Life at Kilema Hospital Begins

"The White House" CACHA volunteers took over the top floor for dorms.

The church bells ring at 5:00 am then again at 6:00, forcing us to get up.  The jungle noises can be weird at night although there seemed to be alot of dogs barking and the roosters crow all day long.

Our beds



Privacy curtains around each of the "bedrooms" No privacy here!



Breakfast is at 7:00 am- usually eggs, bread and jams, small sweet cakes, fresh bananas (we get bananas offered to us for every meal and for snacks), juice, instant coffee, or chai tea.



Sorting the bins



We sorted and arranged bin contents, then the logistics and medical teams met separately to discuss what we would be doing.

After lunch we took a break to climb a small, local mountain where the last Chagga king is buried. Since many of the locals continued to make a pilgrimage to this grave site, the Catholic church has erected a huge cross beside it.

For supper-pork (everyone was saying how they couldn't believe it was pork), mashed potatoes, rice, and a vegetable dish (kale,cabbage and onions) and a hot leak and potato soup.

Counting pills

Later - beers and a "pill counting party" (something that we do every night). Gabby played some tunes for us on her ukulele. It felt like we packaged thousands of pills (and we probably did).

First patient treated by the medical staff was Rick. He had got a thorn stuck in the lower part of his palm. He had removed the thorn but his palm swelled up. Our emerg doctor thought that perhaps the thorn may have had toxins, and treated Rick with antibiotics. All of the doctors kept a close eye over the next 24 hours.

Tomorrow is our first caravan! We are all a bit nervous, but excited.