TravelStream™ news feed for member randv on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/randv en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:15:53 -0500 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1233914700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1233914700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1233914700/tpod.html Fri, 06 Feb 2009 05:15:53 -0500 Kenya Aid in Kenya 2008

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Blue Mountains, Australia

Some of the most comical times we have in Kenya, in a 'professional' capacity at least, are the meetings we go to with various government officials or providers we need to help us with our local projects. Meetings in Kenya are a highly formal affair. You need to be dressed well - a task in itself in the heat and the dust - and you need to be prepared to sit through a whole host of time consuming formalities which, for the impatient amongst us, result in stifled yawns, jiggling legs and those annoying muscle twinges you get when your mind is silently screaming at the inanity of it all. Needless to say I'm not good at meetings - even in the cool air-conditioned comfort of home - so it's easy to sit there frustrated, sweaty and bored thinking 'THIS is why stuff doesn't get done in Kenya' until something amusing happens... which to my delight happened with our meeting with The Crazy German.

The Crazy German is literally that - a mad German scientist, living of all places in Kakamega, Western Kenya, and working on some solar project which to us will be quite useful. Apparently he's the father of solar power and looking at him, I'd believe it. The guy is ancient. We worry about his ability to finish the project - setting up our new health clinic with enough solar power for a fridge and some lights - let alone being around long enough to cash in on the 10 year warranty should something go wrong. But for solar, he's our only option and seems to know what he's talking about.

His office is full of home-made, energy saving paper lamps which he periodically switches on via a solar powered generator - his very own light show demonstration. Four of us 'oohh' and 'ahh' for the tenth time when he does it again, in between talking about some hydro powered thing he came up with and is now being used for something in China. All we want to know is how much we'll need to fork out for the panels and when we finally get down to it, it's actually a pretty good price. I think we were all surprised when he finally handed over an illegibly scrawled quote and we were ready to make our speedy getaway when his wife poked her head through the door.

Now faced with two crazy, conversation starved Germans and a now full cup of blackcurrant juice I knew we were in trouble. But the necessity of escape hit critical point when The Crazy German's wife started talking about herb garden - specifically, her healing herb garden. I knew this wasn't going to go down well with the two doctors in the room, especially when she told them that unless they were surgeons their medicine was poison rubbish with more side effects than cures. Completely unlike her healing herbs, specifically Artemisia, which could be used in its 'pure form' to treat not only malaria, but about 20 other ailments including HIV! Wonderful. Not only did we find a solution to our power problems, but also the cure for HIV. Why wasn't the World Health Organisation all over this?!

Aside from the fact that Artemisia does NOT cure HIV, in its 'natural' form it is also highly unstable. The 'pure' form has a very low bioavailability - basically this means it's not well absorbed by the body - so the tea this woman makes is not only conducive to producing resistant forms of malaria (as the once popular quinine also did), but the effectiveness of the drug wears off after about 2-3 hours. Presumably you need to drink a hell of a lot of tea for it to have any effect; which is exactly why the WHO recommends that the lovely, pure Artemisia be mixed with Lumefantrine to create the apparently evil yet highly effective, stable and un-resistant malaria treatment, Coartem.

The problem I have with this woman is the fact that she's a killer. She's got one thing right - Artemisia is a great little plant with the unique ability to destroy malaria parasites. It's particularly effective as a semi-synthetic combined drug against resistant strains of malaria - something I found out on my last trip to Kenya. But when you go around on radio as an authoritative white 'doctor', telling a bunch of desperately hopeful people that they can cure their symptoms of HIV by drinking a cup of tea... then your ignorance is akin to hacking these people to death with machetes while they sleep.

If it's one thing Africa doesn't need, it's false hope and misguided education. I went to the Artemisia website and found a bunch of very vague claims that supported the use of Artemisia in curing patients with cancer, HIV, diarrhea, malaria - some of the biggest killers in Kenya. A child suffering from diarrheal illness or malaria doesn't need tea - it needs a doctor. A father with HIV shouldn't be thinking it's ok to sleep around because he's taking Artemisia. A country and a culture that is just coming to terms with its medical crises and taking steps to educate, learn and develop doesn't need a home-grown quick fix that has no proven results. Artemether works, yes - in controlled drugs and controlled cases - but to recommend it as a cure all for people living in areas where simple illnesses will kill you is a terribly way of profiteering off the poor.

The work that we do in Kenya is simple. We try to educate, we provide medication, and we continuously look for ways to ensure poor, rural communities have sustained access to quality, basic healthcare. I can understand the rationale behind using herbs such as Artemether; a family can grow their own supply and treat malaria at home as it arises. They can even sell it to their neighbours to make a little extra income. On paper, it looks like a marvelous solution; cutting out the often expensive medical middle man and giving remote families an instant quick-fix. In theory, it's just another deadly romanticisation of a very real problem that kills hundreds of thousands of people a year - most of them children. What we need to do, and what Kenya Aid spends much of its time and money on, is providing infrastructure that allows for Western standard healthcare, not a patch up job simply because it's 'Africa'.

A guiding principle we often use when deciding on a course of action is 'would you give it to your mother?' or 'if it were your child, what would you do?' I know an untested and unreliable tea isn't what I'd be giving my child if they were suffering from malaria. And anyone could forgive me my snort of laughter when The Crazy German pointed out that the herbs didn't seem to be working very well as his wife's arm was still broken.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1233912420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1233912420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1233912420/tpod.html Fri, 06 Feb 2009 04:58:53 -0500 Kenya Aid in Kenya 2008

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Blue Mountains, Australia

In 2008 Ryan and I launched a new project for Kenya Aid called SHARE - Sanitary Health And Reproductive Education. What started off as a small side project making reusable cloth pads for a group of young girls in Kenya has turned into what I've found to be one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. From the 26 or so thrilled girls we provided sanitary packs to over Christmas to the 5,000 we aim to help in 2009, SHARE is one of those projects that people, especially women, just get.
To give you a little history, SHARE started at the non-formal secondary school in Shikunga, Western Kenya. A group of girls decided to speak up, a highly unusual event in Kenya, and tell the program coordinator of MURUDEF, Mr Onesmus Mmasi, exactly why they were missing so much school. Then a second extraordinary event occurred: Ones called Ryan and I here in Australia and amidst a lot of giggling we finally found out the answer to the question that had been bugging me since I started school - why were the girls dropping out? It turns it was so obviously simple I'd completely missed it. The girls at the secondary school were getting their periods and with nothing to protect themselves with they were forced to stay at home.  
I'm predicting this to be a rapidly growing concern in African countries. As more and more nations achieve the goal of universal primary education, more schools, both primary and secondary, will find that they need to be providing such products to families too poor to afford them in order to achieve gender equality at school. We just hit the mark early because of our involvement in secondary education. So, in an effort to get the girls back to the classroom SHARE was launched, on our sofa at home, as an immediate solution for the girls at Musango Secondary.
Monday morning rolls around and I tell my girlfriends at work that I've spent the weekend sewing fabric pads. Somehow the idea catches on and a group of us decide that knowing how to make these things could be a great skill in the next Great Depression (in the midst of a global recession who's laughing now) and so we get together around a few sewing machines and cupcakes and make about 60 pads in just one afternoon. Ryan and I are up to our eyeballs in pads at home - sewing and cutting every spare moment - and then the next thing we know we're on radio talking about menstrual cycles and 'flow' to Christo of the Night Show who finds us another 30 odd supporters. My best friend Mags down in Hobart organises her own pad party event, throwing another 50 odd pads into the mix, and we get a generous donation of underwear in the mail from Nicole and the Zonta women's group. 
Suddenly I find myself standing at the head of a class of girls in a tiny mud hut in remote little Shikunga holding up a pair of undies and a pad, doing a weird demonstration of how the things are supposed to work. The girls are thrilled; all are paying attention. With no boys around they're all happy, open and smiling as we wave our colourful underwear around the room and I can hardly hold back the tears at the thought of just how much such a simple donation can achieve.  
From our back-to-basics solution to get these girls back to school, SHARE is growing rapidly as more women here in Australia want to get involved. Aside from the feeling of doing something good that's easily measurable - you can tangibly see exactly where your donation goes - there's something else about SHARE that gets people so passionate. It's the feeling you get when you get a group of women together who know that they're not only doing something great to help out another human being, but, more importantly, we're getting the chance to be women and talk about things we would normally push under the carpet at any other time. I've had groups who are excited about the thought that they've been able to discuss their periods, or the uniqueness of a woman's body, openly for the first time. They've been able to share their thoughts about what it's like to be a woman - the challenges women face - as they make pads that they may never dream of using but can still appreciate. While they're giving self-esteem to groups of girls in Kenya they're never likely to meet, they're walking away with a sense of pride and achievement that they've done something to address the inequalities between genders that are still prevalent in every society.  
For me, SHARE is something special. Not only does it have that magic quality of heartfelt charity, but it also says something political: that women, no matter where they live, how they live, or who they are, are equal - to men and to each other. To share is to be human, and SHARE does exactly that - it reminds us of our humanity and humbly gives us a chance to really make a difference.        
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1230676440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1230676440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1230676440/tpod.html Tue, 30 Dec 2008 17:55:25 -0500 Kenya Aid in Kenya 2008

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Blue Mountains, Australia

There are always a lot of emotions surrounding Kenya and the inevitable trip home. We've been back in Australia for a couple of weeks now, caught up in the Christmas celebrations and back to life as usual. But there are so many reminders each day about our friends and family in our Kenyan home - wondering what everyone in Shikunga will be doing for Christmas, hoping there's enough money for a good meal, a quiet smile looking back over pictures we've taken and remembering some of the thousands of incredibly special moments we become a part of while we're there. 

And there are thousands of wonderful moments. From watching little Roger grow up over the years, to seeing Joseph graduate to secondary school with a newfound confidence. Wondering if Saul will grow up to be a professional photographer or a slick, quick talking lawyer. There are the times we spend with family at home, relaxing after the day with ball games and a quick laugh with the girls. The wonderful meals that are prepared for us each and every day, that include traditional Kenyan fare such as ugali and sukamawiki and the occasional treat of pancakes, mandazi or peanut soup and chapatti. The thousands of cups of sweet, sweet tea and chatting by the light of the lamp late into the night. It's easy to romanticise village life in Shikunga simply because it is so romantic. There's no TV. There's no electricity. Entertainment consists of time with friends and family, watching the sky turn dark over a steaming mug of chai, talking about the day. It's a beautiful place, full of beautiful people who will never fail to open their arms and their houses, no matter how little they have to spare.

Despite this dreamy description, life in Shikunga is hard. As volunteers we only scrape the surface of true village life; we sample a small slice of the hardships involved and for most of us, that's enough. While life by candlelight is picturesque, there's the hassle of finding a place to charge your mobile phone - the only real link you have with home. There's a variety of creepy crawlies, most worryingly - mosquitoes, which carry more diseases than I'd ever care to know about. While you can get used to using a drop toilet there are those annoying first few days where your feet are inevitably somewhat wetter than you'd like them to be, and let me assure you the deep-thigh burn you get when faced with a drop toilet and a stomach bug is not something anyone wants to write home about. 

Water, however, always remains the greatest threat and stressor. There's no running water in Shikunga. The closest water reserve is a trickling muddy stream, and getting water to the house involves a 15 minute slog up a hill with a massive water drum on top of your head. And when you get it there, it will make you sick if you drink it -unless you cut up wood, build a fire, and boil it first. For volunteers, clean water means a trip to town, and there's nothing worse than wondering as you brush your teeth at night if you have enough left to swallow your anti-malarials or to last the morning walk ahead. If you ever catch yourself wondering whether water tanks in developing countries are a valuable investment - they are. Life without easy access to clean water is a killer, literally.

These tiny frustrations are just a taste of daily life in Shikunga. For volunteers, it's a little like camping: there's a definite end and return to the usual luxuries of Western life, and, if anything goes wrong, you know you've got a planned escape. For locals it's a struggle, but one that's overcome with more grace than I could ever imagine achieving in the face of such hardships. So I would like to finish up this travel blog with a few stories from our trip - the lives, deaths and impending marriages of our time in Kenya. 
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1228555980/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1228555980/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/randv/1/1228555980/tpod.html Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:49:06 -0500 Kenya Aid in Kenya 2008

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Kakamega, Kenya

It's been an exciting week in Shikunga this week. We arrived Sunday late in the day after buying meds in Kakamega for the first camp, dumped our bags and made the quick walk to the new clinic. We'd heard rumours that the new clinic was slightly larger than we planned for... apparently our initial builder read our plans wrong and added 4 metres to each side, almost doubling the size of it. Now, Shikunga has a new mini hospital in the making complete with consultation rooms, a maternity centre and a massive ward. It's an impressive structure, but due to the size not as complete as we had anticipated so another year of fundraising to finish it off! Exciting times ahead with the promise of trained medical staff from the government once it is complete. Not surprisingly, it's the talk of the town!

So far we've run 3 medical camps in surrounding villages attending to around 500-600 patients. We've seen a lot of sick kids, many with malaria, fungus infections, and the usual few that are extremely ill which we send to the local hospital. The camps are exciting, and the joy and hope they bring is incredible, though at times things get a little overwhelming. When you see a family of 5 come in, all sick and orphans cared for only by their grandmother you have to wonder what hope there is. But even though the little ones are scared of the 'mzungu' (white) doctors, we often get a smile out of all of them when we pack them up with medicines and a few little hygiene chats in the pharmacy!

We've also run some great days at the local non-formal secondary school. Thanks to all the girls that sewed pads for us we helped almost 40 girls with pads and underwear and all were overjoyed. It was a beautiful day to see all the smiles and the photos (which due to the dodgy internet connection here I can't upload yet) are gorgeous. We also purchased a pedal Singer sewing machine for the girls to learn to make their own pads and clothes, and will be purchasing an extra acre of land, plus fencing and concrete to build a toilet and 4 extra classrooms over the coming years. The students wanted to make sure we thanked everyone back in Australia for their support and hope that we will continue to remember them - especially when we get their pictures developed from their photo essay project we set them!

Aside from that it's been a great team this year with all the doctors and med students helping out and the camps and making Nes's home back in Shikunga full of energy, junk food and fun. Can't wait to share the photos when we get home of all the days, as well as the video we have of the school song!
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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

We're finally on our way. After a last minute packing effort in the wee hours this morning we're ready to go with bags full of donated pads, underwear, soaps, gifts and the odd bit of medication. Passports have been found, two cans of insect repellent and a toilet roll have been stashed and I've finally, finally, finished the last of my essays. With nothing to worry us but the expiry date on my anti-malarials and the prospect of a 30 hour flight with a stops in both Singapore and Doha (for those that a wondering, and there have been a few of you: Doha is the capital of Qatar, a country in the United Arab Emirates and according to Lonely Planet the most boring place on Earth... and the capital of Singapore is... Singapore) we're ready to paint the town red in Nairobi with a 40th birthday bash at the infamous Carnivore resturant. As I will quite possibly be the only girl engaged in this feeding frenzy I feel some responsibility to both get my money's worth and make Ry proud by attempting to eat my weight in zebra meat before we head out to the village. 

Again, for all those who have donated, a big thanks. We've had a lot of support from friends and family over the past few years and for those that haven't already been updated, Kenya Aid finally has Deductable Gift Recipient (DGR) status from the Australian Tax Office which now means all future donations are fully tax deductable. This is both a huge bonus for Kenya Aid and a great reward for those who continue to give to support our efforts. 

Asante sana and see you all from Kenya!
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Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

One week to go and time for our final preparation. Two med students Kateena and Michelle, and our team of volunteer doctors - James, Alex, Nick, Pete and Dan - have left already so it's just us still left in Australia, madly packing meds and equipment into our bags, trying to find our passports and squeezing in the last of the hundred odd sanitary pads and undies we've had generously sewn and donated for our new project SHARE.

I have been beyond amazed and impressed by the generosity of so many young and not-so-young women who have helped and offered continued support for the SHARE project. This December we have more than enough pads to help the girls at the local non-formal secondary school (Musango Secondary School - the school I'm currently in the process of building), plus enough to extend our program to girls in a nearby primary school, as well as a generous cash donation from some lovely girls in Hobart to help us buy local fabric that will allow women in the village to start sewing their own pads for sale. We'll be running the first program at the school on Tuesday 2nd of December and I will put photos up as soon as the Kenyan internet connection allows!  

On Thursday the 4th of December we will be ploughing land at the school to plant the seeds that have been purchased with a donation from my Mum (thanks Mum!) as well as presenting next years' study books to the students. If anyone would like to donate towards the cost of these books it would be most appreciated - there's a donate button on the page here and all proceeds will go directly towards academic books for the secondary school. 

Last but not least we will be running three medical camps during our stay, each treating around 200 to 250 patients. These camps are a great way for us to conduct research into the most common medical complaints of the community, as well as encouraging locals to come to the new clinic when they are ill. They are busy but incredibly rewarding days - you can see images from our last camp here and here or check out the video the talented Mike made here. 

Before we go I'd like to specially thank the ladies of Key Media for their wonderful sewing efforts and donations, the Crafternoon ladies and my best friend Mags for their fundraising afternoon and continued support, my Mum for her donation and my Mum and brother for their web design efforts, Ryan's wonderful parents who give way too much, the awesome volunteers we have coming with us this trip and, of course, Ry for being the most perfect partner I could ever wish for.
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