Market Day

Another typical day at the clinic. Got to work the eye test station today, and Innocent proved to be another excellent conversationalist. He talked me through everything we were doing, and let me examine the patients with him when he found something noteworthy like cataracts or glaucoma. During down time, I learned that he is a music teacher, a pastor, and an optometrist (right now he's donating his time to the clinic, what he calls "saving souls," an alternative form of preaching in his mind, a way to spread the word of god outside of the church), and he also went to school for geology, and he started making glasses when he was 12, and he's married and owns a drug store. And he's thirty.

After telling me all about his faith, his work at his church, how his father was a Presbyterian pastor, etc, he asked what fellowship or church I belonged to. Actually, I said, I'm Jewish. That sparked a new conversation where we discusses how Christianity, Judaism, and Islam are all very similar (camp if finally payed off). I would really like to attend a church service, especially a "crusade," which, as he described it, is an outdoor church service, and from what I heard can get very rowdy, even violent with the mass mentality that goes on as the preacher shouts to his public. I think they're a weekly thing so hopefully I'll get to witness that. (Oh, and apparently Livingston runs an a cappella group at his church, so of course I have to see that).

The highlight of the day was that it was market day. Basically thousands of people set up there stalls in a maze like area of land that starts on the main street and winds up at a tro tro station. A pack of us went to check it out, and luckily ran into a few McCollin teachers while we were there, so they guided us along and made sure we weren't lost in the heaps of tomatoes and piles of fish and stacks of fabric and endless rows of necklaces and spices and bread. Everyone wanted the yevu at their stalls, so we moved slowly, but we found lots of trinkets and made some friends along the way. Can't wait to go back next week.

Our weekend excursion for this week is starting early (4am tomorrow morning), and we won't be back until Tuesday, so I'll be incommunicado until then (mom).  It involves about 24 hours of driving both ways, but we end up in Mole National Park, where we'll (hopefully) see some wild elephants and sleep in a tree house and do some hiking. Sneakers  and bug spray are a must!


-Anna