23rd aug

23rd August

I have just come back from Kiberia town in Nairobi, the biggest slum in Africa and the second biggest in the world. I will describe the experience shortly. On the way home I bought sugar cane, de skinned and cut up for 20p. Sugar cane is possibly the most single best food here in Kenya. I love these shizzle. Its like every sweet tooth owners dream! Imagine having a bag of cubes that you pop in ya mouth, chew, suck and swallow the sweet nectar, and spit out when its dry. No solid is consumed, its just pure sweet nectar ingestion. Also the cane is quite chewy so ya give ya teeth a massive work out. All for 20p (40 if ya ripped of like me) but essentially this stuff is bloody amazing. Not sure about the calorie content but I crave sugar cane, like seriously wake up with longings!

Early this morning I was introduced to some of the children that moving mountains charity sponsor. Two boys and a girl. All at high school and all getting ready to go back to boarding school for three months. These are a few of the students who are in and out of the house on a daily basis in their holidays. They come here to receive mentoring ,counselling and get a good meal. Most of the children are really bright, and have showed potential during their early schooling, were identified by teaching staff and put forward for sponsoring. Once accepted by moving mountains they are sponsored until after university when they are employed in the profession that they have worked towards. The young people also give back to the charity by working for them. So one of the boys that I spoke to wants to be a Dr and the plan is that when he qualifies he will work in one of the charities hospitals.

So much emphasis is placed on Education here in Kenya. I dono if I have mentioned this before but the children start school at five years old. They begin school at eight but awake as early as six to walk the long distances to class. They are then at school till as late as four or five in the evening and are expected to walk home, do the home chores, do their home work etc etc. Life is hard for the kids man. If Parents have enough money for their childs education then the child may attend boarding school for three months four times a year. If a child shows brilliance at school, they can only go so far if their parents do not have money to finance their further education. Moving mountain helps by sponsoring children that show brilliance. One of the boys I spoke to today showed me his report card, this boy was brilliant, he was second in the year out of 288 and was first last year!!!!

It isn’t just the clever students that are sponsored, orphans and children with real tragic family backgrounds are sponsored too! It must be hard for the charity to spread their wealth as pretty much every child in Kenya could do with some input into their education but as funds are limited the child refer file is full here.
All the young people I met are exceptional. Most have overcome adversity to do so well! These Kids study study study. Sad thing is that aside from education their isn’t much else to do here in Kenya. It’s not like in the UK where you can just find a dead end job, go on the doll, go to college part time, or join a training programme here in Kenya if ya don’t finish ya studies, are slightly entrepaneurial enough to set up ya own small shop or get pregnant and look after ya kids for the rest of ya life, life can be pretty thankless.
When you look around in the villages and towns, many women and men can be seen selling goods outside their houses or at the side of the road. Goods such as foods (fruit, nuts, some veg, fried sweet dough called mandazee, clothing, sugar cane, fish, maize, or watermelon), hair products, clothing. Shoes or offer services such as tailoring and hair braiding. The men usually are making goods, fixing bikes, own small shed like shops, or small businesses, carry people about on bikes or motorbikes or are matato conductors or do nothing.
Life is really limited and therefore so much emphasis is placed on study as a gateway to a better future.
The sense of failure must be overwhelming for some students has, being in the top five in the year is ideal and A* is always better than a A-. These young people don’t know how to relax and sadly the emphasis on studying all day every day renders them lacking communication skills. For example, many of the Drs that I have shadowed (except Dr Phill) are able to diagnose an illness and tell me the pathology around the illness etc, but when it comes to communication and empathy with the patient, they are somewhat lacking in ability.
I met another person sponsored by the charity who is actually an older gentleman who had volunteered in the Kiberia hospital and now wanted to become a DR. He took me to Kiberia and showed me round the Kiberia clinic.
We got the Matatu to Kiberia and I was not shocked by the slum but more impressed by its vastness! Dustbins are few and far between in Kenya and actually I don’t think that I recall seeing a dust cart ever. Rubbish is just deposited on the street; people drop everything and anything on the ground as soon as it is done with. There are few massive smelly dumping grounds in Kiberia that made me heave. Luckily I fit in and so after looking around the hospital, i went for a wander alone. Umm Not as scary as I thought it would be, aside from my glasses I didn’t stick out. I’m as dark as a Kenyan, I look like a luo and my clothing doesn’t attract attention because the variety in what people wear in Kenya is immense. Ones clothing doesn’t really, reflect ones wealth as people try and make very attempt to look clean and wear clean clothing (however, even if they wear clean clothing, I think some Kenyans do neglect to wash everyday or brush their teeth). As I walked around not even 1% of the slum (as I was conscious of getting lost), the sun was shining, and to be honest here in Africa, when the sun shines, it makes everything look nice, and I start to have a poetic sense of things. Ah, Africa I thought, when really on reflection I was walking through a dangerous and very poor area of Kenya and really, anything could happen to me at any moment, but I guess that I am getting more and more brazen and familiar with the Kenyan way and so because I don’t feel in danger and I am very very observant of people and don’t let on that I am British I think that I may be ok -Touch wood.
The hospital in Kiberia, is small and male run but it was refreshing to see a female lab tech but a bit annoying that all the staff automatically assumed that I was a vounlenter and behaviours changed and people became more interested when I announced my medical student status.

Interestingly, this hospital had a circumcision programme where boys at sexually active ages are encouraged to be circumcised as a prevention tool. The two men that complete the operations are able to circumcise a boy in under seven minutes and not medically trained. Circumcision is thought to be clean and promote good sexual health here in Kenya but I worry that some of the patients may see this method as a reason not to wear condoms and or practise safe sex.

Encouragingly, the clinic has a counsellor! A female member of trained staff who counsels patients –yay! I told the lady that it was nice to see a hospital striving to attend to its patients psychological needs!!!
-Which is a service that I have found lacking in pretty much all of the medical establishments that I have visited so far!