February 9th

I went down to the hospital this morning about 8 or so to join
Laura on rounds. Emily does the pediatric ward, so I’m not really
chomping at the bit to go on rounds with her considering my
love/hate relationship with that ward. Rounds went pretty good
albeit a little slow, the medical students are very thorough, which
is good, but when trying to see over 40 patients that means it
takes a while. We made it to men’s ward and saw most of the
cases before I had to leave to get ready for school. Since they
hadn’t even gone back over the wards with Tom and Karen was
still down at the hospital I just grabbed a couple of snacks for
lunch. Classes went ok. I’m still struggling with the SS 3s, they are
the ones who need the most work and the ones seemed the least
interested in learning. Part of their problem is their study habits,
staying up all night and then only sleeping maybe a few hours a
day so when they come to me at or near the end of the day they
are too mentally fatigued to do anything. I’ve tried and tried to
convince them that this won’t work, to no avail. The others are
doing better at least. We are still making progress a little bit at a
time. After I got home from classes I got to listen to Emily and
Laura go over some of the common intestinal parasites here,
going over transmission, symptoms and treatment. It was
interesting to hear but before Tom allowed me to listen he made
me promise one thing, that I wouldn’t immediately decide that I
had any or all of them, haha. I told him that I am the type of person
who watches a drug commercial and after hearing the symptoms
thinks I have what it treats. A bit silly, I know and I don’t really think
I have it, just a first thought before I discount it. After that I spent
most of the evening relaxing. The weather here is killing me. Not
that it’s really that hot, but the temperature will drop (relatively)
low and then spike back up and I guess it’s not making my body very
happy because I haven’t had much energy lately. On the bright side
I am getting a lot of reading done, which I love so it’s not too
horrible. Nothing else much is really going on.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks

February 8th


This morning the girls decided to go ahead and eat with us. Tom made
pancakes, they were really good. After we finished eating, Emily, Laura
and I all headed down to the hospital. This morning I rounded on the
women’s ward and then men’s ward with Laura. It was quite a good
experience. She’s going to be a good doctor and it also helped me get
a little more input into the situations. The morning went pretty smoothly
I think. Not too bad overall. I had to leave before we finished rounding on
men’s ward to go get ready for school and to grab something to eat. While
I was going to the restroom I noticed in the mirror that they had missed
some hair around the crown of my skull, and it was sticking straight up…
So I took the clippers and trimmed it down myself. It wasn’t very hard, I
could probably give myself a haircut if I cared to try, which I don’t mind you.
School was again not too exciting. With the SS 3s I did some practical stuff,
identifying chemicals by the way they react to other chemicals, doing serial
dilutions and a couple other things. Then I had the SS 2s for biology. I gave
them their test and then just finished out the period teaching. When I got
back home Tom wasn’t here. So I headed down to the hospital and found
Tom there with Laura and Emily finishing up the clinic. After they finished
up there we headed over to the wards and found things weren’t quite all in
order. So we spent (we being they with me watching) a little over an hour
sorting things out. By the time it was all done with and everything was
sorted out we had set up a patient with meds that desperately needed
them but didn’t have them (the surgery case I observed on the 6th),
ordered some tests on a man likely to die very soon (we don’t know what
he has and they suspect that even if we figure it out his chances aren’t good,
another case of waiting too long) and a little girl with meningitis was gone,
taken home by her parent’s and is pretty much guaranteed to die now. We
have no idea why they left. They were just simply gone. So it was overall
not a very good evening. We all headed down to Pa Kanu’s for a soft drink.
I love Fanta, I was never partial to it at home but it’s such a wonderful
treat here that I think it’s amazing. After that we headed home, prepared
dinner and waited for Karen to arrive. It was nice to see her again (and of
course regain access to the internet, haha). After dinner I went down to
the hospital with the medical students to check on two cases and make
sure they were doing as well as possible, things were ok so we headed back
up and that puts me here, so with that I’ll wrap this up. Have a great evening.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks

February 7th


This morning it was just Tom and I for breakfast. The medical students
decided to go down to the hospital and skip breakfast to start on
preliminary rounds. They wanted to have a chance to have more input
on the patients and if Tom is there it would be harder. Anyway, after
finishing breakfast, I headed down to the hospital because I didn’t want
to miss too much of the preliminary rounds because once Tom goes
back around to see the patients that the medical students have already
reviewed I would miss my favorite part, the diagnosing. I love to hear
the symptoms, see how the patient looks and do my best to try and
figure out what’s going on. Not that I can do a whole lot considering I
have no medical training but I have seen many cases and so I try. I think
I may over voice my opinion, I haven’t really asked, but Laura and Emily
say that they think I have a good thought process for medicine, that I ask
good questions. So that makes me feel good. I went with Tom and Emily
to review the Pediatric and OB wards. That went ok then we moved
onto women’s ward where it was the three of us and Laura was leading
through the patients. We got through women’s and moved onto men’s,
we finished men’s medical side and then I had to head up to the house to
make lunch. I also did some prep work for classes today. After lunch I
headed off to school. School went well, except that I forgot it was the first
Monday of the month and so they have their chapel session and the first
two classes of the day are essentially canceled. I only miss one period
since I don’t start till the second period but I was mildly annoyed
(couldn’t be too upset, I did forget) because I was planning on giving the
SS 2s a test but that had to be put off until tomorrow. The SS 3s and 1s
got their tests today. Other than that classes went fine today, still making
small progress. After classes I headed back up to the house to prepare
dinner. I had offered to do so since they would be in the hospital all day
and teaching isn’t all that stressful. I made a new dish this evening; it was
called Impossible Cheeseburger Pie. It came out real good but the whole
time I was cooking it stressed me out because things were just not going
as they were supposed to. But the end result was good so I’m happy. After
dinner I had Emily and Laura take a stab at cutting my hair. They just used
an electric trimmer so it wasn’t exactly complicated. They did a pretty good
job. Emily did the rough job cutting off most of the hair then Laura did the
fine trimming and such. They had fun doing it interestingly enough. I’m glad
it came out ok but I didn’t care that much, I just wanted the hair gone; it’s too
hot for long hair (not that it was really that long, probably just over an inch).
And that brings me to where I
sit, writing this entry, so I guess that’s all. Have a great evening.

Blessings from Kamakwie
Ryan Brooks

February 6th


Today was a nice day, in a way. We had breakfast at about 7:15ish
(normally we do it later on the weekend but the engineers were
leaving this morning). After they finished up and headed out I gave
Kelsey, Kim, and her sons a tour of the team house and the hospital
before seeing them off. After they left I did the breakfast dishes
then moved the fold out beds from the house where Kim and the
others stayed. Tom, Emily and Laura were too busy at the hospital
to go to church. Later, I decided to read my bible, while I was
reading my bible I accidently fell asleep for a little over an hour and
only woke up when Emily and Laura got to the house for lunch. So I
had to get up and get lunch made really quickly. I just made some
chicken soup and threw in a can of mixed vegetables, it was actually
really good. After lunch we went down to the hospital because there
was a man who had symptoms suggesting a possible bowel
perforation. So Tom was going to do an exploratory laparotomy
(sorry to the squeamish) which is where they cut into the abdomen
and “explore” the abdominal region to determine the source of
abdominal problems. I got to observe and it was absolutely
fascinating. I had less trouble watching this procedure than
watching a c-section. I won’t give the details for the sake of all of
you who don’t want to know, but I really enjoyed it (as morbid as
that might be). He did have a hole in his intestine. I just hope now
that he makes it alright after having to go through the operation,
but that’s to be seen. The procedure finished around 5:30 so after
getting him all settled in the men’s ward we headed back to the
house. I made dinner for us tonight. I made chicken chili, I think
it’s really good and everyone told me that they enjoyed it. After we
ate we spent a while just sitting around the table talking. At about
8 or so we headed down to the hospital to see the man and check
on how he is doing. Not much change since earlier other than that
he had woken up and was aware. They checked on a couple other
patients while we were down there. We stopped in the pediatric
ward. Still not a ward I like very much, there is a little girl with
malaria and meningitis and not doing very well, that always make
me sad. I know, I’m a glutton for punishment, going there knowing
how it makes me feel, but it’s also too interesting to avoid. After
that we headed back up to the house where Tom and I spent a
while talking. Then we realized we’d forgotten to clean the water
filter and so we took care of that. That’s about all for my day today;
it was pretty interesting but not too busy. Have a great night!

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks

February 5th

So, today was a pretty fun day. I went for a little walk this
morning around 10:30, not very far because then I thought
maybe Laura and Emily might like to go since they haven’t
really gotten off hospital grounds since they arrived. But I
got back to find that they were doing some things at the
hospital and couldn’t go. So Tom and I went downtown in
the car to try and find some tomatoes at the market and to
get some bread. We were unable to get any tomatoes, all
they had were these little ones that look like cherry
tomatoes but are very sour, not very good. So we grabbed
some bread and headed up to the house. Around the time
we got back to the house a van came up to the house. It
was Kim from the Women’s Hope group. With her were
two of her kids, Tiana and Jeremiah as well as Kelsey.
Kelsey helps her with the program in some way, I’m afraid
I’ve forgotten what she does exactly. I met her once before
but I don’t remember if I wrote about it. That was back in
October. Anyway, Kim was coming to have a small operation
done. We had to arrange lunch while Tom and Karen were
the procedure which was interesting. We made some of the
Kraft macaroni and cheese the medical students brought
which was wonderful. It’s been so long since I’ve had
macaroni and cheese like that, since before I left for here I
know for sure. After lunch I took Kelsey and the two kids
downtown to see Kamakwie since they had never been
here. We stopped at Pa Kanu’s and one of the guys working
referred to me as Jeremiah’s father. They are pretty quick
to make assumptions. When they see me with a girl near my
age she must be my wife. An older woman or man must be
my father or mother and a kid must be my kid. Oh well.
Jeremiah wasn’t too happy about it but I just laughed. We
got some drinks and after we finished them I showed them
a little more of Kamakwie and then we headed up to the
house. We got back a little before four, when we were
supposed to meet Emily and Laura and then go on another
walk. We saw them there and they said they had stuff to
do at the hospital so they couldn’t go, which was ok since
I was tired. So I spent some time talking to Kelsey. About
five or so she and I took her stuff down to their room where
they were going to be staying only to find out we had been
given the wrong key. So we called for the right one and just
sat waiting for it to come talking, about life, music,
anything really. About 20 minutes later the lady came with
the key so we had to go in only to find out that the second
bed supposed to be in the room had been moved. So we
had the second bed from one of the other rooms back to
where it belonged. It was quite an adventure trying to
maneuver it through all the doorways, the bedroom door,
the outside door, into the other room and finally into the
other room’s bedroom. Once we got that done we got
everything moved in and got the fold out beds set up for
the two kids. By time we got everything done and set up it
was dinner time so we headed up to the house. After
dinner I talked with Kelsey a bit more before we headed
into the living room where a game of four-way monkey in
the middle ensued. Those two kids had way too much
energy but it was really fun. We played for probably about
an hour. But at about 8:30 they had to head down to their
place to get ready for bed. After they left I talked with Tom
and Karen for a bit before heading over to the team house
to get the internet stick so I could send this blog out
tonight, on time for once, since Karen leaves in the morning
for a few days. I got over there and had to wait while they
finished up a few things and while I waited Gary showed me
a few videos on his computer. One was hilarious it was a
rabbit attacking and chasing a snake off. It was great! Once
they were done I walked home only to be asked to carry
some suitcases over to the team house. After I finished that
I sat down to write this blog, so that’s about it. I hope you
are all ok. I’m going to try and stay on top of my blogs so
you don’t have to wait so much anymore. I’m sorry I’ve
been so bad about it. Have a great week. I’ll write again
when Karen gets back.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks

February 4th

Another less than exciting morning, I decided I wasn’t up to going
down to the hospital. I just felt like writing so I spent some time
working on a story, got four pages in and then decided I didn’t like
it and it wasn’t turning out how it had in my mind so I decided to
stop writing it. Classes today were ok, I only had two of my three
classes. They canceled the last class of the day to pass out report
cards from first term, four weeks into second term. Talk about
slow. With the SS 1s I just finished going over cockroaches. I tried
to draw a cockroach but I don’t think I did a very good job. The
students thought so though, so I guess that’s ok. I tried to at least
give them an idea of part placement on the cockroach even if I
couldn’t show them what the parts actually look like. I had to give
them a little talking to about studying before the test so that if
they have any questions they can ask me. The day of the test is
too late for that. Class with my SS 2s wasn’t so good. I was not
very happy with them. The majority of them failed my quiz/test.
Only one kid obtained a passing grade before I curved it. I was
worried maybe it was too hard but when I asked who studied
only half the kids said they had at all, and the ones who had said
they’d studied only on Wednesday. So I had to have a chat with
them about what they should be and what their current level
of effort was going to get them, absolutely nothing. I told them
if they didn’t start working NOW then when WASSCE time
comes for them next year they would fail. They seemed to
understand, but we’ll see. I’ve had similar talks with them
before. I also explained the advantages of studying before the
day of the test with them. After class I visited Solomon for a
little bit. He told me about a guy who had come in last night
unable to pass urine. The guy told him that it hurt so much that
he prayed to die, then thought about how painful dying could
be then prayed that he wouldn’t die. I guess that doesn’t seem
very humorous, but it did a little when Solomon told me. After
dinner I waited until 8 to take a board game over to where
the two nursing students and the guys from Itech are staying,
Settlers of Catan. When I got there I heard they went to the
hospital to see a snake-bite victim. When I got there they told
me the boy had died. He was fourteen years old. A death is
never easy, but it seems particularly hard when it’s someone
that young. I mean I literally watched a man die before my
eyes and that wasn’t as hard as just hearing about the death
of someone that young. And it’s not like he was careless or
anything. He had been in his home, reached into a cupboard
to get something and wham, done. Every time I see or hear
about someone dying here it’s like somebody plunges a
dagger into my heart. It makes me so sad. Not only does it
seem fair to die (especially so young) but life is hard enough,
but it also leaves the family to go on without the person. I
can’t by any means fathom that is easy by any margin. One
of my college friends died last year and that was hard enough,
but to lose a family member so prematurely, I can’t imagine.
Karen told me it would be hard, and it is. I don’t think it’s too
hard to deal with but it takes a little time for the occurrence
to settle. Anyway, I don’t mean to be a downer. I don’t know
if those of you who read this do this regularly. But these
people need all the prayers they can get, so the more the
better. Thanks. Anyway, after that we returned to the house
and set up the board game and played a game. Emily ended
up winning. I did pretty poorly. I hedged my bets around a
couple of numbers of high probability numbers but they didn’t
roll much and I couldn’t get the resources I needed. I only had
four points by the games end. Well, that about wraps up the
fluffy bunny, rainbow experiences for the day. Night all.

God bless,
Ryan Brooks

February 3rd

So today went pretty well. I started out the morning going around
the women’s ward with Dr. Tom and part way through the medical
student Laura joined us. One lady has what is called
spleenomegaly, which is an enlarged spleen, and hers was huge.
It was so large you could see it bulging all the way down her side.
Normally you can’t see it at all but hers was clearly visible. Usually
here it’s due to prolonged malaria which attacks the red blood
cells and the destroyed red blood cells get stored there. Sure, you
probably don’t care to know about that, but it’s my blog and I can
do what I want so there. Haha, anyway, we continued on in the
ward but then I had to go help Alusine out. He’s been sick the last
couple of days but doesn’t have the means to pay for a visit to the
hospital. When he gets sick his method is to scrape together
whatever little he can run to one of the town pharmacy’s, buy
some Tylenol and take it. Not gonna work when you likely have
stomach parasites. So I got him registered to see the outpatient
nurse then returned to the wards. I went with Tom and Emily to
see the pediatric ward. I still have a love hate relationship with
that ward. The kids are cute but I can’t stand to see them sick.
Anyway, today wasn’t too bad, most of the kids were healthy.
Just as we were about to finish Alusine let me know he was done
so I went over to help him get his medicines. He also had to give
the lab a sample to test for parasites, which he couldn’t do until
the afternoon. Since I had to be teaching then I left the money
with Tom for anything he might need to get. I was right about
him having parasites but they set him up with the meds and that
should be all handled. Overall paying for his visit, lab test, and
medicine cost me very little (I wish I could get health care that
cheap) but he could never have paid that himself since his only
living family is his grandmother and she doesn’t work. He is at
the orphanage but I guess they don’t have provisions for the
kid’s healthcare because he said he’s not been to the hospital
since he was a very small child. Anyway, teaching went ok today.
I took the cockroach I had caught before to school to show to the
SS 1s, they laughed that I had actually caught one. I passed it
around but most of them didn’t want to hold it so I’m not sure
how much they saw it. I didn’t pay attention as I kept teaching as
they passed it around. I was two periods into my three with them
when they told me that it was time to go. They had to go up to
the school proper and register for their “house” one of four
groups they break the kids up into for spring sports. They do
track type stuff for their spring sports. It could be interesting
but I’m hoping they don’t let it interfere with school too
much. The teacher’s tell me it is part of their curriculum that
the kids do spring sports. So I let them go do that and headed
home and finished off the book I was reading. It was really
good. After dinner Laura, Emily and I were playing a game
called Bananagrams. I did really bad the first game. Then
Karen joined us. I proceeded to win the second one, lost a few
more and then won the last two. I don’t know if you know what
the game is, but it’s like speed scrabble. Each person has their
own tiles and has to make their own words. You work your way
through the tiles one at a time and the first person to use all
their tiles after they’ve all been taken wins. You have to keep
the words all connected just like traditional scrabble. It was fun.
I am particularly proud of my words I used to win the last game.
I had most of the letters to spell the word triumvirate and so I
decided I was going to build my puzzle around it. I made some
other words, like zealot, winnow, and fie. All four of which
were contested and I had to use a dictionary to prove it. I didn’t
even care if I won, I just wanted to spell triumvirate (part of my
obsession with Ancient Rome I guess). I didn’t have the T I
needed but I kept waiting and it paid off, I got it and ended up
winning. Of course, due to my use of several bigger words I
several pitiful words like pig, gum and so. Anyway, that was the
finisher for this evening (other than that we just learned that
our two cats are not in fact female but male, four months after
we got them…). Oh, and I called and talked to my dad which was
really nice but I didn’t get to say bye because I wasn’t paying
attention to how long the call was going and used up all my time.
Which makes me sad since it’s my Grandpa’s birthday and I don’t
have any credit left with which to call him. I’ll just have to call him
tomorrow after I’ve gotten some credit. Anyway, that will actually
wrap this entry in my adventure up. I wish you all a good evening.

Blessings from Kamakwie,
Ryan Brooks