Puff Adders and Orphans

Another busy day--which is a very good thing as hanging around this house is pretty much impossible . . .
The Dispensary at Siyapei was open until 1 p.m. this afternoon. I saw quite a few more kids today as the word seems to be spreading that there's a pediatrician in the 'neighborhood.' Stephen saved the day when a little boy who had been sitting on a bench in the outdoor waiting area ran headlong into the clinic, panic stricken. "Snake! Snake!" the little boy screamed. And sure enough, a baby Puff Adder was curled up under that boy's bench. Stephen crushed the snake's head with a wooden club, then set it afire behind the clinic. Stephen assured us, several times, that the bite of a Puff Adder kills within fifteen minutes . . . This afternoon, Shadrack (the nurse that runs this place) took Kristin, Brenna, my mom and I down the road and across the highway to Siyapei Children's Home. Shadrack, who is now 27 and recently graduated from the nursing school at Kijabe, grew up in the Siyapei Children's Home--his younger brother is still there. Shadrack has 7 brothers and sisters; his father died in 1988 and since his mother was an uneducated Maasai woman and had no way to support 8 children, she had to give the younger kids up to the Children's Home. Shadrack's mom is still alive, though she lives way out in the bush.

Shadrack and I ran another mobile clinic in the dining hall of the orphanage, the girls again acting as pharmacists. We saw some girls from the boarding school that we didn't get to yesterday, and many of the 37 orphans living at the Children's Home. The matron acted as my interpreter. Mostly just viral respiratory infections, but a couple of kids with malaria--bringing the day's total of smear positive malaria cases to four. I'm LOVING that mefloquine!

The Siyapei Children's Home is quite a grim place. There is one dormitory building--boys downstairs, girls upstairs. The kids each have a wooden bunk bed, a thin mattress, a sheet, a blanket and a small trunk to keep their one change of clothes in and any mementos they have from family members. There is a dining hall with rough plank tables, and a small 'library' (that has not a single book) with tables and chairs for doing homework. All the kids are dressed in rags, some clothing items so thin you can see right through them.

The most amazing thing is that as grim and Spartan as it is, a large percentage of prior residents have gone on to university in Nairobi and others to technical schools (Shadrack is a good example.) The loan matron who watches over these 37 kids is doing an unbelievable job encouraging these kids and holding their lives together, and the school up the road--that we worked at yesterday--is doing a great job giving these desperate kids a decent education. The orphanage gets some nominal financial support from an organization in the Netherlands, and otherwise relies on the occasional 'well-wisher' donations. Kristin and Brenna are already plotting a fund raiser at Ballard to buy books.

Tomorrow (Sunday) we are going on safari in Maasai Mara. We are taking Benjamin (lab tech,) Vivian (RN,) Stephen and Shadrack--all of whom grew up in this area and have never seen the wildlife of Maasai Mara. They are all so excited they can hardly stand it.

Photos: puff adder, seyapei dispensary; children's home clinic; girls' dorm, seyapei children's home; orphanage grounds; office, seyapei children's home.