Today I start on General Medicine
– wards 1&2 female, and 8&9 for the men. The wards are sparse and there
is little privacy. Generally patients are admitted because they are immunosuppressed,
or have complications from this; there are also cases of TB, meningitis and
malaria. An 18-year old girl has developed confusions and convulsions – she is
in end-stage renal failure and is due to be referred to one of the 2 national centers
for haemodialysis. The difference with the UK is that she will only receive one
session (as opposed to the regular ones provided in the UK), and then it depends…on
money, mainly, as always. The diabetic clinic is much the same as an English one
(except quite a few of the cases are hyperglycaemic as they haven’t been able
to get hold of any insulin). Dr Gitari reigns supreme here – I have been
fore-warned by the interns on ward 10 – he is MUCH scarier than Dr Chapi, and
poor intern Hussein gets it in the neck for all 5 hours of the ward round, not
much fun for anyone. The general med
clinic is extremely busy (it usually lasts at least 6 hours) so 2 interns share
each small consulting room but it is all in Kiswahili as most of the patients’
don’t understand English. A few don’t even speak Swahili and come with a
translator for their local tribal tongue.
I bake with Hannah and Charlotta
as we are planning a birthday party at Toto Love – 40 cupcakes by eye (as no
scales) but they turn out good! We ice them in red and blue (the colouring is
rather salty!), and the 3 birthday people get double sweets on top. Carefully
transported down the hill with a pile of balloons. Unfortunately as we are
trying to sneak in the kids are waiting and there are tears and beatings as the
housemother tells us they have not taken their afternoon nap as promised…Wasn’t
part of the plan L. However,
peace is restored and cake and squash go down v well – we sing to the 3 (with
the monkey verses too – they know so many songs!) Blue icing everywhere,
especially Derek, the baby. We play musical chairs, and bowling outside using
Tusker cans and an avocado stone. (Tusker is the local lager apparently
so-called as the head brewer was killed by a charging elephant). It is so
difficult as the children are so spread out in age and it is such a tiny space
(there are 20 kids – 12 of them girls in one tiny bedroom sharing 7 beds) - there is absolutely no personal space and
people just end up getting upset.
Today I visit Gatwe Primary school
with Kioni and Michelle (another English volunteer who is here for a few days).
We catch a matatu to Kidogo town and stock up on supplies for a family of 3
girls who Moving Mountains are supporting – maize, rice, sugar, salt, and
cakes! Gatwe school has 300 pupils and 9 teachers. The head and deputy
teachers, Agnes and Grace are there and are extremely committed to improving
the school. It is a line of classrooms roughly made from wood with tin roofs
and earth floors – dusty and hot in summer, and cold when it rains. Moving
Mountains are in the process of building new classrooms using interlocking
bricks (made by the boys at the rescue centre – they don’t need any cement to
construct) and there is a lot of Kenyan scaffolding in place (i.e wooden sticks
which are bending alarmingly!). It is the Easter holidays but the older classes
are here for catch-up lessons. They are summoned to line up and sing to their
visitors (loudly!) – we are made very welcome and have to make an introductory
speech to the assembled crowd (I am ‘Joy’, as per…). The 2 older girls (12 and
11) in the supported family are here and we walk with them back to their home
(they were relocated by the charity from the paper shelter in Embu slum where
they were living without their parents and now just about manage for themselves
in the first brick house which MM built. Younger sister (7) is not in school
today and she comes out to meet us. They are gorgeous girls.
Matatu ride back – 8 of us in
small car (even the driver shares his seat) – I can’t see anything but it feels
like the ‘runaway train’ ride at Alton Towers, only faster and definitely
bumpier (suspension is non-existent, even the windscreen has cracked from the jolting)
– prevents even me from drifting off into my usual snooze…esp when the driver
stats texting with one hand – still he seems to expertly navigate the potholes.
Petrol smell rises. Anyway, we arrive back in Embu, TIA.
Lillian is frying the onions when
we arrive. Today I am allowed to stir and serve up the githeri (wearing one of
Lillian’s kangas). We mix up maize with red millet to be made into uji flour –
hole in bag = nightmare – masking tape job. Many of the boys here sniffed a lot
of glue before the centre was started, and a few of them have been permanently
damaged by it and can’t talk properly anymore.
I am waiting for my exam results
at Issaak’s, and decide to buy lunch there – against all vegetarian instinct I
bravely order Matumbo, a local delicacy, this is tripe which has been boiled
and then fried with vegetables. It is very nice (and a large plateful costs me
1 pound), but I don’t need to have it again. (Happily, medschool say I can
‘proceed’ to 5th year, phew!!)
I am woken by an almighty thunder
crash and lightening storm – honestly like a bomb going. Crazy rain at the
moment (the roof is leaking so we have to put buckets out), and power goes off
and on most evenings – v frustrating! Also, no water in Embu town centre since
the weekend (something to do with difficulties in Nairobi…?). I’m still boiling
up water every night here, but luckily it’s still coming out of the tap!
I make the 125km journey back to
Nairobi in a matatu billowing black smoke – names include ‘in god we trust’, ‘jurisdiction’,
‘legacy’, and various other concerning titles… (There is a sign in the
windowscreen corner which advises the driver in case of accident to ‘accept no
liability’, great). This is rice territory (100% Grade 1 Mwea Pishori, to be
precise) and paddy fields stretch away for miles in all directions, well
irrigated by overflowing channels, and punctuated by solitary umbrella-shaped
trees and white cow egrets, and goats who treat the fields as a PYO. We stop at
a shop where several huge sacks are loaded into the boot, the bumper sags, but
I like the smell of the dry rice. (Torrential rain shower starts and water
comes fast through the roof onto me and my phone, which stops working…if only I
had a bowl of rice…). Lots of donkeys work here – usually grazing free, or
harnessed up in pairs and 3’s , spindly legs splayed out in opposite directions
with massive loads – they always have such sweet eyes, although having a cart
tripping up your hooves all the time must be irritating. The Thika highway leads us back into the
outskirts of Nairobi – I wait for a pickup at the postoffice for an hour which
is a little daunting – the Kenyan way of attracting your attention is a kind of
whistle through your teeth, and this happens a lot. Massive downpour and
lightening strikes. Joseph Mungai pulls me into a taxi, I am quite relieved. It
is a crazy 2 hour drive back to the office as the traffic is literally
appalling – the road is flooded deeply
in places and flows strong enough to break down gates and houses, and the
pavements are non-existent- still, no-one complains and people just wade on
through in good humour. I am very tired. We stop at Kibera for some food at ‘Mama
Liaza’s café’ which is a shack inside the main slum – there is a big smoky fire
in the backroom and we are given chappatis, chai and tilapia (lots of bones,
and a long tail!).
I drive with Oti to Hell’s Gate
National Park, about 2 hours from Nairobi so we leave while it is still dark.
‘Coco de rasta’ is playin on the radio. We reach the edge of the Great Rift
Valley – a stunning ‘trough’ which begins in Tanzania and continues to all the
way to Ethiopia. It is 60 miles wide here, and seperates the Masai and Kikuyu
tribes. ‘Lady Margaret’ hill lies in the centre (after Princess M), so I am told by the vendor whose stall we stop at
for photos – he undertakes to tell me the whole history of the valley (think he
may want me to buy something) and I think we may never get away. Euphorbia
trees poke out of the top of the greenery here – they secrete milky white
latex. We descend into the valley along a winding road built by Italian
Prisoners of War (they were allowed to build a small church at the bottom) –
there is a truck upsidedown in the gulley beside us, with the driver standing
on the axel – at least he’s obviously not hurt! Lake Victoria lies to our left,
and Naviasha in front – we pass 2 settlements of displaced people (from
Navaisha), and massive greenhouses (Kenya suuplies most of the flowers to
Europe – express roses from here appear the following day in Tesco). Chai and
tomato fruits for breakfast!
I hire a bike
at the entrance – it is 9kms to ‘central tower’ inside the park, past Fischer’s
tower where you can rockclimb. Hell’s Gate is so-called for its hot spring s
and geysers which are used for geothermal power. Safari is originally a swahili
word meaning ‘journey’ or trip. Thomson and Grand gazelle bound away with their
white bottoms (different to impala who have no markings – groups of males are
known as ‘loosers’!), zebras call to each other, warthogs (so called
because of the wart-like processes under their eyes!) run with straight
upstanding tails –when they walk they relax them…, blue starlings are turquoise
blue with orange bellies, buffalo watch me go past (I have been warned to stay
away from lone ones – I think this one is and speed up!), and so many birds
call, including the African hoopoe (which make a sound like flowing water) and
the giant Griffin Eagle. Giant blue wasps and dung beetles fly past – the males
roll the dung and the females lay their eggs on it – the ball can then be
buried and serves as a food source for the babies when they hatch (unless a
bat-eared fox gets them first – he listens and can hear them 4 inches down!). Joseph
a park guide catches me up and we turn off the main track as he can smell
giraffes (and babies, too!) (they smell like peas, apparently…!!) – here the
track has completely collapsed from all the rainfall, but we can see leopard
prints in what’s left. After beating through the bush a bit, sure enough –
there are a family of 4 masai Giraffes (sitting down – it will rain this
afternoon…) (they have a distinctive flower marking), including a baby. Just SO
exciting. I get off and push the bike towards them – they are all watching me,
and this is probably the highlight of my day. When they run they are incredibly
graceful, and seem to move in slow motion. They eat acacia and the whistling
thorn which is everywhere – this plant
is protected from the giraffe’s tongue by cocktail ants (they shake
their tails and get pretty aggressive when you knock on their house) which bury
them selves in the fruit pods and leave small holes (these holes are what whistle
in the wind, hence the name!) .As we are watching a family of warthog break
cover from their shelter in an ardvark hole so funny, they reverse in – mother
first, then the 3 babies, and daddy at the front).
We cycle on to
the Gorge (this is technically closed as last week 7 teenagers died here in
flash floods –it has been all over the news - Joseph was the guide on this trip and had to
let some of them go into the water, just horrifying). Today though, it is quiet
and we walk along the bottom (it stretches 17km well into the masai lands) –
tomb raider was filmed here (although I’m not sure how the crew managed with
all the hot springs and quicksand!). There is lots of opsidian stone here –
this is black volcanic glass formed from cooled lava, and the masai use it for
spear heads. We climb up and reach the viewpoint which inspired the graphics
for the ‘Lion King’ wildebeest charge – I stand where Scar pushes Mufasa… A
naughty baboon sneaks up behind us. It is a hot cycle back, but just as fab.
Oti meets me
with the truck and we enter the Kedong Ranch (800 000 acres of land in the Longonot
National Park) which is apparently where we will might find lunch. The road is
extremely bad, almost washed away by rain, and we drive for 14km seeing
nothing. Then, at the top of a wooded hill, miles away, we can see a small
house – and head for it – we bearly make it up the hill and nearly end up in
the ditch but all is well. The gate is sinister and hung with buffalo skulls –
it’s seemingly deserted – really quite scary, then a mzungo man comes out – he is
German and ushers us inside. We have stumbled upon the house of Martha Gellhorn
(the wife of Ernest Hemingway), who built this house in the 40s – it overlooks
Lake Victoria and Crater Lake (the site of the flamingo migration), and Longonot
volcano lies behind. This is Masai land and there are thatched huts dotted
around. It is absolutely stunning. The german gentleman takes me on a tour of the
land, how bizarre, and asks me what I would like to eat… Errrr… Oti and I are seated at a table with roses, literally
among a flock of Masai sheep, and ibis, and blue starlings, and a 5 course meal
is presented (I was almost expecting human, but it is beautiful Tilapia from
the lake with almonds, and apples). Afterwards I am shown to the stable and
meet ‘Grey Wolf’, a beautiful speckled grey ex-race horse – I ride out with
Issak as my guide (on Sandolin, another brown 6 year old) into the enormous park,
down past Longonot volcano, and through herds of Hartebeast, gazelle, zebra. I
CAN’T BELIEVE IT, we are trotting then cantering and it is just amazing. The
ground is covered in african violets and whistling thorns. In the distance we
see a group of 5 giraffes and head towards them – I go first on Grey Wolf and
they just stand and watch, I go to within 50 metres, easy, before they head
off. We ride around the hill to our left to look for ostrich (grey Wolf is
pleased as he thinks we’re going home…), then, ANOTHER group of giraffes, 8
this time – Issak hangs back and Grey Wolf canters on behind them – they run
away, as if in slow motion and I follow behind – IT IS PURE MAGIC. It is time
to head back (the sun is very hot) and we pass through a herd of masai cows
with the masai crouched in his checked kanga – his family are staying in the
hut and come out to say ‘jambo’. A massive raincloud is gathering over Longonot
and as we pick our way back up the hill the thunder rolls out – we make it back
to the stable (complete with busy weaver bird tree) just as the first drops of
rain fall. The german man (I still don’t know his name) urges us to hurry away
before we get stuck and we drive away in the opposite direction to the way we
came – this track will eventually take us back to the main road to Nairobi as
long as we DON’T TURN OFF anywhere…. – there is a bunch of beautiful pink –tinged
roses on the back seat of the truck.
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