband cast her out many, many years ago. She returned to her parents’ home, next to her brother and his wife, where she has lived ever since. She is faithful to the gospel and walks 2 hours to Church and 2 hours back each week. She still packs water on her head every single day.



The dam: We went to another area visiting less-active members with the branch president. He is very politically involved in his village, a well-informed good man about 36 years old. He heard that a meeting with government officials was going to be held later on in the day last week. So, he attended and was glad he did. The officials announced that a dam is going to be constructed which will cover 100,000 acres and require that 10,000 people be relocated. This would take in many members of his branch plus the rented building we use.



He was one of 4-6 people who spoke during the meeting and said his comments were well received by the people and by the government officials. Some of the people thought they would get land to replace their property, but there is no land to be given—it would be a cash thing, but many feared they would not get as much as they thought their land was worth—maybe ½ what they thought. They don’t want to go to relocation camps. He was going to meet with more government officials the day we were visiting. He said they were very interested in hearing what the people had to say.



We asked if the dam would impact his place where he lives far out and up on a mountain. He said it would bring crocodiles and hippos to his shamba, and that would be a problem for their family.



We visited several more families that day. One man, Wilson, has been a member for many years, but is very inactive because it takes him 3 hours one way to get to Church, and he can’t afford to take transport. He comes from an active family, and several of his siblings live in other branches and serve actively. He is a bachelor and had some other men with us during the meeting. They pointed to us, and one of the men commented, “You eat well.” They are hungry.



We visited another delightful family. One of the aunts was in the room and she was really a character. She offered us her daughter, named Jackie. The girl is about 16, and mom thought it would be good for her to go to America. She said, “You pronounce my name through your nose. We told her we could not take her daughter either now or in the future. There were three women in the room--all wives in polygamous relationships. After our meeting with them, they walked across the compound and through the field with us to another of the brothers in this large family. The three women became very subdued during that visit, whereas they had been funny and talkative with us in the first home. After we left the second, the priesthood brethren with us explained that the wife in the second home is very dominant and they are kind of fearful of her. They were all really nice and we had a good gospel discussion in both places.



We helped S.B. and his very pregnant wife and their 5 year old twins move down to Kitale. The twins were all eyes as we drove through the countryside. I think it was probably the first time they had been in a car. We asked if they were excited to move to a new house. They speak no English. They are absolutely darling. I asked them, "how do you build a house?" Only one of them will even try to speak to us. He said, “You take mud and timber for the door and iron sheets for the roof.” Pretty astute I think.



We moved them from their mud home on their family compound, to Kitale to a very poor place. They have a community pump near, but no electricity. It is a very tight, small compound with row houses and doors that all open to a small, garbage covered courtyard. It would be so hard to move there. Lots of people, lots of noise, music blaring, lots of kids with very worldly ways, lots of exposure to things I’m sure these twins have never heard or seen living upcountry with only their cousins to play with.



S.B. is going to go to college. His pregnant wife just graduated in Community Nursing (3 year program) about a month ago. She has been living in Nairobi for school for 3 years, and he has been mom and dad to the kids with his mother and aunt helping him on their rural family compound. He has been serving as probably our best branch president in terms of organization and just intellectual and spiritual acuity. Now he is going to go to school in Public Administration. He will be such an asset to Africa and to the Church. He is so gifted and so smart. We moved him last Thursday, and she had her baby about an hour ago. Today is the next Thursday. I can’t imagine what that has been like for her to be moving into that place in the rain and having to cart water and having so little of life’s necessities and comfort. They keep saying, “We’ll adjust. This is just for 3 more years. It will be okay.” She will need to start to work in a few months as a requirement to repay the grants she got to go to school. They will have to get day care for the kids.



Kidney stones and hospitalization: Now we come to what I was really going to write about. Sorry, some of us are long winded. About a month ago, we were in Eldoret to do a training. We arrived Friday night and stayed over at a hotel. We went out to eat, and when I returned, I felt really sick. I threw up (really a rare thing for me—I probably could count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I’ve thrown up in my life) and had severe back pain….like writhing on the bed. I thought I was having a kidney stone attack or food poisoning. I started literally praying because we are so far from medical care that we would trust. I started to drink like crazy. It finally passed.



Then Sunday, I had another attack like the first one, only without throwing up. Again, I started to pray earnestly and drink like mad, and it passed.



When we got to the couple’s conference this Saturday, I still wasn’t feeling great, and thought it was either a kidney stone or more likely a bladder infection. I found a bottle of Cipro in our medicine chest (expiration Feb 2007) and took it, thinking we would be going to Nairobi on Monday, and I needed to see the doctor anyway for the bites/hives. I just didn’t feel well.



We got into Nairobi Monday morning and into the doctor about 11:00AM. Had a urine culture, found blood, but the Cipro I had taken masked whether there was any pus, which would indicate a bladder infection. So he sent me for a C-Scan to an old hospital here in Nairobi.



That was a cultural shock, oh my goodness. I wanted to go home right there on the spot. It was so dirty, the floors, the walls, clutter everywhere and bodies….everywhere we looked crowds of people stood waiting, blank stares, waiting, waiting.



The receptionist sat behind a battered counter amid piles of xrays, forms, and folders. To her side dirty, broken venetian blinds sagged with dirty tape covering the tears in them. I squeezed onto a sagging vinyl couch with 5 other people and began our vigil. We could look through the dirty window enclosing the tiny reception area to view the nurses behind their station just opposite us. They were surrounded by scattered papers and charts, loading needles with large plungers.


Our receptionist talked on the phone during the entire wait first to one friend and then another, laughing and seemingly oblivious to us. Her first question (squeezed between comments to her phone friend) was “Have you taken your gallon of water yet?” I told her I had not. So, she had me drink 4 cups of water and then sit and wait. I have a problem waiting because of a small bladder anyway. She said, “Just sit and wait. We will take you in then.”



An hour passed, and I was absolutely in misery. I broke into her phone conversation and said “I have got to go. Where is the restroom.” She said, “You can’t do that. You must wait.” “How much longer,” I asked. “Only a few more minutes 2-3” Ten minutes more passed, and I could not stand it. I stood up and begged her. “I have to go. I’ll drink another 4 cups if you want, but I can’t wait.” She was unsympathetic to say the least. I was pacing and very distraught. I had decided I would go out in the bushes…



Then the doctor appeared and wanted to take me in. I said, “How long will this procedure last? I have to go. I don’t think I can do it “ He said, “Oh, only about 5-10 minutes.” The C-scan room was old and the walls were dirty. The floor was dirty and had garbage or old papers around. He had me undress and lie down on the table for the C-scan. He did the scan (you lie down with your hands clasped over your head) perfect position to rest the bladder—not! Anyway, the scanner stopped, and I continued to lie there with my eyes closed. I couldn’t hear anything, so I started to talk to him. “Are we done? Can I go to the bathroom now?” No response. I asked again. No response. No doctor. I was lying there alone.



I started calling…4 times I called getting louder and louder until I was screaming and crying. “Help! Help! Please get me out of this thing. Please come and help me.” Finally, he came in and let me go to a custodial closet in the same room—a filthy place to go to the bathroom. I didn’t care at that point. I just wanted to go. When I finally emerged, he said they would have to do it again only this time with the contrast dye. So a tech came in to insert the needle. He did swab it with alcohol, for which I was grateful.



I didn’t mind the rest of it, because I was finally bladder empty. That was one of the absolute worst experiences of my entire life. Just to write about it brings back the whole trauma of it. So, needless to say, I was truly ready to fly home, stone or not, rather than go through surgery in that place.



We returned to the doctor, in whom we have great faith. He is so good. He is East Indian, wears a turban, and is very urbane. Every experience we have had with him has been positive, and we trust him. He said, “I use that hospital because the doctor for C-scans is so good, and we can get the reports back very fast. But, I will send you to a urologist in another hospital, and both the doctor there and the hospital are very clean and you will be pleased with the service. “ He said,” I would not send you to a doctor that I wouldn’t go to myself.”



So, we walked across the street to the Aga Kahn hospital and to the doctor’s plaza where we met the urologist. He is also Indian, and was trained in Britain and the states. His office could have been in the states—clean, professional. He was using his I-pad to arrange the appointment. He was knowledgeable and very affable. He took a long time with us explaining all the possible contingencies he may encounter. He made no promises about getting the larger stone. The tech in C-scan had told me there were 6 stones, but only 2 in the ureter. The urologist explained there were 2 stones in the ureter and the other 6 were scars and calcium deposits from past kidney stone surgeries I had had.



He said the smaller stone was the one causing the pain because it was only about 2 centimeters from the bladder and had been working its way down from the kidney for some time. It was 4X4X5 mm. The larger one was up by the kidney 8X9X11 mm or about 1 cm across. It would be the harder one to remove, because as he took the laser up, it would enlarge the opening and release the stone where it was lodged, and then it could flow up into the kidney and be difficult to blast.



He invited us to take a tour of the hospital, which we did. It wasn’t as nice as hospitals we are used to, but it was 10,000 times better than the one we saw the day before. We had a private room and private shower. So, we decided to have it done here. He said there was no way I could wait to have it done in the states or So Africa because of the pain. So, we checked in at 5PM that night, and had the surgery at 5:30 yesterday morning.



I think they put less medicine in the IV than we do in the states. The pain meds were by shot, and they did some other procedures through shots, and that was not nice, but all in all we had a very excellent experience with the nurses and the hospital. The doctor came in twice and the anesthesiologist came in twice. She was Indian as well, probably in her 50s. They were kind and knowledgeable it seemed. Neal slept on a couch/bed and stayed with me throughout. I was so grateful he could be there. I was almost as afraid to stay in the hospital alone as to having the surgery.



The doctor was able to blast both stones and gave us a DVD of the whole thing. It cost about $5,000 for both the hospital and the doctors. We spent two nights and 1 ½ days in the hospital. We are now staying in an empty couple flat for at least 10 days. The stent comes out on the 17th, and it was felt that driving to Kitale and then turning around to drive back would not be a good idea. Besides it is nice to be within calling distance if anything goes wrong with the stent. I think if anything, the doctors here have been more affable and willing to talk with us than our experiences in the states.



We talked a long time with the Mission Pres and his wife just before the surgery. They were both very kind and understanding. We have had so many medical problems and still face more with several issues. Sister BB said, “You have put in a good mission and given your all. You need to decide with the Lord whether you can finish. You don’t need to feel at all guilty if you decide to go home, and it is just too hard to continue. This is a hard mission, and you have been serving in a very hard area in the mission. You need to go to the flat and rest up and together pray about what you can do for the next 5 ½ months. We are fine with whatever you decide and are just grateful for all you’ve already done.” Then Neal and the president gave me a blessing, with Neal as mouth, and then the president gave me a separate blessing. So, we are doing a lot of thinking, talking and praying to figure out what we will do.



We think we will modify our travel if we stay so that we aren’t going out to such remote, muddy places where the roads are so hard on our backs. WE don’t know how that will be because regularly 5 days every week we are on those roads and often 7 days a week. So, that is the rundown on the last two weeks.


THE FALL: We are especially close to one couple here in the mission, the B's. They are from Blanding, Utah, and just such down to earth people. We love them. We have stayed with them several times and they have stayed with us a couple of times as well when they do training in our area. We were having a buffet dinner at the lodge at the Couple's Conference and as she squeezed between the dining tables and the wall, she tripped and fell, breaking the glass plate she was carrying. As she fell to the floor face first, her hand slid into the broken glass cutting her palm quite badly. The mission president is a dentist, his wife is a nurse, and we have 3 nurses in the couples and a podiatrist, so she had the best kind of care, but her hand is worrisome. She was in to see our doctor while we were there. They have decided to use a cream that regenerates skin to cover the gouge that she made in the fall. It takes a month to regenerate the skin (if it works). If not, they will probably have to skin grafts for her. I'm telling you, it has been quite a weekend.