I am excited about our first day of clinic. Not sure what to expect, I am excited at the prospect of helping people and educating them about community health! My assignment for the three days of clinic is pharmacy. I will be filling prescriptions and educating those who are receiving medicine on their medications they will be taking (better work on my Swahili, hopefully a translator will be there!) The Misi village is about an hour and a half away and they have absolutely nothing. We are building a clinic there so they at least have adequate health care without having to walk by foot to the nearest hospital (30 km away) or forgo the hospital trip because they can't make it and their condition worsens. We stop first to see how the clinic is coming along and we are immediately welcomed with handshakes and many "Jambos!" It's so refreshing to see all these people greeting us and overwhelming at times, but amazing to experience. The clinic is just getting it's foundation down, and they are just laying the first couple layers of their homemade mud bricks. It's coming along slowly but surely and can't wait until it's completed and sure the people are just if not more excited.
Later that night Wow, that was not what I was expecting. We were swamped from the getgo, trying to filter people in and out of the pharmacy as fast as we could. Good thing I work best under pressure! An overwhelming sense of gratification throughout the day would come over me, just seeing these people who have nothing who give everything to us in appreciation (they made us chai and served us chicken/rice/vegetables/fresh fruit) and knowing that they could use this food more than we could was almost unbearable but it would be rude to refuse. We were so thankful, probably the most thankful I have ever been in my life. These people literally have nothing but they are happier and more content than those who have the whole world in their hands, it's such a contrasting world to ours where you are defined by what you have and what you don't have. They have nothing or very little and still have joy and thankfulness in their hearts. It was a great day at the clinic and I can't wait for tomorrow!
