dawn: adventures of a journeywoman

My beautiful friends who traveled from Washington, DC to join me in Kenya: Anne Snyder and Cay Perque pose with me in front of the Great Rift Valley.

“When the poor and needy search for water and there is none, and their tongues are parched from thirst, then I, the LORD will answer them. I, the God of Israel, will never abandon them…I am doing this so all who see this miracle will understand what it means-that it is the LORD who has done this.” Isaiah 42:17,20

A few weeks back, I had a patient whose legs were a desert. They were dry, scaly, and cracked with deep fissures that had developed over a few years. After experimenting with an ointment used for burn patients (it takes creativity to practice medicine in Kenya), I was pleased to see them smooth, plump and hydrated a day later. If only healing a land could be so simple.

Kenya is currently in a time of drought. It has become so severe that with fewer crops, people are eating less nutritious foods and are facing severe malnutrition syndromes. I visited Lake Naivasha last weekend walked where water once was, as the lake continues to shrink. The nearby flower and tea businesses that are large exports for the country have been significantly hurt. On July 14, the president of Kenya, Mwai Kibaki, announced at least a 60 percent crop failure in five of Kenya’s seven provinces and declared a state of national disaster. (However one of the two rains I have seen since arriving came just as my wardrobe was hanging to dry on the clothesline yesterday).

That is the what, but many around me are asking the why. And several people have pointed to not a natural event, but political event. On December 27, 2007, the presidential election results revealed that the incumbent president of the largest tribe (Kikuyu) of the 42 represented in Kenya was the winner. However, many felt this was not the correct result as his rival was a popular figure from a tribe in western Kenya (Luo). For months afterwards, homes and stores were looted and burned, neighbors of different tribes now publicly opposed each other, and a church was set on fire as people took shelter from the violence.

As the smoke has dissipated some 20 months later, the ashes of resentment and unrest still remain. When asked if I spoke Kikuyu by a patient during my first week, I told her through a translator that I didn’t, but I knew a little language of a western Kenyan tribe, from my last time in Kenya. Instantly, she accused me of trying to poison her, giving her terrible care, and ignoring her needs because the perception of a opposition tribal affiliation. The young doctors I work closely with have told me stories of their relatives losing their homes, of fearing that in the midst of the chaos, their incomplete medical education would be voided, and wondering what sort of country they will bring their children up in. Every time, I ride down into the Rift Valley, I pass a stretch of tattered tents and mud houses occupied by internally displaced Kenyans, too afraid to return to their homes.

In many Kenyans minds, these two events are linked in a causal manner-the post-election violence and the drought. Guilty and ashamed of the “tribalism”, some Christians see a God who has control of the wind and rain withholding water out of anger and disappointment. I don’t have an answer for this supposition, but I can acknowledge that confronting both situations leaves me feeling dry. I thirst for completeness, for freedom from broken relationships and broken land. I inwardly groan as I remember a 14 year old girl I saw from the internally displaced persons camp who had a traumatic birth, likely not the result of consensual union. There is something deep inside that knows this is not the way we were made to live. Our bodies were not meant to starve, our souls were not meant to be filled with anger for our brothers and sisters.

There are few earthly places I have found this completeness that I yearn for. Only reaching above the earthly to the spiritual sanctuary do I find relief for my parched soul. “Jesus stood and shouted to the crowds, “Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may come and drink!” John 7:37

May I continue to cry out with my brothers and sisters here for physical and spiritual relief and refreshment in this land. This is a place I have been able to experience a genuineness unique to the Kenyan people. I thank God for their hospitality, laughter, and kindness as we serve together in a dry and thirsty land.