It's early Wednesday morning here. Today the medical team will hold their final clinic up in the village and the healing arts team will have their final day at New Dawn in Nairobi.

When the team arrives at the village, we are always warmly welcomed with the "mamas" singing for us. ("Mama" is the Swahili word for "women.")

​Thanks to a generous donation from Nike and from other donors, we are able to give new shoes to the children.

A home visit.
Dr. Bob is checking blood pressure (usually very high in this area) and Rueben is doing a blood test for diabetes. The house has a water collection system of collecting rainwater, and the lock on the spout emphasizes the preciousness of water here.

We've been without internet for a few days, plus there have been some major power outages in Kenya. All of us who are used to checking in and posting all the time are happy to be back online!

The medical team is working hard in the village. As usual, dozens and dozens of people show up for care at the clinic. Though it's small, it offers convenience and a stock of supplies.

Hard to believe that a week ago, we were boarding the plane to get here. We've definitely kept busy!

The medical team hit the ground running - seeing a lot of patients the first day as they were trying to set up.  

Dr. Bob reported on several cases. One example was a 25 year old woman who was 20 weeks pregnant and came in with several issues.  She was mildly hypoglycemic, so they gave her IV fluids with sugar, 1 gram of Rocephin to treat pneumonia and she perked up. They were able to discharge her with high dose Amoxicillin and an appointment to see her in 2 days, since the team will be back by then and can see how she's doing.

One of the team also reported how great it was to be able to prescribe something and know that if the patient needed followup treatments or prescription refills, they could get those at the clinic since it is open year-round, 5 days a week.

All of the team is heading to the village, and there's no internet service. The healing arts team will come back to Nairobi on Monday night.

The team is in two locations now - the education team at the elementary school and the medical team at the village.

The education team creates a Vacation Bible School for three days - lots of crafts, music and games.

The medical team arrived at the village, and as usual, were deluged with patients right away. No photos from them yet.

And the good news is that our missing luggage has finally arrived!

Today the rest of the team came to our elementary school location - it's a long ride but there are vendors ready to sell you a host of fresh produce - carrots,cabbages, peas, potatoes, tomatoes,onions, etc.

Lots of greenery and livestock along the roadside as well.

We were glad to see the teachers we've worked with in the past and to meet the new ones.

Today Ann and Kay were the main presenters...

We'll be at the school for the next three days - get ready for photos of lots of cute kids!

Though one more team member is arriving tonight, all the rest of us are here safe and sound. The bump in the road at this point is the fact that 3 of our bags are missing. What's kind of wild is that about 30 bags total from that flight are missing, so there must have been a big stack or cart or container of them that got overlooked in Amersterdam. Hopefully our bags will be rejoining us soon!

Not much else to report today. The education team traveled to our elementary school location and is looking forward to beginning teacher training tomorrow. The rest of the team sorted and packed medications as well as all the school supplies and shoes and books that we have brought for various people.

Our last Portland meeting was on Saturday, where we shared a pizza lunch with team members and family members. There were still some more things to hand out - all of us on the group airline ticket are able to take three 50-pound bags and we pack to the max with supplies and clothes - and we learned about a few last minute details and changes.

Something we always learn on these journeys is how to be flexible. We've made lots of plans, but then we need to be ready switch gears if needed. For example, we just found out that we won't have as much training time with the Jamii teachers as we had originally scheduled, but the education team has already come up with a new plan. 

In a little less than two weeks, the 2016 Kizimani Team will be heading to Kenya. We’re looking forward to working alongside our friends there, and learning from each other.
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We depart on Friday, July 29 in the early afternoon. It’s about a 10 hour flight to Amsterdam and then 8 hours from there to Nairobi, where we’ll (hopefully!) arrive about 10pm. By the time we get to the guest house, it will be around midnight. 

As much as possible, we’ll try to update this blog daily while we’re there, so stay tuned!