I cannot believe I have gone this long without posting a message. I left a week ago, today, and am foremost thrilled with the success of the last two days of clinics! Lets start at the start. We have an official blog this trip, www.mikinduri,com/tripblog, and dedicated blogger, Louise, so all I have to do is loan her my computer, then select appropriate pictures, upload them, then upload her blog to the website at speeds that make dial-up look preferable. It is saving me time though, so I have been remiss in updating. This is going to be a long one. Buckle in.
Thursday
We arrived last Wednesday at midnight and headed to our spot in Nairobi: the Methodist Inn. I helped my uncle Ted exchange a huge amount of money for the volunteers and spent a few hours figuring out how much to give each person. 82.5 kenyan shillings to the American dollar (because they don’t accept Canadian dollars) is an odd thing to calculate. After a restful sleep, we were up early and on the road for some touristy spots. This is the first year that tourism was on the agenda so early in the trip. We started off at Kazuri Beads, a place where girls who are affected in some way by physical abuse can work. They make beads out of clay, bake them, paint them, and string them. It was a beautiful shop and so great to see the 200 women so gainfully employed. (Plus my Christmas shopping may be done for the year. I can say this without worry of spoiling it …as I know Linds will never read this far into the blog. Haha).
Next we headed to a surprise location. When Ted said he had a few surprises lined up for us, I immediately knew what one of hem was, but not the other two. So after Kazuri beads, I was excited to see the surprise. We arrived at a zoo in the middle of Nairobi that was more like a ranch. There was a huge plot of land with many giraffes wandering around, and best of all, there was a feeding station (2 stories up). For only $7 admittance, we got to go into this safari in the city, walk up the stairs, and feed, pet, and poke giraffes! Yes, I did poke a giraffe. It was on my bucket list. We then headed to the place that I knew we were going, only because every year we try to go and never make it. The elephant orphanage! There are ‘baby’ elephants there that have been abandoned, again in the middle of Nairobi, but this is a provincial park. The ‘babies’ are taller than the average man and only 2 years old! They wandered around an enclosure and drank out of bottles while the guide standing with them explained each of their names and circumstances for coming to the center. They were adorable, but after about 10 minutes you were over it. How amazingly fast does complacency set in?
On the way out of the orphanage we saw a monkey, possibly a baboon, up in the trees. Yes, we were in Kenya! A monkey sighting confirmed it! We headed to Castle Forest Lodge, a beautiful place to adjust to the time change for an evening. We got there later than normal since we were tourists for the day, just in time to rest before dinner. The ‘kenyan massage’ (a really bad bumpy road that my mother will never ever forget, nor will her broken back), was a welcome reminder of the past. The memories started flooding in at Castle Forest. While we saw no elephants there that day (as we had last year), no one was really looking. We were already spoiled with wildlife.
Friday
After a restful evening and culturally awakening conversation with Jessica, one of the girls from Ontario, and Dr Rosie, a young Kenyan doctor who has joined us for the entire trip, we set off for Mikinduri. (This is now Friday, for those of you keeping up). Dr Rosie explained one of the differences between Kenyan and American culture is that men would not be offended in Kenya with any amount of cleavage. Many women openly breastfeed wherever they are – restaurants, buses, stores, etc. But, if a woman has a short skirt on, it is extremely suggestive. Rosie explained that almost anything above the knee on a white woman would be permissible only because we are odd anyway, but if Rosie were to wear a short skirt, the men would likely strip her naked until the women came and saved her. Apparently Kenyans are leg-men.
Once we arrived in Mikinduri, we were pleased to learn that we were staying at Hotel NoName, a name a gave it last year that Dr Ed has tried to rename ‘Inn on the Hill’ as in Charlottetown, PEI, but I am sticking to NoName as the hotel is a year old and still has no name. This is a newer hotel than the one we normally stay at, but most luxurious, there are toilets in every room but 2! And even better….I’m not one of those two! I have no idea how that worked out, but I’m thrilled! This hotel is nice because it is where we eat our meals and is walking distance to the clinics. Last year we had to take combis (a van) to dinner and clinics from our hotel, and wait for everyone, and it was really just a hassle! This year, I wander out of my room when I like, and socialize only when it’s fun.
Saturday
The team this year is really spectacular. It’s small, but cozy. 25 members who are really all sweet-natured, easy going, and to Ted’s liking, on time! Not one person has been late even once in an entire week. It seems unreal. People are all very friendly and gelled immediately. Most are from Charlottetown, with some from Ontario, Fredericton, and Vermont. Whenever something needs to be done, there are many volunteers, and no one grumbles at any point. (This is not a dig on the previous trips, but it is noticeably an easy group to get along with). Of course, that being said, I can’t turn around without missing the regulars. Karen, Greg, Nancy and Bill…it just seems odd without you! While at the grocery store (Nakumatt), I had to buy a small bottle of Amarulla, because that’s somehow just what I drink in Kenya. Every night Karen would offer me a drink and after turning the first few down, I eventually give in. It just seemed wrong not to have a nip of this bailey’s like liqueur before going to bed. Karen – the bottles gone. I think you were here for a bit at least!
Okay, back to Saturday. We started the day out at Kenoe (or Kinwe) feeding center. The kids come for the feeding program Saturday morning and welcome us in a way only the Kenyans can. When they say ‘Caribou’ – welcome, you realize the deeper meaning in how they say I saw this one girl named Ruth that I have taken a picture with for three years in a row. She has hazel eyes and must be nearly completed with the program, but it’s lovely to see her still involved. It means she is still in school. We were entertained with poetry, psalm recitations, and song, then served the children food. We also got to see the site of the new Maringa processing facility, which is one of MCOH’s new projects. They broke ground on it a few days ago, and Ted hopes to have construction underway before he leaves. Maringa is a miracle plant with all of the necessary amino-acid complexes to build protein. The plant will dry the leaves and make it into a powder. There is a customer who will buy the Maringa, so the main intent is to convince the farmers locally to grow something other than corn, to improve the profit for them. Additionally it’s a great product that can be used in the feeding programs.
We headed back to the Father Bernard’s church to begin unpacking. Now, this is the day I missed Karen most. This is what she organized – the bags. Thank goodness she did all of that in Canada this year, as I had an organized list to send the 50 different hockey bags off to, whether it be medical, dental, pharmacy, vision, or fun stuff to give away. Once we sorted the bags, we actually had to open them and sort the stuff inside. Guhh! Always so much work. Luckily, this year, we are only working in Mikinduri, so it is much easier to sort for 1 clinic rather than 3.
Sunday
On Sunday we continued sorting in the morning than I joined in with church just after the homily (only an hour late!). Here is my justification: Everything (readings, homily, etc) were in Kimeru or Kiswahili…I don’t even know which, so what good would it do for me to be there? (Kimeru is one of the 42 tribal languages in Kenya and Kiswahili is the national language). Well after I arrived and was seated way too close to the front for my liking, tho9ugh still about ½ way back (this is practically the last row for Kenya/muzungo standards. Normally they have us in the very first pew of 50!) Anyway immediately before communion, an alter server came up to me and said ‘father requests you to come to the front and serve communion’. Now I have been Catholic my whole life, but I have only been a Eucharistic Minister once, and I was in 8th grade on a retreat. Doesn’t really count. So I wander up to the front, not entirely sure where to stand, as each church has a different custom, and luckily he also drags up another Canadian (yes I just called myself Canadian), named Shawna, who has obviously been pulled up before. I follow her lead, and when it comes time to bring communion to the people, stand in the right-ish spot to the left of the priest, and gladly remember the phrase I repeated a hundred time ‘body of christ’. It was neat for the Kenyans as they very emphatically said ‘Amen’ after I said my phrase, and neat for me to serve in church in addition to in the community. It’s a little too up front for my liking though. This was just the first surprise.
So now that mass is 120 minutes in, and has finally ended, the speeches begin. All in Kimeru of Kiswahili, of course. I am told just before this by Chief Alex, that I am to make a speech to the people, introducing my team. Well there are only three of us who have managed to stay for the whole thing, some because they’re not catholic, some left after communion, and truthfully, I only stayed through speeches because I knew I had to. We normally duck out to go do work. Anyway, Chief tells me that Ted said I would say something, so I can just imagine Ted driving to Meru (the biggest town locally, about 100,000 people) to have a skype conference because the signal is too weak in Mikinduri. Anyway, I can just imagine him laughing at leaving me to do a speech in his place. Well it turns out he told the Chief ‘no’ but since that is not a word the Chief understands, he tricked me into getting up there. So after the Chief talked for 20 minutes about something, with the occasional ‘canadian’ ‘clinic’ and ‘medical’ mentioned in English, I wander back up to the front. Then he introduces the Chairman of the Parish Counsel who talks for ten more minute about something. Chief runs over five different times during mass and the speech to tell me things I need to include in my speech. Well I touch on all the point. ‘Thank you Chairman’. ‘Come to the clinics’. ‘My team has 24 people’, etc. I realize halfway through that nobody can really understand anything I’m saying, even though I’m holding a microphone with the foam around it that makes it look like a tasty ice cream cone. I babble on for a few minutes (2 at the most) saying the things that I have heard Ted say a million times. The Chairman comes back on after I finish to translate for me and somehow my speech was only 20 seconds long. Something might have been skipped…. Anyway I walk back to my seat, and realize I forgot to thank Chief. Ooops! Major faux-paux. I remembered to thank the priest, MCOH office , and ten other people, for welcoming us to the community, but not the Chief. Needless to say, I had to smooth that over later.
One of the things I have learned is that Mikinduri is pronounced differently than we have always said it. The emphasis is on KIN not o the initial MIK like I thought. It’s ‘mih-KIN-dur-ee’. Huh. You think you know a place.
Sunday ended with hope for Monday, when the clinics would begin. When I left the grounds on Sunday, there were 2 tents that weren’t up yet. They were being used at an anniversary party not far away, so even though MCOH was renting them starting that day, we had to pay for a bus to collect the tent and supplies. The people who were supposed to bring the tents decided to stay for the party instead as it seemed like more fun. You have to love Kenya! It’s such an easy-going place, you have to be creative with the solution. One of the women tripped on the way back form the clinics. She was taken back to the clinic, where it was realized there was no power, water, supplies, or even a pillow to prop her ankle up on. Huh – we’re supposed to do what now tomorrow…in this spot? Oh well, I’m sure it will work out. TIA (This is Africa).
Monday
And it did! Monday was a huge success! We eventually got water and power, until the power went out due to the regular Monday night power outage. (It’s scheduled and expected). We partnered with the Lion’s Club out of Meru, who provided (we paid wages for) 4 doctors, 6 clinical officers (similar to nurse practioner), and 10 nurses. This is 4 times bigger than our normal medical team! We had to give them a tent to use in addition to the building, it’s so big! The biggest joy of the day was the realization that we could see more patients than were interested. What I mean by that is, in previous years, our medical team was smaller, so we had to prioritize which patients got to see the doctors. Now, taking a medical professional out to make this designation would only slow the process further, so one of my responsibilities was to walk up and down the medical line and decide who was sick enough to see the doc. Needless to say, knowing we had space for everyone this year was quite a relief!
Most of our volunteer translators and runners have been with the clinic for at least a year, so they are familiar with the operations. They are doing a fantastic job! They are on-time, stay on task, rarely on cell phones, or goofing off. It’s a huge change from the first year in the professionalism of these students. Plus the person helping me most on registration is a volunteer from last year, and she pretty much does the whole thing, so I can try to run the clinic so Ted can be off doing project work. It has really worked out great! On Monday, we saw 260 medical patients. 60 dental, 130 vision, and 40 kids got to participate in making crafts with Lily, our 9-year old team member. The children were delighted to walk around with their paper covered in stickers! We had a few emergency patients with no major problems. Coordinating was really a breeze with such experienced team-members, volunteers, and drivers.
Tuesday
Today we woke up to Makena’s amazing samosas! Not normally a breakfast meal, but a treat for Valentine’s Day. Makena is the woman who came from Mikinduri and was requesting donations when Ted got involved. She and Ted started Mikinduri Children of Hope and Makena has come to Mikinduri this year and is acting as our cook. The food has been magical. She has masterfully blended the familiar Kenyan foods with the comfort of Canadian cooking. We had scalloped potatoes today with a Kenyan cabbage-vegetable thing. Really yummy! I fear my normal Mikinduri diet will not have any effect because her food is too good!
Tuesday clinic was fun as well. I was hoping more patients would come as we ended clinics on Monday at 3pm due to a lack of patients. We assumed with it being a market day, people would be more apt to come to the clinic. However, numbers were very low. The problem, it turns out, is that there is a medical camp elsewhere in town on the same day, for only 50 bob (Kenyan shillings … 60 cents). That is what we charged people to come into the clinics last year. This year, the local board increased it to 100 shillings. I felt that was too high but deferred to their decision…until there were no patients. After conferring with them, we cut the amount in half and sent runners to collect people from the market to come up. Ideally, we wouldn’t charge anyone to come in, but there are benefits. Many people were coming to the clinic with a problem that had been treated but they weren’t satisfied with the answer. Also, people came in just because they were curious and wanted a hat. The small fee ensures they have thought twice about coming. Additionally, we were told by the locals, that a handout is less respected than if they were to contribute part. The people gladly give the 50 shillings once they’re told the money goes to the next year’s clinics, which lets them know MCOH is serious and plans to be around. Now all of this being said, if someone can’t pay, of course they are let in. We have groups of school children that are let in no questions asked and a few others each day, though it is the exception. I worry that even this reduced rate is keeping some people away, but as we have done in the past, we will have to learn and grow the clinic each year based on mistakes we made.
After cutting 4 nurses and 2 clinicians, medical still saw 260 people. Vision and Dental upped their game and saw 230 and 100 respectively. Overall, 1000 people have come through the clinic in only 2 days. That’s hard to believe! 30 are booked to have cataract surgery through the Lion’s Club of Meru. 3 more people went for emergency services. One woman had an abscess on her breast that was very sore from breast-feeding her 3 month old baby. She was so sad yesterday, but after being sent to the hospital today, she came back full of smiles! Her child’s name is Vegas and let me tell you, he was cute! I held him for a while! The emergency cases were interesting; when we get one, we send a combi with a muzungo (white person), the patient, and this year have been able to include a nurse familiar with Meru hospital. Somehow the patient gets seen faster with a white person, as it’s such a novelty. We stick out like a sore thumb! This makes combi’s a highly valued commodity. Today, a few people took off with the last combi, not realizing what they were doing. They didn’t tell anyone they were leaving, and didn’t come back for over an hour. We started to worry where they were and if there was an emergency, what to do. Luckily, we didn’t have that problem, and it was a nice ‘fire alarm’ of sorts to set some ground rules regarding combis and side trips.
Now that being said, they took off to sponsor two different families that we saw on Saturday that were greatly in need of sponsorship. It was hard to scold them for their action when they came back as we were all so excited for them and family that was sponsored. Here, it’s like winning the lottery to be sponsored! Chalice is a great organization that we partner with and I’m looking forward to seeing my sponsor kid sometime this week.
It’s funny when the nostalgia of past trips hit. Today was Valentine’s Day and two years ago, my mom and I each brought each other chocolate for the occasion, neither of us thinking of the state of 2 week old melted and remelted chocolate. However, I know we both enjoyed it immensely, and I smile just thinking about it. Then other times, like trying to shave your leg over the goosebumps from the cold water, now that a feeling I never really wanted again. Or the first time I laid on the hay-filled mattress. Yup. I remember that! Then the good things – a cold-ish tusker, the first rush of kids waving, seeing old friends, and the princess-bed feeling the mosquito nets give you. So far it has been a great trip! I look forward to the next 10 days. Keep us in your prayers as great things are happening here!
Sorry. I'm too tired to try to make some fit nicely in here. It's after midnight and I was supposed to be asleep hours ago!
We did some shopping in Nairobi while we waiting for our late flight, and Ted and I went off to Don Bosco school for street children. We got to see a few familiar faces in Julius and Emilio, twins that Ted and one other person sponsor through Chalice. The boys were in Mikinduri but relocated to Nairobi. Even though they're just in 8th grade, they have experienced much more than most adults and their goal for this year is to get a score of 300 on their upcoming national test so they can attend secondary school. They asked Ted to buy them shoes so they can play soccer as they currently play in bare feet. These boys are quite the sweet talkers so it's hard to differentiate what they really need, but this was a fair request. We took them to the mall and they got to say hello to the team and get a pair of shoes. 
We got to the airport around 9pm and said goodbye to our amazing Dr Rosie, begging her to come to Canada for a bit, and hoping she'll join us in clinics next year. We went through security (3 times) before getting on our midnight flight. We arrived in Brussels 9 hours later, had a layover that was two hours longer than it should have been, just enough time to bump us off our final flight to Charlottetown. We spent two nights in Montreal because of those two hours. They were nice and relaxing and truthfully I enjoyed sleeping a lot. Plus, the airline picked up the two nights of hotels and $90 in food for the time, so we ate well. It was a testament to how great the team was - even though our trip was extended two days, after the initial groan eveeryone let out, they all put a smile on their face and made the best of the situation. We spent Sunday in Montreal enjoying the huge underground mall, a gorgeous mass in the Cathedral of Catherine du Mond (or something like that all en francais) and a fun ride on the metro. When I finally arrived home at 2pm on Tuesday (not 5pm on Saturday as planned), I was happy to crawl into bed after finishing off a box of mac and cheese, and relax with my old dog passed out next to me. I made it until 8pm before falling asleep, and once I woke up (9 horus later) this morning, I realized, both the dog and I entirely missed dinner, and the dog slept from 2pm until the morning wihtout a pit stop. He was as tired as I was!
