One week ago today the opposition filed a petition in the Supreme Court contesting the election results and claiming rigging and fraud. The Court will begin to hear the petition on Monday and will return a verdict by next Saturday...Holy Saturday. They can throw the petition out and the President elect will be inaugurated or they can call for another election process. There is tension but so far people are peaceful and waiting patiently.
On Friday we found out that Msambweni District, where I do a monthly clinic near to the Tanzanian border, has no immunizations and no medicines to prevent the transmission of HIV virus from pregnant mother to her unborn baby. A pregnant woman came to the clinic this past week having already been to two other clinics. Our clinic didn't have any medicine, which is provided by the government, and she was sent to a fourth government dispensary right on the TZ border. I'm sure they won't have the medicine either. The District hospital does have vaccines but they don't have the special one shot syringes used to give the vaccines and they won't allow health workers to use regular syringes...which were used for years before these syringes became available. The male clinical officer at our dispensary who is from the coast has resigned because of 'family problems'. The clinical officer we offered the position to is a woman from another part of the country. We doubt that she will stay and I'm not sure she should stay, being a woman from 'upcountry' who may be a target of people with bad intentions. These are problems that no one hears about in the news.
Now for the good news...This past week I found out that a young Turkana man who was rescued from the streets of Kitale many years back by Bosco Street Children's program (run by Russ Brine, Maryknoll Lay Missioner) has started his first job as a clinical officer in Kakuma Mission hospital in his home district of Turkana!!! Ben was the first in his high school class and wanted to be a doctor. There wasn't enough money to do that but he came to Kiminini Cottage hospital when I was there to volunteer and chose to go to clinical officer training school, similar to physician assistant or nurse practitioner in the USA. He is a fine young man and the people of Turkana will be well cared for by him. The same night I heard that news I got a text message from Teresa, a nurse who has completed her training and had just finished her first day working at Kiminini Cottage hospital. We had funded her training through money from my mission account with the agreement that she would return to work at the hospital for three years. She is a lovely woman who has been very hardworking and conscientious over the years. There is another young man, Anderson, who came from Bosco and is also in nurses training with one year left, funded by my mission account. He is doing well and when he finishes he will go to work at Kiminini too. With all of the difficulties at the moment these three young people are really hope for the future...hardworking, compassionate, capable and trying to do their best. It is a real privilege to to have been able to assist them and to watch them reach their potentials.
So we begin Holy Week tomorrow and it will be a very special week of prayer with the courts proceedings moving forward. At the moment the judiciary seems to be the one arm of the government that most people feel has some integrity. Keep Kenya in your prayer!
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