Litein

 

“What place is this?  Where are we now?”

                                                                                                                                                Carl Sandburg

 

I’ve made it here to Litein, Kenya.  I’m working in a hospital with the same name.

It’s a small town.  And people couldn’t be nicer.  Everyone is pleasant and considerate.

Invariably, when I walk down the street, people are pleasant and greet me, good-naturedly trying to practice their English phrases. “How are you?” Or “Hello “muzungo” (their term for a white European person).  Being white, it’s a lot like having a blinking neon sign over my head as I walk around.

 

One thing I can say is that Africa is not what many people may think it is.  How could we know? 

We have little exposure and I’ve found the Kenyans I’ve met know more about us than we know about them.

 

Litein is 7000 feet above sea level; higher than Denver, Colorado (5280 feet).  The elevation is noticeable when I walk around.  The town center has 2 parallel roads covering ~2 miles, each lined with one-story buildings with small businesses with hand-painted signs for each.  It’s an interesting complex of rocky uneven dirt roads and asphalt streets lined with street vendors of fruits, vegetables, candies and hard-boiled eggs.  In addition to the people walking by the sides of the road, chickens, donkeys and cattle are common fellow downtown pedestrians. 

 

I was surprised to find two large supermarket/general stores. I’m surprised that I could buy everything from toothpaste to soft drinks and cookies.  The upper floors sell clothing and furniture.  There are some cars on the roads.  The local taxis are all motorcycles.

 

 

The A.I.C Litein Hospital (AIC = Africa Inland Church) dates back to 1923.  Its present building was completed in 1996.  It has 220 beds with open wards and 10 emergency room beds. The surgery clinics are busy; seeing ~90 patients each Monday and Wednesday.

Bordering the hospital grounds are living quarters for staff, separate high schools for girls and boys,

and a nursing school.  There’s also an orphanage for young boys nearby.

 

 

The Hospital is painted a beautiful shade of green. Why? I have a theory. I think it is the adjacent the tea farms.  The hospital’s green is the same as the area’s green-colored tea fields.  Tea is the dominant cash crop.  On the road north to the state capital of Kericho, the tea fields extend on either side of the road as far as the eye can see.  After seeing that, it doesn’t surprise me that Kenya is the world’s largest exporter of tea in the world: >450 tons of tea per year. 

 

This hospital and rural community where I’ve come to serve have a great deal to teach me.