In Love with her Kenyan village
Hope this finds you all well and enjoying the summer sun. It has been two weeks since I last had internet access so there is plenty to tell you. Firstly, today being my birthday has been extra special. My friends here have spoiled me with cards and gifts and all the staff have been wishing me a ‘Happy new year’ and ‘Happy party day’. Today being Sunday we are all chilling at the beach and then going back to the camp to celebrate tonight. Thank you for all the lovely facebook/email messages and especially to everyone who called (or tried to call – I’m sorry the reception is so dodgy). So, here is a summary of weeks 2 and 3 of my Kenyan adventure…
Week 2 was off to a rough start with intense sun burn after a day at the beach and a wild, hilarious Saturday night at the club Shakatak. I spent one morning handing out medication at the Muhaka Dispensary, a clinic funded by the government. I stood behind a counter counting tablets and filling bottles of drugs for TB, malaria and bronchitis patients. The conditions there are appalling compared to our standards and the management is horrific. A wealthy donor built a baby delivery room there but because the electricity cuts out unexpectedly, they cannot make any use of it and most babies are delivered at home in unsanitary conditions. The rest of the week involved pumping water from a well, watering the tree nursery, more hoeing and hacking, a farewell to two volunteers, celebrations for Obama’s inauguration and three of the girls being admitted to hospital for stomach infections! On Saturday we did a tour of Mombasa, the second largest city in Kenya. To be honest, there was nothing to see besides a Hindu temple, a wildlife park, a sculpture of elephant tusks and life-threatening traffic – life in our tiny village is far more interesting.
In week 3, half of us left the camp at Muhaka to go to on safari and spend time at an elephant sanctuary. For two days we did game drives in Tsavo East National Park. The highlight was a lion, old and emaciated, creeping up beside our truck and staring us in the eyes. For me, having been lucky enough to do safari before, I enjoyed seeing the excitement of the others when they saw zebra, giraffe, elephant, ostrich etc in the wild for the first time. After safari, we went to another camp (which this time was literally a camp – tents and all) in the Mwalingange Elephant Sanctuary. Our tents were on a mountain top looking over a forest. The panorama was breathtaking. There was electricity only between 6.30pm and 9pm. There were no mirrors or sinks and only outdoor showers. Due to the scarcity of the water, our motto was ‘If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down’. During the day, we helped the locals make elephant dung paper, which is exactly what its name describes and toiled the soil at the local school tree nursery. In the evenings we went on game drives around the sanctuary, learning all about the nature and habitat of the elephants from our super keen guide, Steve. At Mwalingange we all felt very at one with nature, having encounters with millions of millipedes, a green mamba snake, parasite getting under the skin (literally), poisonous scorpions in our tents, spiders galore and hyenas roaming our camp site during the night.
Today we drove back to Muhaka, reunited with the other volunteers, gave a massive bear hug to our Muhaka leader, Eustice and honestly, it felt like coming home after a holiday. I have settled in to Kenyan village life and I love it. I love the way the Kenyan kids from school scream my name when I see them in the street, I love the diversity of the volunteers but that we all feel like brothers and sisters, I love my mosquito net, I love queuing at meal time, I love the fact that I laugh so much with my friends my stomach muscles are getting strong and I love not wearing any make-up at all!
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