31st AUG

31^st JULY

The rally that didn’t happen

The day started fabulously, despite my Malarone induced insomnia, hallucinations and night terrors, I managed 3 hours sleep and woke up quite excited for the day ahead. Una and I left the house to catch the bus for seven thirty...We were in high sprits, it was a lovely hot day, and I was befriended by a young lady called Victoria, aged 20 who ran a small vetinary shop near where we were waiting for the ‘Easy coach bus’. I was so proud of Victoria, she seemed to have her head screwed on. She told me that she and her sister were orphans, but had decided that school was very important and struggled to get a good education and then do some short courses. Victoria is a vet and her sister is a pharmacist. I asked her whether she was married, as Women here marry and bare children at quite a young age, and to my surprise she said that a husband or boyfriend was not in her plan for life. I asked her who she lived with, and she replied that she lived with her sister and her sister’s daughter –Vanessa. Victoria said that her sister (29) wanted a child but did not want a man around. All three live in a hut/house about five minutes walk from me. I sat talking with Victoria for what seemed like half an hour but was actually, THREE hours, our bus was late and Una -the rally car fanatic was FUMMMING! Anyway back to Victoria, I was intrigued, two sisters living a feminine life together and rejecting men, both sounded like my type of women to be friends with. Victoria left me in charge of the stall/shop and brought little Vanessa for me to play with. God, I love children, Vanessa loved me, she is a beautiful 2 year old baby. I shall endeavour to get their pictures for this blog (by the way Uma is gradually getting more and more cross at this time, and had decided not to join in our conversation, walking away muttering ‘fucking Kenyan time’ under her breath –lol).

People are coming to Victoria’s stall to gawp at me and children are yelling the usual ‘how are you’ to me unable to reply when I say ‘fine, how are you’. A women brings her baby son to see me, he is called Victor and is about 4 months old. As she pulls him round from her back, he has a fit, this lasts for about twenty seconds. This left me stunned nobody even acknowledged the babies behaviour. I jumped up and took the baby from the mother’s arms and tried to play with him. He was not sleeply, and so I guess his fit was not epileptic, all sorts of things were running through my mind and in the pretence of play I actually tried to test the babies cranial nerves, problem was, I forgot how to modify the test for a baby, and so failed. Anyhow the baby seemed fine, and no one was phased, Una told me later that babies and children fitting were disregarded by people because it happened so often and usually meant a malarial infection. –yikes.

The bus was late, very late, turned out that there was a crash earlier and so all buses were delayed. To cut a long story short, we failed to reach our destination on time, missed the rally, and spent 2 hours in the town Kimisu trying to get back home. Una was distraught, I was fucking fuming because despite Unas angry and tearful disposition, all the Kenyan men were trying to help her and she clearly wanted me to take over responsibility for our safe transport home. Some background, Una is White Irish, all white people are called ‘Muzongo’ here. Kenyans think all white people are rich and stupid. In the village where we stay everyone knows that we are students with limited money, and so they do not bother us, however, in the bigger towns, everyone tries to rip Una off. I, it turns out look like I come from a tribe called Lao, this is the same tribe from which Obama descends, people speak to me in Lao and get really annoyed when I do not reply, Il be walking down the rd and men are talking to me from across the way, I do not respond cos a) I dono if they are talking to me and b) I dono what they are saying. Anyhow due to this Lao tribe resemblance and in conjunction with me being female, I am generally ignored when in the company of Una. When I say I am Dr the men usually reply ‘oh really’ and I respond ‘yes my boyfriend is Dr too’. This gains me some respect but also aids to stop any men thinking that I am talking to them because I am ‘interested’. Anyhow, we get a Matatu home, before we leave, a man asks me to do him a favour, I thought that it might be for me to vacate the front seat and seat at the back to which my answer would have been NO. But instead he wanted me to hold a small child called Toto. The first thing that you notice about Toto is that is left arm is in a rather heavy, rudimentary made plaster cast and he is very scared and distressed. He is thrust onto my lap and I try and engage with him. He is having none of it and cries his head of rejecting all my hugs, kisses and cooing, almost as if he dose not actually know what I am doing. And so I ask his male chaperone what their relationship is. Turns out this man is not his dad and Toto does not have a mother. I detect nothing sinister from this man, he is holding an x-ray envelope and seems to care for the child, who really wants to be sitting with this man. I ask how the boys arm came to be broken, he asks me why I ask, i say that I am Dr and want to help. The man offers me no answer and so I reel of a list of suggestions, accident –no, fight –no, he fell –no, he was beaten –no, erm, at this point the man turns away. Oh dear, now I want to cry, Toto is really distressed, no mother, heavy cast encasing a probable really painful arm and sitting on a strangers lap not understanding my offers of affection. This is too much for me and I pass the boy back with a packet of biscuits, most of which his male chaperone eats. On the way home this encounter really got me thinking –how many children are there out there like Toto and the realisation that there is nothing that I can do, upset me. This child infant did not even understand my hugs or kisses, I went to bed with thoughts of Toto, where he was now, was he safe, how he was feeling and that perhaps his encounter was fate and that i was meant to save him somehow. I dono. Sad times.