Extreme Home Makeover, Kenya Edition...Kenya Week 4: October 25-October 31

I once imagined poverty as the lack of necessary resources like a decent home, enough food, or good clothing. While this image of poverty rings true, a deeper reality of poverty exists: a poverty that affects not only your physical wellbeing, but also your emotional, mental, and social wellbeing. An abject poverty that prevents an individual from truly living. I recently encountered such a poverty...

Mary became a widow only one week after the birth of her second son. Left alone in the world with two baby boys, one mentally handicapped and one epileptic, she had almost no resources and few options.

Fast forward 16 years...

Mary and her sons Michael and Gaston now live in a mud hut with a thatch roof on a small piece of land graciosly given to them by a young fisherman. When it rains, water pours into the house through the large holes in thachting. Their clothes are literally threadbare, all three suffer from malnutrition and they rely on the generosity of well wishers for food and water. Gaston does is best to gather food, water and firewood, but his occasional seizures are a huge threat to his safety in their exposed environment. Michael’s mental disability prevents him from helping at all. Neither Michael nor Gaston attended school because of their illnesses and they have little to no social interaction with other people.

If this suffering weren’t enough, all three are now seriously infected with Jiggers. These flea-like bugs live in the soil and borrow into your skin. Once nestled in, they hatch their eggs which spread to surrounding tissue and continue to multiply. Jiggers are a common problem in rural, poor Kenyan communities. But the intensity of the itching of even one tiny jigger impels a healthy person to remove the jigger as soon as possible. But because of their already weak and vulnerable state, Mary and the boys struggled to keep the jiggers at bay and they quickly spread out of control. Mary can’t sleep at night because of the itching and Michael’s feet are so extremely covered by the bugs he can no longer walk.

I heard about “The Jiggers Family” my first week in Karungu. Irene, a Community Health Worker for the Maternal and Child Health Clinic happened to find the family while searching for pregnant mothers in the hills surrounding the hospital. When I heard the story, it struck a cord in my heart and I continued to ask about the family and their situation. Irene invited me to come with her to meet the family and I jumped at the opportunity. I knew something had to be done for them and I thought perhaps I could help.


The moment I met Mary, Michael, and Gaston, something in me knew this is why I had come to Karungu. They are the widow, the orphan, the poor, the hungry, and the sick that Christ talks about in the Gospels. How could I leave them in their abject poverty and go to sleep at night calling myself a Christian? Their neighbors can only do so much as they struggle within their own poverty. But I have all the resources necessary at my disposal and now a burning desire to act.

And so began the Extreme Home Makeover Kenya Edition plan. With the help of Irene, the nurses at the MCH, and Father Mario, we developed a two part program to get “The Jiggers Family” back on their feet (literally!).

1. We'll build them a brand new home: An iron-sheet roof will keep out the rain. A cemented floor and walls will keep out any possible jiggers in the soil.

2. We’ll bring them to the hospital to remove the jiggers and provide much needed medication, nourishment, rest, and love.

I made a few phone calls and quickly received an incredibly generous donation from a dearly loved one back home (Thank You!!!). With funding for the new home, Father Mario agreed to wave any hospital fees.

Feeling a bit like Ty Pennington from Extreme Home Makeover, we began coordinating construction of their new home last week. Irene (the Community Health Worker) has been working tirelessly to coordinate between me, John and Father Mario to keep construction going. Within a few days, the frame was complete and John the Builder was ready to nail down the roof.

On Tuesday, Duncan drove Irene and I to their home to bring all three to St. Camillus. Brother Stephen admitted them to the hospital and the amazing nurses Frank and Catherine helped them settle into their beds. As you can see, many many people have gone out of their way to help this family and I feel so blessed to be a part of it!

On Wednesday, Frank began the process of meticulously removing each and every jigger. Hospital staff, other patients, and visitors come to see us slowly work on our new patients. Although jiggers are relatively common in Kenya, such severe cases are rare. Some on lookers ask questions, some provide words of comfort or encouragement. Many just stare.

Words can’t describe and pictures can’t capture the extent of this slow, painful process. After soaking in a mixture of antiseptic and hydrogen peroxide for half an hour, the skin covering each jigger must be cut away and the little bug pulled out with forceps. Because they have been infected for so long, much of the skin surrounding the jiggers grew thick and calloused before dying. So the largest jiggers under the necrotic tissue grew to the size of a pencil eraser and became filled with tiny white eggs. Pus of all colors, blood, and eggs ooze out with each cut of the blade. After removing the jigger, a small open pit remains where the jigger had burrowed deep into the skin and tissue. But little by little, their hands and feet are freed of the bugs and begin to heal.

Multiple people have removed jiggers for countless hours over the past three days and still some remain. But Mary, Michael and Gaston silently suffer as we attempt to rid them of this horrible affliction. They are becoming more animated and cheerful, especially Gaston. He can’t read or even count to ten, but he constantly smiles and jokes with me whenever I come to visit them.

We hope to finish removing the jiggers soon and give them a few more days in the hospital to heal. Before returning to their new home, we will buy them new clothes, beds, food, and anything else they need as they begin their new life. They have a long, difficult road ahead of them. But with new friends, a new home, jigger-free hands and feet, full bellies, and a renewed sense of hope, I pray they are ready to continue on their journey.