VOLUNTEERING IN KENYA: Guest Post by Gretchen Woelfle

Muhoroni, Kenya. Gretchen holding a beautiful baby before the mother was examined.

Last month my friend and fellow children’s book writer Gretchen Woelfle flew to Nairobi, Kenya, and joined a group of volunteer doctors and nurses working with the organization Preventing Cervical Cancer (PINCC) on a medical mission. Her report on her experience is below.

We set up shop in the maternity wing in the second hospital we worked at, in Muhoroni.

People have adopted a solemn tone when asking me about my recent volunteer work in Kenya with Preventing Cervical Cancer.  They tend to be surprised when I say, “It was really fun!”  I think they expected “difficult” or “eye-opening” or “inspiring.” But overall, it was great fun

I traveled to West Africa several years ago, giving author talks at international schools in three countries. I’d met many interesting ex-pats, but few Africans.  This time I wanted to connect with the local people. The PINCC project seemed just the ticket. The fact that we were not a group of foreign experts coming in and taking over, but training the resident staff to run their own treatment programs also appealed to me.

Nursing students at Nyabondo joined us for lunch.

It was a novelty for non-medical me to work with a great team of American doctors and nurses for two weeks in two hospitals in western Kenya. I watched them teach their African colleagues to screen for cervical cancer and treat abnormal results. I supplied and checked all the curious bits and pieces they needed each day in the examination rooms, and I even viewed a few cervixes myself.  
But best of all were my interactions with patients: interviewing the English-speaking women who came for screening – usually for the first time – and comforting them during their exams and treatments. With illustrated charts I explained to patients about HPV (human papillomavirus) and how cervical cancer can be prevented. I learned the women’s results when I entered the data into our computer.

Kenyan countryside near Muhoroni

Getting a glimpse of Kenyan village life, walking down lanes past small homesteads in the evenings while attracting a Pied Piper-esque entourage of children, seeing the local medical staff beam as they received their PINCC certifications to continue their work after we left – was all part of the fun.

Another delight: I spent two evenings speaking to several groups of children at the Catholic compound in Nyabondo, with its hospital, nursing school, two boarding schools, a day school, and a home for disabled children. Two overflowing classrooms of girls listened enthusiastically as I talked about my work as a children’s author.  After I read my latest book, Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence, about an 18^th century Massachusetts slave who won her freedom, they had lively comments and questions.  And I was mobbed in a most friendly way when I stood among them for a photo op.  The next evening I gave a similar presentation to a group of ten lovely disabled boys.

Gretchen with schoolgirls at Nyabondo.

 "I felt like a celebrity!"

Yes, Kenya with PINCC was eye-opening and inspiring, and occasionally difficult, but the pure pleasure of the adventure surprised and delighted me. 

Note: Preventing Cervical Cancer, a non-profit in Oakland, California, has been working in Latin America, Africa, and India since 2005. Volunteers travel to each site three times, six months apart, after which local staff are certified to conduct their own treatment and training programs.  At present the group is running projects in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Nicaragua. For more information see www.pincc.org

At Nyabondo, new friends pause for a chat and a photo.