All in a Day's Work

October is a "special" month in our household. It's special, because every year in October, Gladys (our housekeeper) takes her annual, month-long leave. So every October, our family picks up all the routine household chores like doing laundry, washing dishes, baking bread, preparing all the meals. I know, I know - we're really suffering :)

But before you judge us TOO hard, please remember - we live in rural Kenya, where our incoming power and water are unreliable, so laundry (although we have a clothes washer) has to be done on those auspicious days when both power and water are available. Our laundry is hung on a line, and when rains come in the daytime, it has to be rescued from the line or left out to dry another day. We can buy something like Wonderbread at the local shops, but for a less highly processed loaf we make our own. Our milk comes from our neighbor's cow, so it has to be boiled, cooled, and put in the refrigerator. Again with our unreliable power, meal making may involve using the InstantPot or pulling food out of the fridge to microwave it, but we always need to have a backup (non-refrigerated, non-power operated) option in case the power is out. Of course, we do have a dishwasher. His name is Kris ;)

Our local "Wonderbread" came in a pumpkin shape this week! I assume this was a coincidence, but it made for a fun school lunch!

Gladys helps keep everything running smoothly in our household - food on the table, clean clothes in the cupboards, dishes washed and floors cleaned, milk properly processed and refrigerated, fruit, veg and eggs "sanitized" before we eat them. She makes it much easier to host visitors and meetings, because she can help us prepare food, and we can feel confident that the house will be clean and there won't be underwear hanging on the clothes line outside our front door when we welcome strangers into our home and community for the first time. When Gladys is away for the month, we miss her, and when she comes back from her leave, we are very grateful.

Before you think I'm really pitying myself, let me count our blessings. Kaylea, our intern through Serge, has been helping us with teaching Dominic since August. Having someone outside our family to help with education has really been life changing for us. Kaylea has also been helping another family with their curriculum for part of the day, so Dominic has time to sit in a classroom with other kids and has been learning a lot from the way other kids approach school.

School Lunch

In the last month, we've had multiple OB/Gyn visitors as well as multiple requests from others to come to Kapsowar. In fact, we've had so many requests that I've had to ask people to adjust their requests because we have too much help! As I said to them, after being in Kapsowar through "the Covid years," I never anticipated having so many volunteers that we wouldn't have enough work for them all! What a huge change in perspective!

OB Team

So, with all that in mind, our day on Monday looked SIGNIFICANTLY different than it would have looked in October 2020. Here's how the day went:

6:30am: Kris and Dominic left the house for basketball club

6:30am: I (Kim) woke up to a power outage, so I put coffee on the stove in the Moka pot

7:00am: Breakfast

7:30am: Washing dishes, putting clothes out on the line (washed in the machine the night before). The weather was looking pretty suspicious, so I hung everything that would fit on the back porch under our awning - it dries much slower in the shade, but doesn't risk getting a "bonus rinse" from the rain.

8:00am: Hosting Psalms and Prayers at our house. Kim led the reflection on Psalm 123, including a couple of songs on our new piano

9:00am: Kaylea takes over school with Dominic at our house. Kim - Walking into the hospital with two new visiting physicians. Quick meeting with the OB team (currently 3 OBs including myself plus our clinical officer) before running up to theatre to do a c-section. I wouldn't normally do a c-section when we have two other visiting OBs - but this is actually my third delivery of this specific patient in my nearly 5 years in Kapsowar, and so I wanted to deliver this baby (her fourth and final) myself. Kris - heading into the School of Theology to prepare for class.

11:00am: Guiding the two new physicians on a tour of the hospital and Kapsowar. It's always fun to see the hospital through a first-time visitor's perspective.

12:30pm: Run home to put on lunch (soup and homemade bread) for the "school kids" - Kaylea and Dominic, plus four other kids who Kaylea is also helping during the days. While I'm home, wash dishes and put away what laundry has dried. The power is back on, so I can boil water in the electric kettle to do the dishes, and move the fresh milk from the stove (where Kris boiled it earlier in the day and left it to cool) to the refrigerator.

1:30-6pm: Back to the hospital for afternoon clinic, answering phone calls and emails, and meetings. I'm still working on the call schedule for November - with multiple visiting doctors for the first half of the month, as well as some learners, it is pretty complex. Kaylea and I also meet to go through her work permit application again - we're still waiting on a response from Nairobi about what type of permit she qualifies for.

6-8pm: Homework with Dominic, supper (leftovers), and bedtime.

8-10pm: Walk in to the hospital to check on a patient - the "remote access" link for the hospital is down, so I can't check her lab results or nursing notes from home. Check in with the night-time nurses before heading home. The water supply is low, so we alert our neighbors to be on water conservation efforts and don't put in a load of laundry tonight.

As we always tell people who ask about our life in Kenya - the only thing that's predictable is that things are always changing. We're entering some new territory in our daily rhythms here, but one thing is sure - we'll be glad to have Gladys back at work tomorrow!