I claim to be so righeous, but I'm just like everyone else

I don't usually post this often, but today was especially rough. This post is for those that do not really truly understand what life is like outside of a first world country and especially for those that want to understand.

I knew I was headed to the slum Korogocho today; I had gone there two weeks ago and thought I knew what to expect. When I entered the clinic a young boy recognized me immediately, even though I had barely spoken to him and it had been a while since I had been there. While I know its not hard to recognize one out of the handful of white people that has visited the area, he even knew my name and called out to talk to me.

As I was standing with a few of the other interns there (all are native Kenyans), a woman walked up and wanted to talk to me. She wanted to take me to her home and introduce me to her family, and I obliged. Turns out she is a Maasai woman. I was welcomed into her house and met her husband and 3 year old son. The baby has a pelvic problem, and cannot walk; both the boy and the mother are HIV+. The husband was very excited to see me, and told me of their problems. The way he put it, although they had asked for help from several groups (they need blankets, they are all sleeping on the dirt ground), no one was able to help them "..and no one cares, except God. And he has come through you." They did not want anything, just someone to hear their story and care. The woman held my hand the entire way back to the clinic.

After that, we went to a home to take care of a woman who was bedridden. If you have never been into a house in the slum (and I'm assuming most people have not), I will do my best to describe it. Getting to a specific home is a task; there is dirty water flowing through make-shift ditches in all alleyways. You end up jumping from stone to stone to avoid trudging through the polluted sludge. Everytime I have come to the door I was headed too I have been graciously welcomed; people have pulled out stools for me to sit on and called "karibu karibu!" (welcome, welcome). They are one room shacks made out of metal house siding that is completely rusted. There is a 3 by 6 foot area that is usually for sitting, and then a sheet or a series of sheets hang up to hide a bed. The kitchen is shoved in the corner of the seating area. It is incredibly dark and stifling; I often have problems swallowing inside of the homes. Usually there is only the light that peeks through the cracks in the walls; a lightbulb hangs from the ceiling but is almost never on, especially during the day. There are piles of stuff all over; empty cans, tubs, bottles, papers, everything. This is where I met Rebecca (name has been changed).

Rebecca told me she was 44 and has two children, a boy and a girl. She used to get her ARV drugs (anti-retroviral therapy) from her daughter, but after the election violence, it was impossible to leave the home to get the drugs. When the violence ended, the doctors refused to put Rebecca back on the drugs, which means that a drug resistance has likely developed. Translation? It is essentially a waiting game now. Rebecca is completely bedridden, and just sits in a chair in the dark while her children go out during the day. When we arrived, we decided to change her. I held her in my arms, the entirety of her weight upon me, while she was stripped and washed. She is not able to move to go to the bathroom; that is mainly what was being washed. She was able to put her arms around me, her head leaned against my shoulder and I held her like a child. When the medication for the bedsores was being put on her backside I rubbed her back while she whimpered because of the pain. After we got her washed and changed, the other women left to empty the buckets while I sat with her. The only thing she really wanted to talk about? What flying in a plane was like; she had never actually seen one up close and was very excited when I told her about it. It was the most animated I had seen her the entire visit, so I was more than happy to discuss that.
When the other health workers came back and told her we were leaving, she immediately went back to being shy and not looking at any of us. We walked out, and she turned just to tell me I was doing good work. And we left her there, only a fraction better than the way we'd found her.

After speaking to a couple people about how emotional I get after these experiences, they usually have told me that I will get used to it. But to be honest, I think that it is impossible to get used to. To not feel empathy, pity, sorrow, anything for my fellow human beings that are living like that is unimaginable. Although it would definitely make my life easier, I don't think I would ever want to get used to it. Everytime I visit a person like this, or a woman in the clinic touches her heart and then mine, I feel like I can hardly contain the incredible amount of emotion that forms usually in my throat and chest. And to be honest? I think that this is exactly what gives me my humanity, and reminds me that I am no better or worse than any of the people I have been interacting with daily.