Cause life is short but sweet for certain

Two Friday's ago I went to Murang'a, a small town located about an hour and a half outside of Nairobi. KENWA has a home there for children who have been orphaned due to HIV/AIDS. There are about 36 children which is an incredible small number considering how many exist and need help, but still. After a ridiculously round-a-bout start including backtracking at least 3 times just to get away from the Pangani clinic (Shanky knows this type of backtracking/circling/forgetting things and having to go back and leaving late...its a pain), we are on our way. We get about an hour outside of town and then head off in the opposite direction to pick up some children we are going to bring to the orphanage. So now there are 5 adults, 4 children, an infant, 6 mattresses and 10 blankets shoved into this van. It was...interesting.

We head out to the orphanage and realize we forgot a kid. So we turn back to pick him up.

About another hour or so later, we get to Murang'a. The drive was unbelievable...We were near Mt. Kenya and could just see it off in the distance. Getting out of the van was a process that involved a lot of crawling around the mattresses but we managed. The orphanage itself was incredible, there were children running around everywhere. Many are HIV+ but you really couldn't tell - they were just like the kids that I babysit at home. Screaming, singing, laughing. We got the newbies set up and tried to introduce them to the others but they were nervous (as expected). I then found the infant room. There were 4 babies, one which we had brought with us. The one we had brought, a baby boy, was HIV+ and had been abandoned by his mother. He was 6 months old and weighed about 10 pounds...his skin hung off of him in folds and his head was gigantic while his body was tiny -I could see all of his ribs, and his fore arm was about the size of my thumb. I didn't just stare at him, it wasn't like I was removed from the situation. I held him, fed him, made faces at him, everything. It almost physically made me sick at how small and malnourished he was, and I really wanted to just take him home (not sure how people would react to that type of "souvenier"). The baby he was sharing a bed with, another little boy, was 2 months old and weighed less than 6 pounds. One thing that gave me hope, however, was that there were children running around that had come to the orphanage in the same condition. It made me realize how much good was being done.

I also went to a new informal settlement, Kiambiu (not to be confused with Kiambu, which is where a park called Paradise Lost is, and is where Shanky, his landlord and I scampered around a waterfall). It was in this clinic in this slum that I did my own counselling. We visited 2 clients, a man and a woman. The man had just been diagnosed with TB and I told him the importance of hygiene/nutrition/walking/emotional health. The woman I talked to for almost an hour. After reminding her to take her pills and eat well, we just sat and chatted in her home (it was exactly like all the slum homes I have described before). Her optimism and excitement at still being alive after being diagnosed with TB 2 months ago was incredible. Her son also died around the time she was diagnosed in an accident, but she still had a smile on her face and teased me about finding a Kenyan man for me to marry. It humanized her in a way, and made me realize that even though I have given these HIV statistics names, faces, personalities I was still looking at them as just that: sick people. It was a refreshing day in the slums, and has helped me remain optimistic about my work since then.

In a side note - there is a saying here, a myth of sorts I guess that when it is sunny out and its raining at the same time, it means there is a hyena marriage somewhere. Kind of cool. I traded that story for a story about leprechauns and rainbows, which no one had ever heard before.

Living is easy with eyes closed

misunderstanding all you see...

I hope people are noticing that almost all of the titles of my blog posts are song lyrics. Carbon Leaf, Matt Nathanson and now the Beatles are the reigning bands used.

It has been a quiet few days at work. I have been in the clinic all week due to some unrest. There is a group of people (a mob, essentially, organized crime) that are causing a lot of problems. Known as the mungiki, they like to chop people to pieces and yesterday set a market on fire as well as burned a bus that had two children in it. While I live in a relatively safe area, transportation has been weird (all matatu drives pay the mungiki) and quite a few of our employees live in the areas that are being badly effected. It is also way too dangerous to go out to the field, so here I am.



I feel like I misunderstood quite a bit about Kenya when I first arrived. While this is to be expected, its almost like I am learning things all over again. I think in a lot of ways this separates a traveler from someone who has come to a country to put down some kind of roots. I am used to the fast paced backpacking way of travel; 2 nights in a city max, constantly moving and seeing new things. It is weird to me to remind myself that yes, I do need down time, and its fine if I just want to go home, sit and play spider solitaire. I will never fit in; I am in no way mistaken for a Kenyan. But I'm relearning what I misunderstood and getting used to the way of life here (to an extent. some things will always be foreign)


My Kenyan family/the AIESECers I have been hanging out with gave me a Kenyan name: Wacera (pronounced wah-share-uh). It is a Kikuyu word meaning one that likes to travel. Pretty fitting.

I also went to my first Kenyan club this weekend. That was...interesting. Being the only real white person there, I was pretty much not left alone the whole night. The idea of personal space is often ignored, and luckily I made friends with the security guy at the front and he kept most people from touching me too much. The focus of their attention? Surprisingly, my hair. I was wearing it down and its gotten fairly long, and people just wanted to stroke it. I allow the kids in the slums to do this all the time (I end up very dirty but it makes them so happy) but I couldn't bring myself to allow a room full of older men to do it. Overall, I think I am happier sticking to a more quiet venue to socialize and drink, but at least I tried it.

I claim to be so righeous, but I'm just like everyone else

I don't usually post this often, but today was especially rough. This post is for those that do not really truly understand what life is like outside of a first world country and especially for those that want to understand.

I knew I was headed to the slum Korogocho today; I had gone there two weeks ago and thought I knew what to expect. When I entered the clinic a young boy recognized me immediately, even though I had barely spoken to him and it had been a while since I had been there. While I know its not hard to recognize one out of the handful of white people that has visited the area, he even knew my name and called out to talk to me.

As I was standing with a few of the other interns there (all are native Kenyans), a woman walked up and wanted to talk to me. She wanted to take me to her home and introduce me to her family, and I obliged. Turns out she is a Maasai woman. I was welcomed into her house and met her husband and 3 year old son. The baby has a pelvic problem, and cannot walk; both the boy and the mother are HIV+. The husband was very excited to see me, and told me of their problems. The way he put it, although they had asked for help from several groups (they need blankets, they are all sleeping on the dirt ground), no one was able to help them "..and no one cares, except God. And he has come through you." They did not want anything, just someone to hear their story and care. The woman held my hand the entire way back to the clinic.

After that, we went to a home to take care of a woman who was bedridden. If you have never been into a house in the slum (and I'm assuming most people have not), I will do my best to describe it. Getting to a specific home is a task; there is dirty water flowing through make-shift ditches in all alleyways. You end up jumping from stone to stone to avoid trudging through the polluted sludge. Everytime I have come to the door I was headed too I have been graciously welcomed; people have pulled out stools for me to sit on and called "karibu karibu!" (welcome, welcome). They are one room shacks made out of metal house siding that is completely rusted. There is a 3 by 6 foot area that is usually for sitting, and then a sheet or a series of sheets hang up to hide a bed. The kitchen is shoved in the corner of the seating area. It is incredibly dark and stifling; I often have problems swallowing inside of the homes. Usually there is only the light that peeks through the cracks in the walls; a lightbulb hangs from the ceiling but is almost never on, especially during the day. There are piles of stuff all over; empty cans, tubs, bottles, papers, everything. This is where I met Rebecca (name has been changed).

Rebecca told me she was 44 and has two children, a boy and a girl. She used to get her ARV drugs (anti-retroviral therapy) from her daughter, but after the election violence, it was impossible to leave the home to get the drugs. When the violence ended, the doctors refused to put Rebecca back on the drugs, which means that a drug resistance has likely developed. Translation? It is essentially a waiting game now. Rebecca is completely bedridden, and just sits in a chair in the dark while her children go out during the day. When we arrived, we decided to change her. I held her in my arms, the entirety of her weight upon me, while she was stripped and washed. She is not able to move to go to the bathroom; that is mainly what was being washed. She was able to put her arms around me, her head leaned against my shoulder and I held her like a child. When the medication for the bedsores was being put on her backside I rubbed her back while she whimpered because of the pain. After we got her washed and changed, the other women left to empty the buckets while I sat with her. The only thing she really wanted to talk about? What flying in a plane was like; she had never actually seen one up close and was very excited when I told her about it. It was the most animated I had seen her the entire visit, so I was more than happy to discuss that.
When the other health workers came back and told her we were leaving, she immediately went back to being shy and not looking at any of us. We walked out, and she turned just to tell me I was doing good work. And we left her there, only a fraction better than the way we'd found her.

After speaking to a couple people about how emotional I get after these experiences, they usually have told me that I will get used to it. But to be honest, I think that it is impossible to get used to. To not feel empathy, pity, sorrow, anything for my fellow human beings that are living like that is unimaginable. Although it would definitely make my life easier, I don't think I would ever want to get used to it. Everytime I visit a person like this, or a woman in the clinic touches her heart and then mine, I feel like I can hardly contain the incredible amount of emotion that forms usually in my throat and chest. And to be honest? I think that this is exactly what gives me my humanity, and reminds me that I am no better or worse than any of the people I have been interacting with daily.

Whisper words of wisdom...

After reading Sean's post, I decided to go ahead and confirm that yes, I was mugged by someone that he calls "Mr. Poopy". And yes, he did have change. Which was bizarre. I am really glad I had no idea what was going on.

The hike last weekend was pretty incredible; inside the crater looked like a complete other world. It was entirely separate from its surroundings; if you have ever read The Beach (or seen the movie with Leonardo DiCaprio) then that is how I imagine the paradise that the people go to, but without the ocean nearby. Finding a matatu to get home really sucked; some truckers offered to give us a ride if everyone sat in the back with the cement bags except for me. I would get the immense pleasure of sitting up front with the 5 men...no thank you.

Work is...amazing. I meet so many incredible people, people that have experienced the worst that life has to offer and are still able to joke with me. At the same time, its completely devastating. I saw a woman almost die in front of me two days ago...she was positive, and had hepatitis B. She was unable to walk, speak, open her eyes...anything. Another woman came into the clinic trying to give up her baby because she just couldn't handle it. I go home so emotionally drained that I really can't even describe how I feel. I heard from some of the USIU AIESECers that the previous KENWA interns began to drink heavily after work because of the emotion involved.

I guess I should describe a little bit about what I actually do. At the main office there is a clinic that sees HIV+ patients. I have become their newest pharmacist....which completely makes sense given my extensive background in pharmaceuticals (I have a degree in anthropology and psychology; I haven't taken a real science class in years). Turns out I love it, I love counting pills and figuring out dosages. It is also such a tangible thing that I am doing as opposed to counselling people; I know that I am giving them this many pills and that it will make them feel this much better.

About two to three times a week I go out to the field, which is going to informal settlements (read: slums) where we have clinics and work there. The main clinic I can usually enjoy myself, but going into the slums is unbelievable. Children are constantly playing in garbage, covered in dirt and often barefoot. Yesterday a group of men in Mathare (one of the largest informal settlements around Nairobi) asked me if it was true that AIDS was a black person disease. I was taken aback, but it was no worse than the question I have gotten more than once: Why did God stop in America?

...let it be.