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Published: January 27th 2009
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Gloria Sauck
Gloria is a missionary with World Mission Prayer League. She is in charge of the medical dispensary in Arsim which serves all of the northwest region of Kenya Gloria finally arrived home about 1 AM from her meetings in Baragoi, a town 3 hours away by vehicle. Naturally, we didn’t see her until the morning.
It seems that government bureaucracies are no different wherever you go. The Kenyan Ministry of Health has started a push to vaccinate people all over the country against Trachoma, a disease of the eye. I’ll talk more about that later.
In their infinite bureaucratic wisdom they decided that all of the healthcare workers throughout the country needed to gather together in the town of Baragoi for two days to learn all about the vaccination procedures pick up their supplies of the medications and, most importantly, get “the stick” to measure youngsters to determine the dosage based on height.
Well, you guessed it, a) the agency that is in overall charge of the program were not at the meetings, b) the medications to be dispensed were not available to take back to their clinics, c) the all-important “sticks” were not available at the meetings but would be sent from Nairobi by Sunday (distribution starts Monday). When some of resourceful people from field clinics suggested that the government merely tell them the measurements and
Missionary Homes
The house on the left is Gloria's and the one to the right of the carport is where we are staying. let them make their own “stick” … it is impossible you must use the official stick.
Also, Since Gloria’s dispensary at Arsim is in charge of several other small clinics from which to distribute the medication, she delivered drums of diesel fuel to those stations so they would be ready to deliver their medicine on Monday morning. No! No! No! You must deliver all the diesel fuel to Baragoi and have the vehicles come from 1 or two hours the other side of Arsim past Arsim on to Baragoi 3 hours away to take on fuel. This meant she not only had to take fuel away from those who had it where they needed it, she had to deliver it to a point where the vehicles would have to drive 4-t5 hours to pick up the fuel and go back to their clinic before starting the distribution.
Other than that, she thought it went OK.
At any rate, we were happy to finally see her. She had been in the US for furlough over the summer and actually spent an overnight with us at our home then. When she was at our house, she left us a box of cassette
Bible Study - Sidai, Kenya
Here's the group. Notice the small wooden stool center front. This is the typical Samburu seating for guests. tape players that work with a hand crank. Since most of the Samburu people have no electricity, this is a good way to get gospel messages out to them in the bush country. When we came through Ethiopia, the officials there were pretty skeptical about these Americans bringing high technology into their country without paying the necessary import duty. We reached a compromise with them. We’d leave the box in the warehouse at the airport and pick it up again on our way out of Ethiopia. Therefore, it never had to actually enter their country. This worked great for us and we didn’t have to lug the box to our hotel in Addis Ababa and back to the airport.
With Gloria finally back home and just across the carport from us, we could finally see her and ask all the little questions about Arsim that we were dying to ask but were uncomfortable asking the African staff. Things like:
• How does this drinking water thing work?
• Can we flush toilet paper down or do we have to put it in the waste basket like they do in Ethiopia?
• Is this food you left for us really
Sidai inhabitants
These people are standing in front of their typical Samburu dwelling. Notice the the bright colors and neckwear. safe to eat?
• Why are all these goats, cattle, monkeys, chickens, camels, etc. etc. wandering through our yard?
• Is it really always this hot?
• Do we need money here in Arsim?
• Are the people really as friendly as they seem?
• What’s with all the cast iron water valves and plumbing fittings in the carport?
• Why does everyone smell like a campfire?
There were probably a few more questions, but it was just good to see her.
We delivered the Valentine’s card that many people from church had signed for her along with the gift of money that was collected for her at the Women’s Christmas Tea and the general collection from the congregation the Sunday before we left on our journey. She was overwhelmed with the generosity. Believe me; she’ll put the money to good use here.
In the afternoon, Cheryl and Gloria went to a women’s Bible study at Sidai, a settlement of about 1,000 + people 15 minutes drive away. I wasn’t invited as they would have been embarrassed to have a man in their midst. In the meantime, I got almost caught up on our travel blog.
Cheryl
Bible Study Observers
These interested observers needed a little more translation as they are not fluent in either English or in Samburu. They were still very interested. says one of the families in Sidai actually owns two plastic chairs. They brought them out for Gloria and Cheryl to sit on during the Bible study. It’s not customary for Samburu people to use such a device as a plastic chair. At one point early on, an elderly man from the settlement with dementia wandered into the gathering and commandeered one of the chairs. That leaves one chair for two white women, but they improvised since Gloria had to stand as she led the Bible study and Cheryl got the other one.
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Tony
non-member comment
Checking in
I hope your first week in Africa was fantastic. I would guess the communication efforts are limited and the "world wide web" has a completely different definition there. Check in when you can. Love you tons. Tony