Sister Celestine Kavanaugh

I remember quite well that late afternoon in May of 1981 when I returned to the convent from my ministry at St. Joseph Hospital in Houston. I decided to rest for a moment as I had a cup of tea in the little parlor on the first floor. It was there that I noticed a copy of our Congregation’s newsletter. It was opened to a page with excerpts from a letter from Sister Rosa Marta Gamerdinger, the former General Superior of the Mexican Province of Religious of the Incarnate Word, to Sister Loyola Hegarty, who at that time was the General Superior of our Congregation.

In her letter, Sister Rosa Marta, in ministry in Kenya, described her journey to that country. She also said that Bishop Raphael S. Ndingi Mwana’a Nzeki of the Nakuru Diocese was looking for a “Sister Nurse” to lead a Public Health Project in a very remote area of Kenya called East Pokot. The people there had never had contact with Western civilization and had no access to health care or education. The letter went on to describe the dress and some of customs of the people there.

At this first reading of the needs there, I thought it sounded like an impossible challenge. I remember laughing and enumerating on my fingers all a person would need to respond to a mission like that. I put the newsletter back on the table. 

When I returned to the parlor a few days later, the newsletter was still there open at that letter. I read it again. That went on a third and a fourth time. The fifth time that I read it I began to think, “If I don’t go, who is going to go?”

I began reasoning that I had studied nursing in England and, since Kenya had been a part of the British Empire until 1963, that perhaps what I knew of English nursing might not be that different from what it might be like there.

I wrote a brief note to Sr. Loyola to the effect that if she had not received any other volunteers, to please consider me. She received the note and promptly called asking me to come to see her.

At Villa de Matel, Sr. Loyola showed me the full text of the letter from Sister Rosa Marta, and we talked about the challenges and the needs in this area of Kenya. At this point I was sitting in front of her and wondering if this was moving too fast. She must have seen the glazed look in my eyes, because she asked me, “Do you still want to go?” “Oh, yes,” I said.

At the conclusion of our meeting, Sr. Loyola asked if I could be ready to go in August, and this was May! I said I could, but left her office in a tailspin. Three months was such a short time to learn customs, traditions and the language of the people. How was I going to do it all?

With this and many other questions in mind, I wrote to Sister Rosa Marta for advice. After many weeks, because there was no mail service where she was in East Pokot, I finally received a reply from her. Her advice was “not to worry about anything.” I decided to take her injunction not to worry and to keep an open mind and an open heart.

When I did experience any apprehensions, concerns or even major fears, and I confess that I did, I reminded myself over and over that the Incarnate Word was with me and whatever I was facing would be all right. And, three months later, I flew to Kenya.

I arrived at Gomo Kenyata Airport in Nairobi, and was met by Sr. Rosa Marta and four other Sisters from her Congregation who had been in Kenya for only six months. The first thing that struck me there was that there were flowers everywhere. Nairobi is called the “green city in the sun.” The climate there is close to perfect. Flowers bloom everywhere and there are beautiful large trees with bright orange blossoms. There was bougainvillea of every color and hue that you could imagine and Poinsettias that had grown into big trees.

After some delays, primarily due to my lost luggage and stops along the way, I made my first visit to East Pokot. We met with the Bishop at his office in Nakuru. The Diocesan Offices are housed in the old Cathedral and the Bishop’s office was spacious and nicely furnished. That morning he seemed to be genuinely glad that I had come. He said welcome about seven or eight times in English and Swahili.

The Pokot tribe is a branch of the Kalengin, which is Bishop Ndingi’s tribe. The Bishop received some of his education in the United States and as a result was eager to get someone from the U.S.A. to initiate a Medical Safari Program for his beloved Pokot tribe. The Pokots had never had any health care; however, a doctor from Mexico had arrived shortly before I did and he was dispensing medicine for various ailments.

Although we made stops along the way, the travel time for this journey could be  generally described as taking two hours to drive from Nairobi to Nakuru, driving at a speed of approximately 60 miles per hour. From Nakuru to Marigat it took about 45 minutes, as it was an excellent road. From Marigat to the Tiati Mission, where I was to temporarily live with the Sisters from Mexico, the road was so terribly bad it took close to another 2 hours. Mile wise it was not that far but was the most difficult part of the journey. The road was rough, to say the least, and for lengthy stretches it was non-existent. In some places it was like climbing up the side of a craggy rock. In other parts we drove along well-used narrow muddy roads along the rim of the Rift Valley. Eventually we made it to Barpello at the foot of Mount Tiati and “home.”

As soon as we crossed the river, although it was dark, the people were out along the way to greet us and welcome the Sisters back. As we reached the convent, some of the people helped us unload the contents of the pickup. The Holy Spirit Fathers, who had arrived a few years ahead of the Sisters, had built the convent, which was very small, but quite adequate.

Sister Sylvia, another Incarnate Word Sister, quickly set about providing a bit of supper with the help of lighted kerosene lanterns. Later I learned we had a refrigerator that worked with kerosene. Meanwhile Sister Rosa Marta showed me my room and the Chapel where we offered a brief prayer of thanksgiving. That night we didn't dawdle over supper because we were all tired. Then after washing the dishes, we each took a lantern to our rooms to help us prepare for bed. In addition, I was given a flashlight in case during the night I might have visitors of a reptile nature.

Although I was very tired from the journey, sleep did not come to me for some time. Firstly because the mattress was straw and it took me a while to get used to it, and secondly because I had seen some little lizards on the ceiling and I was afraid. Later I discovered they were a blessing because they ate the mosquitoes.

In the days and weeks that followed, I continued to be amazed at the resourcefulness of the Sisters from Mexico. They had adapted to the needs of the people so beautifully.

Sr. Rosa Marta had started a little “kindergarten group,” as she called it, but she had children of all ages from 6 months to 14 and 15 years, because nobody had ever been to school. The 6-month-old babies came on their mother’s backs. Sr. Rosa Marta told me that initially the school was just an excuse to give the children some food.

Her school consisted of some boards down on a dirt floor with branches of trees stuck into the ground and woven across the top for a roof with some grass above that. That was only a temporary school, however, as the Holy Spirit Fathers were already building a new school for her.

I found the Pokot people to be a very gracious people who are always ready to share what they have with guests, even if all they have is very little. They are semi nomadic which is why they do not, or did not at that time, build very good houses. They moved with their animals, cows, goats, camels, and donkeys, wherever they needed to go for water and grass.

According to Pokot custom, it was the woman’s “privilege,” and I am using that word from them, to build the houses and care for the children. It was the men’s privilege to philosophize, organize, and govern and especially to protect their wives and children from attacks from raids by the Turcana tribe to the north.

While I had studied Swahili, the language of Kenya, in Pokot they spoke Pokot and there was no written form of the Pokot language at that time.  Each tribe spoke a full language, not just a dialect, but a full separate language. If I could make any effort at all at the Pokot language they were very good about helping me out. They knew what I was trying to say much more quickly than I could interpret what they were saying to me.

When I first went to the station where I had volunteered to serve, the people were waiting to greet me. They kept calling me “doctari.” I tried to explain as best I could that I was a nurse, not a doctor, but they communicated that it was the same thing.

One of my earliest tasks was to visit the medical officer and find out from his perspective what my parameters would be. And sure enough, he expected me to take the part of a doctor, maybe a newly educated one, but I would be responsible for treating the primary diseases, from intestinal parasites to malaria. I would also have to treat the children as well as the adults who have a great propensity to get upper respiratory infections. This was due to the fact that the nights are cold and housing is so poor. Even though they are familiar with the situation, they tend to get pneumonia and other kinds of upper respiratory infections.

In those early days as I was just trying to understand the customs, environment and language, I didn't have any medicine with me. The Mexican Sisters had a very limited amount and shared that with me. The people came to me and expected me to be able to go to work right away.

Actually on the night that I arrived, a group of people brought a sick girl to me. She was about 15 or 16 years old. Her father explained to me, as well he could, that she had been sick for about 3 weeks and that her mother had died of the same disease.

I did a very limited examination of her, but I discovered that she had hugely swollen tonsils. I had no medicine except aspirins and no cough medicine or anything like that. I gave her honey that was produced locally. So some honey and hot water eased the pain of her throat and aspirin brought down her fever.

I asked Sr. Rosa Marta if she could stay in the convent on an extra mattress because if she went out into the cold evening air she could die because she had fever.

We prepared a bed for her, but to our great surprise all the people who were with her came in also. The next morning as I came out of my room, I had to step across bodies on the floor.

In my health care ministry, my first task was to teach health care extension workers, so that they could work more closely with the people than I ever could. What I taught them initially was how to make rehydration fluids to give to the children who had intestinal viruses.

The mission encompassed three components and the first one, the one I actually volunteered for, was to immunize the children from three months of age to three years, because they were the most vulnerable group. I also needed to teach prenatal care to the mothers and potential mothers, and to teach basic hygiene. But, how do you teach hygiene without water? It is difficult.

Fortunately the Holy Spirit Fathers, Fr. Jerry Foley and Fr. Sean McGovern, specifically, were working on building a water reservoir where they could capture the rainwater. This was being done in a very small way by the Sisters as well. They collected the rainwater, boiled and filtered it for our own use. This system for collecting the water was necessary because all that was available was river water and that water was being contaminated by the animals as well as the people who would go downstream to wash their clothes. The Holy Spirit Fathers built a water tank with a trough around it where the animals could drink without contaminating the source.

It was amazing how the Pokot people knew how to find water by divining it, with a stick or branch of a tree. They also knew that in a very dry time if one dug deeply into the sand where river had been, one would find water. That was actually a way to find good water because it would have been filtered by the sand.

My experiences there were all so new to me and I was learning a lot.

One of the most difficult things for me was my inability to follow through on plans I made. For example, I would schedule a safari to immunize the children and would have everything in the small pick up that I drove, but the river would rise and I could not cross it. This was especially difficult for me because I had no way of letting the people know. I knew they would all be assembled some distance across the river, and I had no way to let them know that I could not get there.

After my 20 years in the United States that was a difficult lesson. We are so geared to production in this country and not being able to follow through with my plans was very difficult for me in the beginning. But then with the help of other missionaries, and especially the other Sisters with whom I lived, I began to realize that I could not save everybody, but I could do what I could in the areas where I found myself. That was one of many valuable lessons I learned in Kenya.

The Pokot people were very grateful for whatever little help we could give them. And we didn't give many handouts. I discovered the people really didn't have much, but they never really looked for anything for nothing unless they were desperate. They would always bring a bottle of milk or a couple of eggs or sometimes a small goat, a little kid. I took the milk they brought, strained it, boiled it, bottled it and put it in the refrigerator that worked on kerosene.  Then when people traveled a very long distance for medicine or whatever, I had something to offer them food wise that was acceptable to them.  They liked to drink milk and also it was nourishing.

Unfortunately, due to traditional practices at that time, the only people who did not drink milk were pregnant women. They believed that the baby would not walk if the woman drank milk while pregnant. Another belief was that if the pregnant woman ate any eggs the baby would never talk.

In offering pre-natal care, I was gradually able to change this way of thinking, first of all with powdered milk. Then after two or three drank it and they had a baby that was healthy and strong they were convinced. The same with the eggs, but I had to go very slowly in order not to antagonize the people. The Pokot people are very private. They move their houses away from any beaten path, because they don’t like people, even sometimes their own people, coming too close. Their houses are built in a circle and are for the extended families.

I also helped deliver babies. The Pokot people name their babies according to whatever is closest to them, so there were a few little Celestines who are grown women now.

One little girl that I immunized was only 3 years old and was called Liar, in Pokot. I said to the translator that I had with me at the time that this sweet little girl could not have possibly told any lies and the translator replied, “She didn't , but her mother did.”

While I was there I made some efforts to inculcate a sense of pride in their own history and dress and way of being, but the women were eager to get Western clothes.

Normally in Pokot the women were bare breasted with a lot of beads around their necks. The wealthier their parents were, the more beads they had pushing up their chins. And they wore a goat skin around their waist and hips down to their ankles. They decorated these goatskins with colorful beads. They also used colorful beads to decorate their little baby bottles that they made from calabashes or gourds. And the mother also had a little baby goat skin, to hold the baby in. If it was cold, we would supply blankets and clothes, and recommended they use these only to go into the village. The women of Tiate found that when they went down to the village or into town that they were stared it. As a consequence they wanted to dress in Western clothes.

The people had a wonderful community spirit. I think that in some sense that stemmed from the fact that the men practiced polygamy in the “up country.” Men may have as many wives as they can afford, and if they had a lot of cows and a lot of goats and camels, they could afford many wives. Polygamy is not practiced in the cities, because it is illegal.

The Pokot people were not evangelized, but they knew God and God knew them, too. They had this marvelous way of group prayer. The chief, whose name was Thomas would lead them in prayer, and, although I did not understand every word that he was saying in Pokot, I knew he would say “Let us thank Tororot,” which is their word for God. “Let us thank Tororot for the rain,” and they would all answer “Serat!” with such conviction. And he would thank God for this and that.  One time that I was there, he said, “Let us thank Tororot for the Sisters, because they are bringing us many things, education for the children, some food and health care and we are very grateful to the Sisters.” The people responded, “Serat!” They didn't waste any words, but they were acquiescing to his idea of thanking God for whatever it was.

I had volunteered for three years in Kenya, but I ended up staying there for four years. When I first arrived in Kenya I lived with the Mexican Sisters in Barpello and in Nakuru and they were wonderful to me. I loved each one of them. Later when our own Sister Gabrielle Duane and Sister Michelle Curtin arrived, we built a convent in Baraka, which means “Blessing.” The convent is located about six miles on the other side of Molo. Sr. Gabrielle came with the intent of helping me in Barpello, but she decided to teach in the Junior Seminary. Sr. Michele came to teach in the Major Seminary.

I continued to live with the Mexican Sisters in Barpello and when we came to Nakuru about every six weeks or so, I stayed at our own place in Baraka.

I was able to get a young Kenyan male nurse to take my place in Barpello and later Sister Rebecca, a Sister of the Incarnate Word and Blessed Sacrament arrived. She has done a marvelous job for many years.

There is so much more that I could say relative to my experiences. My heart is filled with marvelous memories of my time there. I am so grateful to God and to the Congregation for allowing me to take this special journey in my life.

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