A Patient's Story

Alestar woke up early in the morning to begin his journey. He had been told that eye doctors were visiting the clinic in Kipkaren and his grandmother, his Gogo, had been squinting for months. He pressed his pants the night before, so that he would not waste the morning light. He could hear the rain falling lightly on the metal roof of his small hut and he tucked his pant legs into his socks, so that they would not be muddied and caked in the red clay.

He walked, he took a bus, and he walked a little more. It took him over an hour to reach his Grandmother’s house in Nagong Hills. When he arrived, she was patiently waiting for him. Her small frame draped in a long purple skirt, she wore a black Nike stocking cap to keep the morning cold from her ears. In one hand, she held a knotted wooden cane that supported her like a wise, arthritic finger, her other arm wrapped around her grandson’s youth for support. She was 83, she took very small steps and the journey would be long.

They walked slowly to the bus stop. The bus would be able to take them close to the clinic, but there was still more walking to do when it stopped. Alestar began to worry that they would miss their chance to see the doctors. Heavy rains from the night before had soaked the clay roads into mud and Gogo’s cane kept getting stuck. When the bus dropped them off, Alestar rented a bicycle porter to carry gogo on the back of the bike. Alestar walked beside them to the clinic. At 9 a.m., grandma and grandson were climbing the incline that led to the clinic doors. People were already lined up waiting to be seen, but there were open spaces to sit on the wooden benches. The nurses were not turning people away. Alestar breathed a sigh of relief. His gogo would be treated today.

When it was their turn, he helped her into the clinic and took an old, worn, yellow booklet out of his backpack. It was his grandmother’s medical history, recorded in Swahili, in no particular order across the pages. “See,” he said pointing to a few penciled markings, “that is where it says blindness.”

After the appointment, Alestar stood talking with some of the men that were waiting to be seen, Gogo rested in the grass underneath the shade of the large tree in the front lawn. New gold frames sat on her nose.

A young woman approached her there, as she sat in the grass, and asked her how she was doing. Gogo turned toward the girl and bringing her weathered fingers to her eyes, she touched the golden frames. “This,” she said, tapping the glasses, “This is God.” And a knowing smile crept across her windswept face.