Cholera !

I heard today from a friend in Kisumu that there is an outbreak of cholera in the town.   I wonder how this started .... the towns dubious and poor water supply can't help, and nor can public meetings and gatherings pre the election which is in about ten days, on 8th August.   

The year we spent living in Kericho, in the tea highlands, was also an election year, and there was a cholera outbreak in the town.   A few (white) people I knew panicked and flew back to UK; we stayed but made sure the children only drank water we had boiled, and I made the bread and all the food we ate, rather than trusting it to our 'staff' !!   (Sorry, but Europeans always had 'staff' .... it gave Africans employment, and I think we treated them as equals.   But I had young children, and didn't want there to be any risk to them.)  I had always made sure our staff had soap and the means to keep their latrines clean ... but you never knew who else might use them.

  

It is SO easy to pick up dysentery and other similar illnesses, as I knew well on my return from Kisumu in the spring this year when I came back with dysentery.   I had been eating three or four times a week in the slums, and although food and African tea was always piping hot, you never knew if the plate or the spoon was really clean ...

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I have also had an update on how Sylvanus is progressing.   He is slowly, slowly making progress; one of his leg ulcers has healed, and the other is taking longer, but is improving.   His greater family are (hopefully !) going to sign him up for NHIF .... a Kenyan health insurance scheme which will cost them about 500 shillings per month (£4).   So little for us, such an enormous sum for them.