Return to Kaimosi Hospital - July 28, 2009

This day was full of emotion and memory. As the others headed toward Rabour Village, Maureen and I got into her jeep and headed north to Kaimosi, the village where Marshall and I lived all those years ago. I am so grateful to Maureen for her fellowship on the ride, listening to my stories about Kaimosi and fielding my anxiety about going back to a place after nearly four decades.

The landscape changed from the flat dusty plains around Kochia to tea plantations and terraced gardens on the hillsides as we climbed out of Kisumu and headed up the Kakamega Road. The road from Kisumu to Kaimosi is paved now, but when the sign appeared by the side of the road, and we turned, we were on the same rutted dirt road that Marshall and I drove down 39 years ago.



And entering the hospital compound, I was struck by how little had changed. The hospital itself, which was built in 1965, looked older, but the wards and the exam rooms were virtually unchanged or actually in worse condition than before, the laundry is still set out to dry in the courtyard (although now on lines, instead of on the grass) and the patients still gather on the lawn to wait for the doctors appointments. These women were bringing their babies in for well-child exams.


I had the chance to meet with the Hospital Director and the Head of Nursing, but there weren't any staff left from the time we were there, so most of this visit was about place and the power of place to hold memory. As with the other parts of Western Kenya, the lack of change over four decades was striking and sad. I can't imagine visiting an American town after 39 years, even a very rural one, and seeing so little change.

The staff told us that the hospital has seen very hard times, and this history is summarized on the Kaimosi Hospital website. When the transfer of governance of the hospital moved from the Friends Mission to local governance in the early 1980s, local loyalties and clanism caused schisms in the management structure, and the hospital began to deteriorate badly. The Nursing School, founded in 1953, had to be closed in 1996. In 2006, the governance transferred back to the Friends Misson, and the current staff is working hard to rebuild the hospital services, for minuscule salaries. (A registered nurse makes $1800 per year! That's not a typo...$1800.) Since this is the only hospital between Kapsabet and Mukhumu and serves most of the population of Tiriki, maintaining it as a site for services is essential to the health of those in this region who cannot afford to travel the longer distances to Kakamega or Kisumu.