Arriving in Kenya, the nine of us were unaware of the dangers and uncertainties that lay before us. From the plane, even the fires we saw were all “natural” in our minds. Our drive to the hospital in Maseno forced our eyes open as we bribed our way through a myriad of roadblocks. Hundreds of men were on the road that day, Dec. 29, some carrying machetes, others with loads of looted materials.
As senior nursing students at UW-Madison on the La Crosse campus, we had tried to prepare ourselves for what we would experience in Kenya. Since this was the second annual trip, we thought that we knew what we were getting into, but we couldn’t have anticipated what the next few weeks would bring.