Pre-med Siena students take pulse of Kenyans

By ANGELA CAVE- | Comments: 0 | Leave a comment

Imagine a place where children rise at 5 a.m. to run barefoot for three hours up and down mountains in blazing heat to get to school.

They stay at school until 5 or 6 p.m. to do their homework in natural light because there's no electricity - or plumbing - in their villages.

Such is life in Marigat, a small town in a remote mountain region in the central African country of Kenya. Ben DiNovo and Jessica McCoy, seniors at Siena College in Loudonville, got to know the children and villagers this summer when they spent six weeks there working at a clinic as part of their pre-medical programs.

"I learned that it's very important to focus on what we do have instead of what we don't have," Mr. DiNovo, a Loudonville native, told The Evangelist. "If you're in a position of advantage, you have a moral responsibility to help others. People turning a blind eye is a terrible thing."

Mr. DiNovo recently shared his experiences with religion classes at LaSalle Institute in Troy, from which he graduated in 2007.

Learning to help
He said his involvement in community service while at LaSalle helped him get into the joint undergraduate and medical school program at Siena College and Albany Medical Center. He aspires to be a cardiothoracic surgeon.

In Kenya, the students stayed at a Franciscan convent which shared grounds with a church, rectory, elementary school, clinic and houses for workers.

Three nurses, two aides and a secretary staff the clinic for pregnant and new mothers. The visitors weighed babies, took blood pressures, administered oral polio and Vitamin A vaccines and recorded data. They saw about 25 patients a day.

Some days, they packed supplies and drove into the mountain villages to provide these services to those who couldn't make the trip to the clinic. There, they helped to treat bacterial infections, worm infestations and eyesight complications.

They also helped run a support and education group for HIV/AIDS, which afflicts 33 percent of the community, Mr. DiNovo said.

In their down time, the students tried to teach English to the schoolchildren, but it was already part of the curriculum. The Kenyans taught the Americans hundreds of Kiswahili words, as well as prayers and songs.

Gifts of soccer balls delighted the children and bottles of bubbles fascinated even adults.

"It was a truly humbling experience," Mr. DiNovo said of the response to those presents.

Because of limited public transportation, most villagers have never traveled beyond a 20-mile radius, Ms. McCoy told The Evangelist: "We were able to speak with them about their lives and give them some happiness. If nothing else, we just gave them an outlet."

Foreign friends
The natives invited the visitors to dance, sing and attend Mass with them. "They just treated us like we always belonged there," Ms. McCoy said.

Grateful to have a toilet basin in their rooms and a mosquito net around their beds, Mr. DiNovo and Ms. McCoy grew accustomed to 95-degree weather in the dead of winter and simple meals of maize and beans.

Most families in the area live in one-room straw huts. Most children own one outfit of clothing: a school uniform.

"While it was difficult for us to get used to, these people lived like that every day," Ms. McCoy said. "It helped me become closer to the community and helped me realize what they're going through."

Back in the Albany Diocese, Mr. DiNovo and Ms. McCoy tutor and mentor Arbor Hill Elementary School students weekly. Mr. DiNovo also volunteers for the admissions office at Siena. Last semester, he tutored upper-level science classes at Albany High School.

Both students are interested in returning to Kenya someday, perhaps to set up another clinic with alumni of the Siena-Albany Med program.

"I feel like going back as a doctor would be so much more helpful there," said Ms. McCoy, who wants to be a pediatrician.

She was troubled by the unsanitary conditions at the Kenyan clinics: "It showed how lacking their healthcare system is there." [[In-content Ad]]