December 6th

I spent the whole morning stuck in the house typing up some stuff
including some of my chemistry exams. When I first got here I
stayed inside a lot because I didn’t want to be outside, now
whenever I have to stay inside I want nothing more than to be
outside. After lunch I walked down to the tailor’s to pick up quite
an array of items. I picked up two skirts for Rebecca, one skirt and
a wedding outfit for Emma, Tom and I’s shirts for the wedding, as
well as I shirt I had made. I wanted another shirt that I could wear
to teach in so I him copy one of my button up shirts but I used
African cloth, it’s quite a nice shirt, it turned out good. I returned
to the hospital and tracked Tom down so that I could get the key
to the barn/storage room where the shipment stuff is. Since I have
almost a whole month off I want to try and help them get as much
of it sorted as possible. Rebecca came down and helped me sort
stuff, we mostly did medical stuff because we know that there’s a
lot of it. We did a lot for only working for about an hour and a half.
After that we went for a little walk with Emma, Zoey and this
woman named Laura who is coming to take Zoey’s place as
program coordinator since Zoey is leaving in a little over a week. A
call came in for the ambulance and Rebecca went with it. So the
rest of us walked down to the place where Zoey stays to take some
stuff there. While we waited for Zoey and Laura to do some things
Emma and I walked from there to the edge of Kamakwie three and
back. Along the way I showed her the Kamakwie mansion. In
Kamakwie two there is this massive house, it even has a split level.
I imagine a lot of family members live in that house. Then we
travelled back to Zoey’s and collected her and Laura to come up to
the house for dinner. We had rice and ground nut (peanut) soup. It
was really good. I think I said it before, but soup is what they call
the sauce that they put over rice, it’s not really soup at all. After
dinner I went down with Tom to the hospital because I heard
Solomon was still down there and I wanted to go say hey and see
what he was up to since he should have been off some time this
afternoon having worked in the morning. Just as we were arriving
at the hospital Rebecca and the ambulance returned. There was
no woman. Apparently the people called both the Kamakwie
hospital and the Makeni hospital. Our ambulance got there first
but the one from Makeni arrived shortly after and the husband
insisted his wife go to Makeni since they wouldn’t have to pay
anything, so stupid. I mean, it makes sense I guess, but the worst
thing is that there isn’t currently any diesel in Kamakwie so the
diesel they used to try and get her was precious. Anyway, we
entered the hospital and went to the OB ward where Solomon
was (I found out he was there because the midwife in charge of
OB tonight was out in the ambulance that wasted fuel to go get
a woman and got nothing.) I saw that Samuel was there as well
so we all had a little sit down in the OB ward while waiting for
this lady who was very near going into labor to go into labor. Her
family came and dropped her off and then left, sometimes I
wonder what goes through these people’s minds. The worst
thing is that the girl is 16 and the guy who got her pregnant ran
off. While I think that if you don’t want to have a kid don’t be
fooling around, but I would love to just castrate the coward who
got her pregnant and then ran off. Sadly that’s life I guess, a guy
has very little to worry about, he can just run off leaving a poor
woman with a child and possibly no means to care for it. It just
makes me mad. I didn’t get to witness this birth but I hope to
get to observe one in the future. Anyway, after the baby was
born we all headed out, I think I’m pretty close to being ready
for bed myself. So since that’s about all that I have for today I’m
gonna say good night and God bless.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks