7/6/06

Its been a tough couple of weeks in Kenya. I’m not even sure if the date I wrote is correct. Anyway, I guess no long term trip to equatorial Africa is totally complete without a case of malaria. Apparently it is peak season for malaria here and many people are sick. The Kenyans of course are quite accustomed to having malaria and treat it pretty much like we do flu season. Apparently, the anti malarial medicine we take when we come here is just designed to kill the malaria plasmodium that is delivered when you are bitten by a mosquito. The only real defense from getting malaria is to not get bit and to hope like hell that your anti malaria medicine is working effectively. When the Kenyans sense they are getting another spell they are prescribed other types of malaria medicine and antibiotics that fights the bronchitis that almost always accompanies it. Anyway, for the Kenyans the spells usually last only a few days, but of course for us muzungus, it is a different story.

I got sick with malaria really quickly. The worst symptoms are the aches in the joints and the headache that makes you want to shoot yourself. I went to our best rural hospital for treatment and have only hazy memories of the 2 days I was there. I remember being admitted to the hospital and laying in the waiting room burning up with fever and watching two young girls fill out every line of several forms that took about an hour. The initial treatment was an iv of quinine which is a really potent medication. The iv holder hung on a nail on the wall. I don’t think the toilet worked and at one point, something very big and hairy darted out from behind the toilet and ran up the wall. Once in a while I would have two very young serious looking doctors standing at my bedside. They looked like mutt and jeff and didn’t inspire a lot of confidence. I was really sick for those two days and was only getting the doses of quinine and no intervenous fluids so I could tell I was getting dangerously dehydrated. Thanks to my wonderful husband advocating for me from 12000 miles away, I finally arranged a taxi to take me to the much bigger Aga Kahn hospital in the nearby city of Kisumu. It is a totally modern and technologically equipped hospital and when I arrived there the nurse said “don’t worry, you are in safe hand now” anyway, I got wonderful care there during the four days I was there but it was so odd being in such a place. I felt so isolated from the world that I could have been on the space station. So, now I am back in kakamega and reminded of the old saying “that which does not kill you makes you stronger” Bob is arriving in Kakamega on Thursday. It was hard for him to be the one so many miles away and helpless to do anything. He is going to stay with me in Kakamega for about 6 weeks and then we are heading home together. I am disappointed like crazy that I have to cut my stay short here, but I totally understand Bob’s desire to have me safe and sound in Chico again and I know I would feel exactly the same if it had been me at home. While Bob is here we are going to live in a small apartment in a compound just outside of kakamega. It is pretty darn nice by Kenyan standards, even has mostly running water and a sit down pot. The only real drawback I can see is the three cows that live in the courtyard and contribute a lot of cow poopy to the yard. However, owning cows in Kenya is a sign of great wealth so as they say, cow poopy really smells like money.

However, I am still working hard for the next six weeks to find a way again to help the clients we are serving. I vacillate between feeling like there maybe a way for all these programs to help Kenya fight the AIDs and poverty that is the standard of life here and then I am overcome by the truly helpless feeling knowing that these are such big problems that our only option is to put bandages here and there as best we can. I can’t imagine that all of us that are here from the west don’t wonder each and everyday how in the hell were we so lucky to been born into such a prosperous and promising society when so much of the rest of the world are simply about survival. The other 10 college age interns have arrived in Kakamega, full of the desire to make a difference. It is really wonderful getting to know these kids, they are pretty much highly ambitious kids from top colleges in the US. Watching them take the risks at assimilating themselves into this totally different culture is very interesting. I’m certain that after a couple of months here in Kenya the way they look at their own world will be greatly changed. I hope that like a stone thrown into a lake, what they take home with them will ripple out to the people that they associate with so those of us who do live in such fortunate circumstances will continue to be aware of the state of the world and to care about it.