The Land Criuser held to the muddy surface surprisingly well as I guided it along the narrow slippery crown of the mountain pass, silently praying that we might not meet a vehicle ascending the same treacherous route. Especially one larger than our own. It's the season of short rains here in east Africa but that apparently had not been considered when directives were given to repair the winding road from highland to savanna, from Makatano to Katchaleba, the road we traveled this day. Repairs constituted it seemed, the disturbance of a surface trodden down by decades of use before a layer of soft clay is applied in seemingly frozen uneven waves, dumped one by one by dilapidated trucks. A highway of speed bumps to be ridden as if on a bucking bronco. Teams of shirtless men spread out the sticky mass the best they could with broken shovels and jembe, pausing from their monotonous task they stare curiously as we pass by. When the equatorial sun eventually has its way the bumpy surface will become like rock, until the rains return again and dissolve its work that is.

For now we slither our way down, in parts shear drop to the right, steep wall to the left, fit only for the goats which forage upon it. I pause, should I continue I ask myself, but it's too late, the road is too narrow to turn round, to reverse is too risky. My passengers become quiet except for the African voice in back urging me to continue on. The voice was that of an African doctor, born in Pokot, in the village we were heading to. He was returning to his native people with us, four white faces and a cargo of medicine, our goal to hold a mobile medical clinic in the bush. We reached the flatlands below and finally picked us speed across the damp sandy road bordered by acacia and the occasional thatched huts of small villages. Rows of sacks standing upright as if to attention at the side of the road occasionally, whisked by. Their contents of charcoal secured from sight by leaves stitched with sisal across the open neck. Charcoal production is technically illegal due to it's deforestation effects but there is no enforcement of this particular law in these parts just as there is non on the ritual of F.G.M. still practiced on the young women of Pokot.

We cross a swollen river by way of an old concrete bridge, built during colonial times it is now devoid of its iron guardrails. Naked children play in the swirling pools downstream while their mothers wash colorful clothes of orange and scarlet, laid out to dry across thorny bushes. Around the bend in the river upstream men bathe like shadows of a single dimension so dark is their skin.

We continue on, the vast expanse of the bush matched only by the vivid blue sky above. Another river only this time of damp sand emerges from the bush, any previous tracks washed away like footprints on the seashore by the flashflood of last nights downpour. Cautiously I edged the Land Cruiser to the damp sand and hanging from my open door watch to see if the front wheels sink in. They don't so I commit yet still I'm relieved when the 4 wheel drive drags us across and up the opposite embankment. I'm instructed to turn left here and go right there by James our African doctor friend as we weave our way through the bush avoiding the patches of black cotton soil. I'm totally lost now but excited at the same time. Lisa is beside me, two students from Seattle, Julie and Tim behind with James our African doctor and guide. A large flat top acacia tree is our destination, somewhere in the wild bush.

By some miracle we arrive and find perhaps a dozen women assembled with children below the canopy of our tree, which, today will serve as a clinic. I reverse to the edge of its shade and we unload our boxes of medicines. Lone figures emerge from all directions from the bush, quickly swelling the numbers of women and children. There are men also but they sit separately, aloof, as if to first observe the proceedings. We communicate by eye contact as we shake each bony hand in greeting before a single pill is dispensed. We addressed the assembly with James interpreting my introduction into the native language. I told them these medicines were sent by Jesus because he cared about them. There was a loud cheer, we cheered too. An old table with a couple of wooden stools appeared miraculously becoming the furniture for a doctors office temporarily set up below the bows of the big acacia. The numbers were still swelling so I stretched a towrope from the trunk of the old tree and handed the untethered end to one of the elder men. He knew what I wanted and pulled it taught creating a boundary and at least some order of assemblance. James sat at the table speaking to each mother and child patient in his native Pokot tongue, scribbling prescription notes on small brown envelopes which were duly filled by Lisa from the supply of drugs she had brought. Julie and Tim assisted while I doned latex gloves and applied Whitefield ointment to the lumpy scared scalps of children riddled with ringworm. The first few were repulsive to the touch but the kids seemed to enjoy the massaging of their scalps and the smiles on their faces more than compensated for the unenviable task at hand.

Arrival at the clinic

After several hours the numbers in queue seemed to remain the same in spite of my watch for people already treated getting back in line so we don't know how many were actually treated, mainly for the common ailments of malaria, typhoid and parasites. But when I felt a gentle breeze brush my face my attention turned to the sky and the still white clouds assembling above. It was time to leave and so we abruptly packed up our clinic, unfortunately leaving a score of untreated people behind, yet it appeared as though if we had stayed until dark the line would not be reduced.

Clinic in Pokot

We dashed back across the plains from whence we had come earlier, passing a stray herd of camels and crossing the damp river beds and patches of black cotton soil with less caution now as the clouds quickly darkened overhead to dark gray, dismissing the blue sky from view. Vapors boiling above us, spawned from Lake Victoria to the west, and drawn as we were to the Cherangani Hills ahead, we were in a race to reach the mountaintop first. The first splash hit the windshield well before we began the assent and the thought briefly crossed my mind of where we might spend the night should we lose the race. Lunch had evaded us but when Julie produced the now squashed peanut jelly sandwiches and bananas she still announced she had never tasted a sandwich so good. We laughed but soon a silence set back as the wipers swished the now lashing rain from the windshield. We finally began to climb, four wheel drive pulling us up the hillside. Fortunately the rain had not yet totally saturated the loose surface so we found traction below the sticky crust. I was waiting for the vehicle to slow as the wheels began to spin but it didn't, save for a couple of occasions. The silence was broken by nervous laughs as we approached the top, the adrenaline rush over, I asked which of us had been praying during the silence before. We all had and our prayers had been answered as the paved road of Makatano was now beneath our mucky wheels laying reddish brown tracks behind us on the wet road. We were on our way home.

Clinic under way

It was only then that I allowed my mind to drift back to the days proceedings and the people were had met. I wondered where they had come from and where they all went to after we left. There was no evidence of village or even huts close by our acacia tree clinic. They must have disappeared back into the bush just as mysteriously as they had appeared. For even in the remote, wilderness of west Pokot, the father holds us in His grasp.

Dr James

Lisa dispenses medicine