So these last few days have been quite interesting and a few more eye-opening experiences to add to the list of the many I have had here so far. On Monday I helped out at a free mobile medical camp and Tuesday I went through a tour of what can tie for first place of the largest slum in Africa.
Brad, Jen (two other volunteers staying with me) and I had to leave from Kajiado on Sunday afternoon and just met up with some of the other volunteers and went out for supper and generally hung out.
Monday
We woke up early, and headed out to the meeting point to join up with everyone else who was headed to the medical camp. We split up into 2 matatus (little mini van / bus) type things. Then we drove for about 2.5 hours until we reached Nakuru. This is where the mobile camp was located, when we arrived it was not too busy so because there were so many of us volunteers it was a little hectic at first, simply because we all wanted to find something to do. Ha it was pretty crazy, at the camp they had several different local doctors and nurses helping, as well as some that had come from the US as well. (sort of like a red cross type thing) At the clinic we had people doing everything involving, general illness, disease, and diagnostics, HIV testing, prenatal and women care, vision testing, diabetes testing and treatment, as well as some other things. We were also providing free medication for everyone who required it.
So once we all sort of get settled in and organized we finally figured out some tasks for all of us. Another volunteer named Julie and I offered to help out with figuring out all of the lunch stuff. So we essentially just went around and took everyone’s lunch menus, ha our choices were PB+J, or some meat type sandwich, and coke or fanta. Regardless we went around and got all 56 orders or so. Then we had to go to the supermarket to buy enough food for everyone, then we proceeded to make all of the sandwiches and portion the pop, and chips we got as well. After lunch was served to everyone I got to do some real medical type work, lol even though feeding people was decently important to as well.
Brad, one of the volunteers that I live with back in Kajiado has crazy amounts of medical training, especially in wilderness rescue and all of that jazz, but he was helping deal with the general illnesses and seeing patients, and prescribing them the proper meds that they needed, but he asked me if I wanted to help him. So I basically screened all of the patients and would get all of their information, take their temperature, and write down everything that was wrong with them. Afterwards Brad would actually do their assessment and all that fun stuff, but either way it was an awesome experience and it felt like I was doing quite a bit to help out actually which was really really cool.
At the end of the day, the medical camp didn’t get nearly as many people as they were expecting, which was upwards of 1000. We only ended up getting around 420, but it was still a really awesome thing, and we got to do alot of good stuff and help the people, especially those who couldn’t afford the medications that they needed. It was quite a late day, and we didn’t end up getting back into Nairobi until about 8:00p.m. that night. So it was obviously way too late to go home at that point, because travelling after dark is not the best idea in the world here, and we had some other stuff to do in Nairobi anyways. So we had to stay the night again.
Tuesday
In the morning I went with some of the girls who are volunteering in the Kibera Slums, here in Nairobi to do a tour of the slum, distribute some food, and meet some of the local people. Kibera slums is tied to be the biggest slum in all of Africa, right now I believe that the slum in Johannesburg, South Africa is slightly larger but it goes back and forth between the two, not exactly a title that anyone strives for though! It is estimated that there are between 1 and 1.5 million people living here, and these people are all there as a result of several different things like; lack of employment opportunity, abandonment, illness, or post-election violence. All have different stories, and come from different backgrounds. It is a very dangerous slum for the locals, 2 people were killed there last week, 1 was shot, the other beaten to death for trying to steal a radio. Due to the danger factor, we had to walk around with 2 local guards, so that we would be protected from those who are the most desperate as well. If we did not have these guys with us and we tried to take a picture for example, we would probably be attacked...people are quite uncomfortable with it, and rightly so – no one deserves to be treated like they live in a zoo. They also think that we go home and sell these pictures, so they think we are just using them to make money essentially. When really the main reason we take the pictures, is to show people back home and try and create awareness about these things that are going on in other parts of the world, so some people might feel inclined to do what they can to help out. Also these local people know that we carry around food to distribute to some of the families, so with out the guards we would most likely be attacked and have the food and any other belongings stolen from us. It sounds much more dangerous than I ever felt, though I would never want to risk what it would be like with out the guards walking around with us. The slum is something I can not describe in words to fully get the point across, it is a hilled, muddy, trash-strewn, dirty place essentially. The shacks are mainly made of tin and dirt, usually with only 1 room per person. There are supposed to be police there for security, but it is extremely rare to find them. They have no running water and only the very lucky have 1 light in their room, so you must realize that it gets dark at 6:30 and then they essentially have nothing except for danger.
So we went around the slum and toured the different areas, and we went to 4 different shacks to distribute food
The first was occupied by a father and her daughter, the father was around 75 and the daughter in her 30’s (a huge percent of the population in Africa doesn’t know when their birthday is, or even how old they are.) The father had been in Kibera for around 50 years, his daughter is HIV+ and will soon be getting trained to sew, to help sustain her and her father. The father also has very bad eye issues, and is nearly blind and unable to work.
The second, was the smiley-ist little old man I have ever met, he was about 85 and has lived in Kibera for around 60 years, due to his age he is unable to work anymore obviously. It was amazing to see someone so happy in such a terribly situation though. Puts things into perspective quite a bit, he also raises 3 of his grand children because one of his children got killed, and there was no one else to look after them.
Third was a middle aged man who has no family members, or friends essentially, I believe that basically everyone he knew died. He is unable to work because of severe arthritis and his age. He also suffers from severe depression.
Lastly was a mother and daughter, the mother didn’t know how old she was, and the daughter is about 17 years old. The daughter is HIV+ and also got some sort of disease around the age of 7 that paralyzed the left half of her body. They do not know the disease caused it though or what happened. She receives medication and physical therapy for her paralysis once a week, and over the last 6 months of treatment she has really started improving. They are working towards getting her to one day be able to walk on her own, so that she can attend school. Her mother can’t work because she must take care of the daughter full time.
After the food distribution and meeting the families, we went to the WEEP centre (Womens Empowerment Equality Program) This centre has been established for women who are HIV+ and have suffered much from the stigma that still comes with a diagnosis like this here. These womens husbands will leave when they discover the status of their wives, they leave them with all of the children and no way to get money. This is unfortunate as most of these women contracted the HIV from their adulterous husbands (not always the case though). These women can be run out of their homes and left to die, this is where the WEEP centre steps in, they educate the women on sewing and jewellery making so that they can learn to support their on families. These women are incredibly strong people, and women who should be looked up to rather than looked down upon and treated like trash and immediately dismissed like so many of them unfortunately are. They also have established and run a nursery and pre-primary school for some of the local kids who live in the slums.
It was again another one of these crazy things, which I have so many frustrations with. One of the main frustrations being my inability to fully explain the situation and the way it is here, to get people to really understand it. It really is an absolutely amazing, sad, upsetting, frustrating, and in an odd way inspiring thing to see.
After Kibera we just went for lunch, and after that it was back to Kajiado for us.
