In the morning, we awoke early and traveled to our guest house in Tumutumu where our partners from the Tumutumu School of Nursing were patiently awaiting our arrival. We quickly checked in and dropped off our belongings, and then met our partners. I was fortunate enough to be paired with my same partner from last year, and we were both excited to be reunited. Afterwards we loaded everyone onto the bus and traveled to Thageini Primary School.
When we arrived at the primary school, some of the students and teachers had already prepared some entertainment for us. The students sang and danced traditional songs and the school administrators and local community representatives welcomed us. One of our nurse practitioners, Joelle, had worked closely with an organization called Reach Out and Read in order to raise money to donate to the school for them to purchase books for the students. The staff at Thageini Primary School had the books they had purchased proudly displayed on the table in front of us for all to see. The principal of the school thanked her and assured us that all the money had been used to purchased books for the children.
Afterwards we broke into groups and visited classrooms in the school, as well as in another nearby primary school, Thageini Adventist Academy, and the local high school, Ithekahuno Secondary School. We went to talk to the students about healthy lifestyles, preventing cardiovascular disease, and our Tumutumu partners spoke to them about the importance of education and staying motivated in their studies. My group went to the high school and visited the second year there, which is equivalent to grade 10 in the US. The students were so shy! Since no one was brave enough to ask questions aloud, their teacher asked them to write them down and pass them up to us. We answered questions regarding diabetes, cardiovascular health, and the training required to become nurses in Kenya.
Once we had finished in the classroom, we walked back to the primary school to rejoin our other team members. We handed out some stickers to the children, and boy did they go wild! We we swarmed! We did our best to hand them out to all of the children around but they just kept coming! Eventually, we ran out of time and had to gather everyone to return to the bus and continue on to our next destination: Jacob’s home!
We drove back and were graciously welcomed by Jacob Kariuki’s family. For those of you who don’t know Jacob, he’s a former teacher at Tumutumu school of nursing who is now seeking his doctoral degree at UMass Boston and coordinating much of the project behind the scenes. We arrived as his family’s home to a lovely tent erected with chairs set up and a mountain of food waiting for all of us! They even had a stereo playing music set up. After washing our hands, we all sat down and took turns going up to serve ourselves lunch. Once the main course was over, tea, coffee, and dessert (delicious fruits) were served. Once everyone had finished eating, we were greeted by Jacob’s parents, siblings, and community elders and leaders. They all welcomed us and made us feel at home.
Soon afterwards, we were again divided into groups and sent off with local community elders to visit homes in the area of Thageini as part of our community immersion. The purpose of this was to help our US team members better understand the community they would be serving during our upcoming clinics. We attempted to gather information about the community’s perceived health problems and needs, access to health care, concerns, and their lifestyles. We gave out rice and beans as a thank you to the families for speaking with us.
We all returned to Jacob’s home after our community visits. Those of us that returned earlier than others got to see his family’s property a bit more. He explained the layout to us, showed us their cows and goats, as well as some farm equipment.
Once we had all returned, we gathered everyone onto the bus. We attempted to scrape the red clay mud and grass/hay from our shoes, but with little luck. It had been very rainy in the area lately, and the ground was covered in mud that clung to our shoes. Once we loaded up the bus, we didn’t make it far before we were stuck in said mud. We all got off the bus, while the community members threw sawdust under the wheels and attempted to push the bus free. Fortunately they were successful! We walked to the end of the road where it joined the tarmac again before getting back on. Once we were on the tarmac we made it the rest of the way back to the guest house without trouble.
We had originally hoped to tour Tumutumu hospital with our partners upon our return, but realized that was a bit too ambitious for the day. We instead returned to the guest house and awaiting the arrival of the hospital administrator, who wanted to welcome us all to the area. While we waiting, the UMass and Tumutumu students utilized the time to collaborate and discuss the next day’s clinic and go over the protocol for screening patients. The peer mentors met with the Tumutumu faculty to discuss how we would set up the clinic, and the flow of patients through various stations, as well as who would be working in each station. The graduate students and clinicians discussed what to expect and protocol for treatment. We then gave everyone a quick description of the plan and set up for the next day’s clinic, and a basic idea of what to expect.
Once the hospital administrator arrived and welcomed us to the area, we ate a quick dinner and cleared the room to begin packaging medications. We divided into smaller groups with our partners and sorted medications, counted pills, and packaged them into individual packets for the clinicians and nurse practitioner students to distribute to individual patients. This completed, we cleaned up and hurried to bed to get as much sleep as possible before beginning our first clinic the next morning.
We were all excited, nervous, and maybe a little apprehensive about what to expect. But mostly exhausted.