A good first day, November 17 Kawangware clinic opens, November 17

Our breakfast did turn out to be hurried, but good, as expected.  We had made to order omelets, sausage from an indeterminate animal, toast, mango juice, a fresh pot of coffee (unusual, Sanka or Nescafe is the norm) and some sweet bananas as a dessert.  We arrived well before 8am and began to set the clinic up, moving pews, bringing in tables and chairs, hanging eyecharts and station numbers on the wall, etc.  Like all Monday mornings we have experienced in the past, it was so chaotic that any first time observer would conclude that a clinic could never get off the ground.  Looks can be deceiving, since we had already seen around 200 patients by noon, with only minor tweaking to the process and continued training of volunteers. The afternoon was sunny and very nice, so it was a little slower.  We finished the day having seen a total of 338 patients.  People we talked to on the street outside the church were confused as to whether our services were really free.  Every clinic starts this way, but word of mouth is a powerful ally.  People go home and tell their friends and family about their experiences and before you know it, you are seeing many more people in a day.  Also, once the clinic begins to run smoothly, it hardly seems as if we’re working at all and the numbers really begin to soar.  Many times, rather than a mad rush of people and mass chaos, a clinic that is running well will be more of a steady drip, drip, drip.  At the end of the day, you can’t believe that you saw 3 or 4 times as many people and you don’t really feel it.

We stopped for some more hand sanitizer at Nakumatt on the way home and I changed some personal and team money at a currency exchange to get us through the rest of the week.  We had dinner at 7pm at Rosa Mystica.  It was a fried whole fish with sauce, something like tilapia, and many different sides including kale, rice, a vegetable medley, chapatti bread, bananas, beans and more.  We had subsisted on just a few snacks and water all day, so we were all famished and ate like it!  We’re all going to call it an early evening and I’m sure we’ll sleep extremely well.  Keep coming back regularly to follow our eploits and keep us in your prayers.  Blessings, everybody!