Nice !

I got an information and advice email today from a health organisation we were recommended to join:- 

Bed bugs
‘Sleep tight, don’t let the bed bugs bite!’ is the nightly dictum of the traveller staying in budget accommodation. These oval brown fiends (5-10mm long) usually bite at night and leave a scattering or a line of intensely itchy bites on exposed skin. They can be prevented by choosing good quality accommodation. If you keep a light on at night they will be discouraged from biting, and sleeping under a well-tucked-in permethrin-impregnated bed net will stop them from reaching you. If you have been bitten, do not scratch the bites and take an oral antihistamine (e.g. chlorphenamine or loratidine). Bed bugs do not spread any disease and rarely cause any major harm.

Jiggers
These are sand fleas and are found in many parts of Africa, and in some parts of South America and the Caribbean. Jiggers burrow into the toes or feet, forming pea-size swellings that may ulcerate. The condition that develops is known as tungiasis. They can be easily prevented by wearing sturdy footwear when walking in areas where they occur. In addition, spray your footwear with DEET and inspect your feet periodically, as early removal can help to lessen the infection. If you have a jigger, ask an experienced member of the local community or a medical professional to extract it with a sterile needle and syringe kit. Apply antiseptic afterwards and seek medical advice if you develop redness, pain, pus or swelling. Jiggers pose a tetanus risk so ensure your tetanus boosters are up to date.

Tumbu flies
These live in tropical Africa and, less commonly, South America (also home to the similar bot-fly). Tumbu and bot-flies cause what is known as myiasis – the growth of their larvae in human skin. If you are in an area where these flies are present, watch out for painful boils and make sure there is no maggot inside – they can be identified by two small black dots or the head of a whitish larva. To prevent eggs being laid in your clothes, hot-iron all clothes left to dry outside, including all creases and seams in order to kill the eggs. Better still, dry clothes inside or on a clothes line in full sun. If you do have a larva in your skin, you can kill it by placing a drop of oil or Vaseline on the lesion overnight and then removing the maggot. It is better if a doctor removes it for you, but an experienced local resident may be able to. Ensure that equipment is sterile and that you treat the wound with antiseptic afterwards. Take antibiotics for seven days afterwards. If allergic to penicillin, take either flucloxacillin 500mg four times daily or erythromycin 500mg four times daily.

Ticks
Ticks attach themselves to the body, usually when walking in vegetation or in close proximity to animals. Ticks feed on blood until they enlarge and then fall off. In some cases, they can cause disease (e.g. tick-borne encephalitis, tick-bite fever, some forms of typhus, and Lyme disease). To prevent ticks attaching to you, spray DEET on your skin, or soak your trousers with 100% DEET or permethrin. Tuck your trousers into thick socks and wear sturdy footwear. You can remove ticks by grasping the head end with tweezers and gently pulling them to detach the head-parts. This requires some patience and you should not be tempted to squeeze the tick’s body. Upon removal, apply alcohol to your skin (any spirit will do) and keep an eye out for symptoms of any tick-borne illness occurring.


My #1 daughter got a jigger in her hand when she was at the crawling stage ... it didn't hurt her while it was in her hand, but she didn't like it being removed, for then it did hurt ... the insect produces some sort of anasthetic which numbs the hole they make while it is in situ !

Update on the Kisumu weather

You can see that now the rainy season has ended, and the weather is steady ... sun all day, temperatures in the low to mid 80's, dropping to a pleasant temperature at night !    Lovely ... and snow is forecast here for tomorrow !

Compare this to the weather chart I put up earlier ...

http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2010/10/weather-its-rains-now-in-kisumu.html

People are so kind, so very generous

I'm amazed and almost over-whelmed virtually every day at people's generosity towards the project in Kenya; especially the reasons friends give for donating ... in memory of a certain person, or using some of their winter heating allowance.   Two more Christmas cards today from friends I haven't seen in years, enclosing cheques ...

I knew in my innermost being that I would be able to raise the necessary money somehow ... Christian faith, maybe ?   But I had no idea when I started how it was going to come.    This week in our church study group (known rather rudely by its members as 'The God Squad' !) ... we read the story of the poor widow ...

"Jesus saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple coffers.  He also saw a poor widow put in two very small coins.  'I tell you the truth,' he said, 'this poor widow has put in more than all the others.  They gave out of their wealth, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.' "

It is certainly my experience that this is so with giving to charitable causes ...

You know who you are ... thank you, my friends, for your generosity, from the bottom of my heart.   All your giving, large or small, has been most gratefully received, and will be used wisely in Kenya.

Want a laugh ? Thank you George for this ...

A friend who reads my blog and is good at manipulating photo's thought I might have this sort of bathing arrangement in Kisumu !

Sorry George ... these ladies are Maasai ...

(And oh ! to be that young still !)

The silent day

I managed it !

I attended the coffee morning wearing a placard round my neck saying I wasn't speaking as I had been sponsored to be silent for 24 hours ... and later on, I also attended an evening put on by N., the leader of our group, who had booked the New Rope String Band ... they were fantastic !   Do go and see them if you ever get the chance ... good musicians, comics, story-tellers, clowns, players of odd instruments ... they were all of these ! 

http://www.newropestringband.co.uk/index.html

Thank goodness laughing wasn't in the silence remit !


Being silent, and making it obvious I couldn't speak by wearing a notice had an odd effect on several of the people I met.  It had made me 'disabled' and thus I was out of many peoples experience.   Some read the notice when I pointed it out and behaved very oddly ... these weren't total strangers, but people I have known, in some instances, for 30 years !   One friend decided she had to crouch and whisper at me, like to someone mentally handicapped or in a wheel-chair.  A second person  felt it necessary to raise her voice and speak very simply, like talking to a child.  Another couple of people decided it was easiest to ignore me totally, not even catching my glance.   Having lived the first 21 years of my life with two moderately physically disabled parents, and observed and been angered by the way they were treated all their lives ... I was still startled to see something of the same behaviour given to me !      People are strange ...


Another odd experience I had today was meeting someone in the supermarket, who said she admired what I was doing, but hadn't I thought it might be a good idea to support Amnesty International ?    That got me thinking ...

People who become prisoners of conscience, have actually made a conscious decision to protest about political injustice in their countries, and in making that decision, surely they must have been aware of the risk of imprisonment ?   But youngsters living and dying in absolute poverty on the streets of third world countries haven't made a decision to do so for fun or political reasons !   They are trapped in a situation not of their own making ... and so for me, they deserve much more help and support than political prisoners  ...


... and yes, I do support Amnesty and have written the letters ...


1 comment:

Charlotte said...

Good on you . What you are doing is wonderful. Yes, your analysis of the difference between prisoners of conscience and those who are caught in poverty and ignorance is helpful and perceptive.

11 December 2010,  09:57

Motivation

I've been asked several times lately WHY I'm doing this ... one person even added 'at your age' !!    I wrote my thoughts about this when I started this blog, but it never hurts to re-visit thoughts and ideas, to see if one still thinks the same.

Yesterday, I visited a school in Hereford to see a nativity play.   The children were delightful, the school was warm, clean, well-equipped, comfortable.  The children were obviously well cared for and happy, and appeared to have everything a child could want to eventually grow into a well rounded and carefree young adult.

Children in Kisumu who had all that the Hereford children had would definitely be in a small minority, from very priviledged families, maybe with parents who were government ministers or well paid surgeons.   There are a huge number of AIDS/HIV orphans in Kisumu, either totally family-less, or cast out onto the streets by the remaining relatives they do have, for lack of money, housing, clothes, and the ability to care for them.    Maybe an extended African family has lost all working adults and only very frail grandparents are left, with perhaps 20 children to look after.  How can they ?  So children as young as four or five have to manage to survive on the streets.

When I see and think about my own priviledged grand-children, this knowledge of Kisumu children touches me deeply.   What can I do ?  Well, in the long term, perhaps nothing ... but this project WILL help just a few of them, some of the teenagers anyway, to learn a simple trade which will ultimately get them off the streets and into employment.   My father, himself a disabled orphan,  had to work hard to be able to buy carpentry tools, which earned him money, so his tools will be going to Kenya with me, to give to the carpentry workshop for the boys to use.  And I will tell them the story of the tools and my father ... that they CAN make their lives better ...

Remember the story of the starfish I related here at the end of this entry ...

http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2010/07/little-about-geography-and-its-effect.html

I doubt that being a Christian makes much difference to my motivation ... many, many good people feel like I do about third world issues and the problems that AIDS/HIV has brought to developing countries ... but I do have to admit that my faith does have something to do with my motives.   Perhaps its that which made me get off my backside and DO something to help ... or perhaps if I'm honest its also the fact that I know Kisumu and the Luo people and something of the language.   I never thought I'd go back to Africa again, so when this opportunity came up, I grabbed it; it seemed like it was meant to be ... that the project was in the part of Africa that I love so much. 

Catch up

Goodness !   Its eight days since I up-dated this.

I've been busy writing Christmas cards, and am sending most people that I haven't seen or spoken to this year, information about the charity ... in the hope I'll get a few more sponsors !

My dear #3 daughter has sponsored me NOT to speak for a whole day on 9th December ... when a friend is holding another coffee morning for my funds ... and I've got to be there, to explain about the charity, where it is, what is it, etc ... all in sign language !    Could be interesting !   I've decided to at the very least wear a sign round my neck, saying

I'm being sponsored

not to speak ...

but I can talk in gestures !

Welcome; come in, have some coffee

and a cake or two !

The rest I'll have to work out gestures for ... and I'll take photos and a map and some info to give out.  At least I can pour the coffee !   And wash the dishes afterwards.

######

I continue with the injections ... last Hepatitus B one this week, plus first of the 3 rabies shots which cost £50 per shot, three in total ... and the vaccine is purple, like meths !  The Hep B jabs have made my arm ache for a couple of weeks; the rabies just itches !   And I've bought a large box of anti-malarials ... I'll be a walking chemists by the time I leave UK !

######

Bilharzia (or schistosomiasis) ...

I was going to write about another nasty African disease, when I mentioned that certain storks eat the snails which act as a host for the parasites. 

Lake Victoria, and all the fresh-water lakes of central Africa harbour these snails, which in turn harbour the parasite causing this disease.   The life cycle is human waste containing the parasite eggs >> into water >> into snails >> from the snails to water again in a mature form >> into human, where the parasite enters the body through the skin or by drinking the water ... and the parasites travel through the body to the liver and spleen ... etc etc. 

It is not at first fatal; treatment is effective, but prevention is far better by not going into or drinking water from the lakes.   Children with bilharzia are often recognisable by their distended stomachs ...

So for volunteers going to central Africa, the answer is 'keep out of fresh-water lakes and slow moving streams'

I hope I haven't put you off your supper !



Packing ... and pricing up anti-malarials

I bought myself an enormous suitcase with wheels in a charity shop for a few pounds, meaning to leave it behind when I come home.  (My personal stuff goes in my rucksack).  As I've got heaps of stuff for Kenya all around the house, it suddenly occured to me that I could tidy up a bit by sticking it into the case !   (I'm a slow learner !)

So in it all goes, childrens clothes, bra's (!); wood working tools; my new tin mug (its on the list we were given ... to use when cleaning teeth with bottled water); a ball of string and a roll of duct tape (doesn't everyone travel the world with those two essential items ?); tin opener, sharp knife, basic cutlery;  all those tubes and bottles of insect repellant, sun cream, diarrhoea pills that I bought when they were cheap at the end of summer; mosquito net ...

* * * * *

We have to take anti-malarial drugs for a week before we go, while we are there, and for a month on our return.   I've opted for doxyclycline, but you can't just get it free from the doctor !  He will give a 'private patient' prescription for it, cost £10.   I can take this to a chemist and buy the drugs ... BUT they vary in price at different chemists !   Alternately, if the doctor orders the drugs for me through their own dispensary, I don't have to pay the £10 !   So I've been shopping around, working out what it'll cost  and where its cheapest !

As a follow on from the last posting ...

... I've found this picture of one of the butchers in Pandipieri.



Contrast the water suppliers, and the butchers in a corrugated iron shack, with this ...

... that's the new pentecostal church.    As a Christian, I have no objection to the supporters giving money and building a fine new church ... and they may well be providing facilities in the shanty town, I don't know ... but I do know from experience in other countries that its very often the case that raising money for the big church comes first, and the local problems of homelessness, hunger, poor water supply, ill health, work for those that have none ... come a very poor second.   Ever was it thus ... the early missionaries did exactly the same ... the beautiful building for the church came first, the building of the health centres and the schools came second.    That, in my opinion, is wrong ... people and their needs should come first.

Water ...

I was searching Google maps, and found there are also pictures !     This is some of the Pandipieri district water supply ...


I think we will buy bottled drinking water !

Euros, and more fund raising ...

I've today been sent 30 euros by a friend abroad !  I must find a calculator to see how much that is, and also whether or not to change it into pounds before I pay it in to our treasurer !

A good friend of mine is holding a coffee morning for me in two weeks, and then I'm doing an austerity lunch after Christmas, so people can have a meal that counteracts the gluttony of Christmas !   I'm planning to make several pots of home made veg soups, home made breads, and fruit for pud !

Donations are still coming in ... which is good.  People are infinitely kind and generous; and I keep emphasizing the fact that money donated to HATW goes straight to the project; unlike, perhaps money donated to some other third world schemes where an amount is sent out to a third world country, and only half of it ever reaches the project.  

Time for another picture ...  these are fascinating birds seen around Kisumu ... open billed storks.  They live around the lake and nest in tree, and the gap in the bill, even when its closed, means they can pick up and eat water snails.   Very useful as the snails are hosts to another nasty disease ... bilharzia ... more of that later !



The dirty water disease ... cholera !

Cholera is all in the foreign news nowadays, as Haiti is trying to tackle an outbreak.  Haiti is truly suffering; they had a massive earthquake just about a year ago, and a large part of the population is still living in unsanitary tent cities; then a month ago a hurricane swept through; now there is cholera.   In Kenya, cholera pops up now and again, but I don't recall such an epidemic of it as in Haiti.   We did have one outbreak while I was there; no vaccine was available, so I just ensured strict hygiene practices, of hand washing for the man who worked for me, and I cooked all our food myself, and boiled all our water.

It is primarily a disease which proliferates in dirty water, unsanity latrines, and the lack of plentiful clean water for washing hands and preparing food.    When the population has to rely on dirty pools and rivers for their water, then the cholera bacteria, Vibrio cholerae, can easily increase in warm, filthy water.    Its symptoms are profuse watery diarrhoea and vomiting.  Dehydration is what causes death, so oral re-hydration salts are the first treatment, to replace lost liquid and salts/sugars from the body.   If that fails, then it is treatable with intravenous fluids and anti-biotics.   The anti-biotic we are taking against malaria, doxycycline, is also a treatment for cholera.

So for our team out in Kisumu, we have to ensure we eat only hot food, or fruit we have washed and peeled ourselves.  Salads and raw vegetables or things like ham are a definite no-no !!  Tea is safe ... as African tea with the milk and sugar added, is usually boiled to death, for a considerable period !   Drinking water we will have to buy, and this applies to teeth cleaning water too.    Water for washing ourselves or clothes can be the normal town supply, which may or may not be treated against water bourne diseases. 

We will all have had cholera immunisations ... I had my second dose yesterday !   Nowadays its two doses of Dukoral taken a week apart. 

G's fund raising night - 'Pamper and Pudding' !!

G., the other lady on our team arranged a 'Pudding and Pampering' evening at a nearby college of further education !   One 'treatment' and a pudding included in the ticket price, more available if wanted !   So I gathered up a carload of friends, and we went !

The treatments were done by girl students who were all in training for the beauty industry ... we were their guinea pigs !   They were all young and ambitious, and very smart, and competent at what they did, even though they are still in training.

I decided to have a pedicure, as I've never had one before ... I now have beautiful feet with gold painted toe nails !    Then a pudding ... wow, no calories spared there !   I managed to eat three ... chocolate surprise, pavlova and delicious fruit salad.    My friends had head massages, facials, manicures ... and one had a back massage, which sounded so relaxing, I decided to have one too !   The girl who did it was superb ... soft, soothing music, and her hands on my back were like a gentle ballet !!   She was good. 

One more pud and a cup of coffee, and we came home, pampered, relaxed and sweetly smelling !     It was an excellent evening.   I've suggested to G. that she does it again as an after Christmas special ...

A third traditional Luo story

"Nyiego en gimarach !"

Akelo and Akong'o were two women, both married to the same man.   (This is Nyanza, remember ... polygamy used to be common !)    Both women had borne their husband a daughter.  The problem was that Awino, the daughter of Akong'o, was more beautiful than Awiti, the daughter of Akelo.

Akelo was jealous, for young men kept coming to propose marriage to Awino, and Awiti was ignored.  Akelo decided she must kill her daughter's rival when she was asleep.  The girls slept in the siwindhe (the place where unmarried girls slept with an older woman, perhaps their own grandmother).  The girls who were the best of friends, shared a bed, each keeping to her own side.

Akelo asked her daughter which side she slept in; Awiti replied 'away from the door'.  But when Awino, the other girl heard this, she was suspicious, and begged her sister to change places.   So on the fateful night Awiti was nearest the door.

At the darkest hour, Akelo crept in to murder Awino, but instead slaughtered her own child, and crept out again.

Next morning when everyone saw what had happened, there was wailing and sorrow.  Akelo pretended to mourn with everyone else, for like others in the village, she had not seen the body, until she followed the mourners into the siwindhe where the girls had slept ... only to find it was her very own dear Awiti who lay there dead.  Here was a corpse she hadn't expected, and now she really was grief-stricken, wailing with greater sadness than the village folk had ever seen before.

So the moral of this story is:  Nyiego en gimarach !  Jealousy is a bad thing !

Malaria and HIV

A friend who read what I wrote yesterday, asked me if a mosquito bites someone with HIV, and then bites another person, can HIV be carried in that way ?

The answer is 'No' ... because although many nasty diseases are passed by a mosquito bite, HIV isn't one of them.  Any HIV that the mosquito sucks up, is digested by the mosquito's metabolism.  

If the virus changes one day ... it doesn't bear thinking about !

Malaria ? Nothing to do with 'bad air' as thought in the past !

Several of my friends who are following my preparations and are getting interested in African travel and work, have asked me many questions about common diseases in African, Kenya in particular.   So I'll occasionally give blog-followers some information !

Malaria, as most people already know, is spread by the bite of a mosquito.  But its not so simple as that; Kenya has several species of mosquito, and it is only the female Anopheles mosquito that bites and spreads the parasite that causes malaria.   A true case of the female being more deadly than the male !

Once bitten, by an infected mosquito, the Plasmodium parasite enters the blood stream, where it travels to the liver and multiplies, and after several weeks, a bout of malaria ensues.  If a mosquito then bites the patient, it sucks up some of the parasite in its blood meal, and thus carries it to another person. 

Symptoms are very similar to British flu' ... sweating, headache, shivering ... but in a tropical country, malaria should always be tested for, and treated quickly. 

Prevention is always better than cure ... and to prevent malaria, precautions to prevent being bitten should be taken, such as using insecticide treated nets at night; 50% DEET insect repellant; and wearing long sleeves and trousers in the evenings.   Obviously, anti-malarial drugs are essential for volunteers or visitors to areas known to be the habitat of mosquitos ... such as shanty towns, the area around lakes, the Kenya coast.

So I've ordered Doxycycline tablets, to start before I go, and to continue a month after my return ...

If that makes you squeamish, I'll continue next time with another nasty !!

Holes in my arms ...

Hepatitis B in the right; typhoid in the left, and cholera juice straight down the throat !

Next week ... meningitis A & C, W & Y ... plus yellow fever ...

'And that'll be £117 please !'  


Good job I had my credit card ...


Now I've got two sore arms, and the glands under my arms are hurting ... think I'll go and curl up with a choc ice and watch a video !!

What 'Hands Around the World' has done ... so far !

BENIN:  
Refurbished a village health centre and staff house
Built 3 flood-proof classrooms on stilts
Started a sponsorship programme benefitting 30+ orphaned children


BRAZIL:
Refurbished 3 children's Homes
Built 2 new favela children's support centres

GHANA:
Built orphanage and school.
Supported programme with 65 children in care, 125 in school
Supported past HATW volunteers to set up a sponsorship programme for about 50 children

INDIA:
Built home for abandoned children
Built school for 130+, and vocational training centre
Started a sponsorship programme for children

KENYA:
Built a school dormitory and wheelchair-friendly dining facilities + kitchen, able to accommodate 60 children
Provided in-service training for various types of medical staff
Built 2 small schools, one urban and one rural
Built a carpentry training workshop for vulnerable youngsters (ongoing)
Built accommodation for children in care
Undertook training of bereavement counsellors (ongoing)
Built 2 houses each for 10 children in orphans' village, also classroom block for 60 children

RWANDA:
Building 4 classroom block ... current

SOUTH AFRICA:
Set up a rural hospital physiotherapy department and helped train staff at three hospitals
Developed a children's resource centre out of an old hospital building
Built a 'flying doctors' aircraft hangar

SWAZILAND:
Built classroom blocks at 2 primary schools

UGANDA:
Built a secondary school girls dormitory
Built teenagers' carpentry and tailoring training workshops
Helped develop the training programme with management support and advice, also tools and sewing machines
Started a young persons' sponsorship programme
Repaired and completed dilapidated primary school classrooms
Built 4 classrooms at a rural girls' secondary school

ZAMBIA:
Provided various staff in service training
Built pharmacy, laboratory and 2 ward extensions, and a small high-dependency nursing unit
Built classroom, office, storage, kitchen, toilet blocks, windmill water pump, staff and animal housing. Provided ongoing financial support with staff costs, also staff mentoring
Built 2 small schools, provided ongoing support for staff wages, furniture, books, equipment, land purchase and sports field
Started up a sponsorship programme for children
Helped build a school + vocational training centre including mains water and electricity installation

Saturday Meeting

The group got together yesterday to have discussions with JT, the local administrator, on various things we need to think through about the project and various issues that might arise, and things we need to know before we go !

We started with a brain storming about what we think we'll get out of the project, how it will affect us and so on.   Answers ranged from 'hard work' and 'fun' to 'coping with heart-breaking situations we can't do anything about'.  

Health and safety on African building sites isn't a high priority and it was emphasised that for our own safety as well as that of the African workmen, this must be thought through and acted upon ... a daily survey of the site to pick up wood with nails sticking out, covering or filling of holes, checking the scaffolding planks are as safe as we can manage, and for our own safety, making sure we have hard hats on at all times, and proper boots, and that we use goggles and face masks in dusty work.  Sun-hats are also an essential, as is plenty of water to drink ... we'll be working in HEAT !!

We then read a summary of an imaginery first aid disaster, and how we could deal with it.  Having our mobile phones in working order and charged up at all times is another essential. 

We went on to deal with cultural issues ... what to wear, how to treat members of the opposite sex, how not to offend if asked out late at night (!), drink, smoking, sex ... (that's DEFINITELY a no-no !)

Finally we talked through how to survive four weeks of living and working as a group, and how not to get involved in conflict with each other ... and we decided we need to set out house rules about how we share out tasks, how we deal with any problems. 

I've come home with a piece of 'homework' ... to research, write and then present a short talk on health care in Kenya ...

... so I'd better get to it !  



The sort of local transport we are told NOT to use !

Joot mar Joseph Adhiambo, ka Joseph e Ng'iya, Alego location !

Joot mar Joseph Adhiambo, ka Joseph e Ng'iya, Alego location !

The family of Joseph Adhiambo, at the home of Joseph at Ng'iya, in Alego Location ! 

(Can you tell I'm trying to use some Dholuo every day now ... !)

Joseph malo toke gi nyero madoung !    Joseph stands at the back and has a big smile !

He has a yellow cap ...only I can't do colours yet !! 

We have our dates !

Flying out to Kenya ... 28th January, 2011

Returning to UK ... 25th February, 2011



Getting exciting, isn't it !  

Nyathindo ...



Nyako matin, higa adek, ka dala Joseph Adhiambo ...

... gi nyathindo abich.

Over £300 !!

That's the money raised so far from my coffee morning !   I think when all the promised amounts are in, it will total about £350 !    Not bad for dozens of cups of coffee and tea, and scones, cakes and biscuits !

Weather ... its the rains now ! (In Kisumu)

I am feeling much better now; got some different pills from the doc which are improving things slowly but steadily.   I got to thinking about the weather in Kisumu, for we've gone into autumn with a vengeance here; wind, rain, cold mornings with frost ... in fact, I'd say it's rapidly getting to be winter !

So I had a look on the BBC weather site and this was the forecast for the next few days in Kisumu. 



It's definitely the rainy season now, which if I remember correctly, will last until about early December.   When we go at the end of January it should be dry, and hot, and because the city is right next to Lake Victoria, I think it will also be humid.  

And trying to remember the Dholuo for 'rain', I think it is "koth", and the sun is "chieng' ".  A lot of rain would be "koth madoung' "  = big rains !    I can't remember the word for 'much' ... except in Swahili, when it would be "mvua myingi" = much rain !!   I remember I said a couple of months back that I keep getting muddled with Swahili and the Dholuo language ... maybe ... I hope ... this won't matter too much once in Kenya.

I'm still here !

... but I've got/had shingles, and its knocked the stuffing and energy out of me, so I haven't done anything in the past ten days except read.   BUT ... I have been reading several books about Africa, so my time hasn't been entirely wasted !

I reckoned the other day that my 'library' of African books in my sitting room contains over 300 books ... covering subjects like the wildlife, plants, explorers, different countries within the continent, history of the independence struggles, African writers novels, lots of 'glossies' of photos taken by people such as Leni Reifenstahl and Mirella Richardi ... but virtually nothing about the Joluo  or Nyanza !   I don't think it can be that I didn't buy any when I lived there or visited since ... I suspect its just that there have been too few written !  I must research and see if I can find some ...

In the meantime, I've been reading up on the early explorers ... Speke, Mungo Park, Stanley ... and of the incredible women who in their long Victorian clothing, big hats and corsets (!) went with their missionary husbands into 'darkest Africa' !! 

Then the early white settlers in Kenya wrote books too which I have re-read in the last ten days ... Elspeth Huxley who settled as a child with her parents near Thika, north of Nairobi, and wrote 'The Flame Trees of Thika'.  The author of my favourite Africa book wrote of her struggles with her coffee farm ... Karen Blixen with 'Out of Africa'.  

Finally, I'm now re-reading 'Island Africa' by Jonathan Kingdon, about the evolution of Africa's rarest plants and animals.   His own painted illustrations are superb.

So quite a diversity of background reading; none of which is really applicable to working in a shanty town in Kisumu, but its diverted my mind off the itching and soreness, and has kept me occupied when I couldn't sleep nights for the pain ...



"If I know a song of Africa, I thought, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back ... does Africa know a song of me ?  Would the air over the plain quiver with a colour that I had had on, or the children invent a game in which my name was ... "    Karen Blixen

Coffee morning update ...

I had forgotten to say I attempted to serve fair trade Kenyan coffee and Kenyan tea at the coffee morning ... BUT our 'posh' supermarket didn't have Kenya coffee, only Tanzanian and Ugandan !   Kenya coffee is VERY good, so I must have a word with the manager ...

Donations are still coming in, which is very good ... over ₤200 so far, and more expected ... not bad for a small village coffee morning where the usual amounts raised are under ₤50.

Coffee Morning tomorrow to raise awareness ...

Goodness, my house is dusty !   I thought I'd got rid of most of the building dust about two weeks back when son-in-law finished phase one of the house renovations he's doing for me ... but when you know you live in a house-proud village ... well, the dust has to GO !

Coffee mornings in the village usually raise small amounts of money, dropped discretely into a bowl on the table among the cakes and scones.  I'm not having a bowl for money; indeed no-one is expected to give anything !   Instead, I'm giving all my guests an envelope to take home with them, with a letter about the project, some HATW literature and a gift aid form, and a request that they might like to sponsor me ! 

I've got lots of pictures and captions stuck on my sitting room walls, showing Pandipieri, and the sort of poor people who live there, and the children, and the sort of furniture the boys might make once we have completed the project. 

We'll see how successful... or not ... this new approach to village coffee mornings is ! 

Better get the vacuum cleaner out now ...

Todays picture is of one of my 'son' Joseph's relations ... Margaret Achieng' ... I think she was the sister of Josephs mother ... she was the local pot maker !   I've got a pot just like this one ...

Pandipieri ... shanty town

Appropriate technology, part two !

Interesting that I used 'Appropriate Technology' for the last posting ... we have just been away as a group for the weekend to an organic, sustainable, green farm in Herefordshire to work and see if we 'bond' and can work together as a group.

The owners are keen supporters of the HATW charity, and have been to Kisumu and know Africa.  They invite groups from local schools to their farm and teach them about organic farming, and how things are done in Africa; for example, they have a Ugandan cow-house (which in Uganda would be used to keep a good quality cow in, and food is brought to the cow, thus preventing the animal trampling crops, picking up diseases and being mated by any old cow, instead of AI or a quality bull).   It also keeps the droppings together, where they can be used on the fields. 

The house we stayed in is a bunk-house ... most comfortable, with a wood fired Rayburn for heating and cooking, and composting loo's, solar panels, solar water heating and so on.  Not the camping in tents I had feared it might be !

We worked all of Saturday, making an outside octagonal barbecue area, which involved moving and spreading gravel, carrying crazy paving slabs, mixing and laying concrete ... its a good job the weather was fine ! 

D. the youngest member of the team making and then spreading concrete.

The organic vegetable garden, with pond in the middle, and one of the 'bag' gardens in the foreground ... this is a mesh bag, the sort you buy grass seed or various agricultural or horticultural products in, fixed to the ground with four stakes.  A plastic pipe is put in the centre; filled with chippings or gravel, and soil or compost put all around the pipe, which is then withdraw ... thus leaving a central core where water can be added.   Plants such as strawberries, onions, lettuces, carrots can be grown in holes all around the bag.   This idea is used in Africa ...

Sunday dawned wet and cold, so we worked for a long morning in a poly-tunnel making wooden edging for small flower beds to go round the outside of the octagonal barbecue area we had paved the day before. 

It was a good weekend, and a chance to get to know the others in the team better.  I gave them their first Luo lesson !  We also discussed things we might take that we can give to people, such as tools, and bra's for the ladies !   Women without a bra can and do get molested and even raped, for it is considered they are 'loose' women !   I'm collecting good quality small childrens clothes ...

Appropriate technology.

I've been reading an interesting book ('Different Drums') written I think about 1985, by Dr Michael Wood, the then director of AMREF ... or what we used to call the Flying Doctor service !

It may be out of date, but so much of what he writes seems to be true for today in Africa.   In one chapter he is talking about foreign aid ... and how inappropriate so much of it is.   What use is a heart/lung machine donated to a hospital ... with no electricity ?  Why give people a fishing boat which needs petrol they can't afford - or have access to - to run it, when for centuries they have used, quite successfully, their dug-out canoes ?   How can workshops function with the power tools I have seen my son-in-law use, when they have no electricity or training to use them safely ?

So it was good to see on the film/pictures the previous Kisumu team brought back, that tools used on the site ARE appropriate to the job.  No cement mixers, no fancy electric tools, just old fashioned well sharpened saws, planes, shovels and wheel-barrows !   It was good to see the old fashioned plumb bob ... a weight on the end of a piece of string ... in use, and also the hosepipe of water used as a level.   Simple, accessible and accurate.

The rights of a child

The UN has a convention stating the rights of the child.   Many countries have signed it, or various clauses in it.

Rights of the child, INCLUDING street-living children, according to the UN, includes things like a right to health care, a right to education, a right to fair treatment, and a right to be heard.

Street children in many if not most third world countries are exposed to exploitation, violence, prostitution, drugs, dirt and diseases, and hunger.

I have no wish to be controversial, or to name countries where these rights do not exist, or to name countries which haven't signed the convention.   

But I think in our work in Kisumu, we need, even just for a month, to keep these 'rights' foremost in our minds when talking to children and teenagers, and try to offer a little help in the way of education, very basic health care or advice, and above all, to listen to what they have to say, just as we would with our own children or grandchildren ...   

This is the way for us to learn about their lives, and then let their lives change our lives ...

Meeting and more information

We had a group meeting a couple of days ago.  An ?architect? who bought me the dictionary and who has been working on the site for about five weeks, came to the meeting and showed us lots of pictures and so on of the site and the workers.

The carpentry workshop is built up to the top of the ground floor ... and there it has stopped ... no money or HATW people there to complete it ... so that'll be our job !   I was MOST interested to see the coarse locally made bricks ... they are made by two men at a brickworks at Maseno, just a mile or less from there we used to live !   And I have photo's ...

Clay is cut; bricks are shaped in a wooden mould



Bricks laid out to dry in the sun

Maseno brick-makers and the piled up dried bricks; covered with grass and later wood;

then fired in the stack

Fired bricks awaiting sale; sizes vary !

Back to the talk ... it seems we might be staying in the YMCA which is a short walk from the site, with no kitchen facilities.  We will therefore probably have to cater for ourselves, but I don't see that as a problem.   The workshop (as it is) has three rooms, but no doors or windows yet, so we could buy a small charcoal burner and a couple of pots, and cook (at floor level) inside the building at lunch-time.  I'm willing to give it a go !   The utensils, jiko (charcoal stove) and any pots can be locked away each night with the tools on site.

Our building task will be hopefully to complete the building; we'll see how we get on !  The sooner it is complete, the sooner it can be used to teach teenagers carpentry.

Would you Adam and Eve it !

Pages 104 and 117 are missing from my new dictionary !! 

I hadn't noticed it ... until I needed to look up 'gweyo' ... which I had heard on one of the YouTube videos ... what DOES it mean ??    

Frustration !!

Some Dholuo videos !

A friend of mine suggested I check YouTube to see if I can find spoken Dholuo ... and these are four I have found so far.  

A compilation of  rather dated colonial pictures of (mostly) Luo people, but with a few familiar faces, including Jomo Kenyatta ... and even Barack Obama ... whose Luo grandfather worked at a neighbouring school to the one where I lived.   I may even have met him !

http://video.aol.com/category/dholuo

This one has a rather loud woman singing Luo ... and shows the traditional pots used by the Luo.  She is singing too fast for me to catch more than the odd word or two !

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqahSwtyfME&feature=related

This is better !   I can follow some of this; a woman is describing what she keeps in her large clay pots !  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HxNV5SHUtw&feature=related

And this one is my favourite so far !   It shows you the inside of a Luo house and the womens face is so typical !   I feel homesick ... !!   They are singing the praises of an ancestor.  The Luo usually (at least they did until recently as far as I know) bury their dead in the (rural) village where they live ... and a 'village' isn't anything like an English village !   A better word would be 'home' for a family lives in a compound of several small houses or huts, one for the father, one for the mother(s) and several for the older children.  Nowadays things can be different, especially in the towns.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y49AOT4WJv4&feature=related

I must continue to explore YouTube ... and I'll certainly listen to the last three of these several more times.

Raising money ...

Today I'm going to visit two local schools, to see if I can raise some money via a 'No Uniform Day' !!   (The children pay so much NOT to come to school in uniform).

Back later ... 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Well, I visited the local comprehensive, and the lady I needed to speak to was invigilating an exam (what exams do they do in September ?) so I've arranged to speak to her on the phone.  Then I visited the local primary school ... the head there told me they are supporting a project in Zambia which is coming to an end, so they may be able to support HATW !!   Again, he'll let me know.  

Some friends I met (and I suspect a lot of other people) are suffering from that horrible thing ... 'compassion fatigue' ... they have donated to Haiti, and to the flood victims in Pakistan ... and are feeling enough is enough.   I'll have to think about that one.

I sudddenly thought about the local W.I. ... if I can persuade them to sponsor me, or the members individually to do so, I can give them a talk about the project when I get back next year.  With photo's !   I really will have to get my #1 son to teach me Power Point ...  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Look what I got today !!  

One of the volunteers on the Kisumu project, part 1, got it for me ... he has just come back, so our group is having a meeting with him to talk about the project next week !   (We are part 2).

I'm having problems with the language ...

Gosh its hard !    Trying to learn or re-learn a language from a book !   When I did it the first time, it was by hearing it spoken in the market and amongst the Africans in the school and who worked for us.  I muddled along, I think people understood, and they smiled politely when I made errors !   I never saw it written down ...

I'm trying a different approach now ... I've got some short paragraphs of conversations in Dholuo, some prayers and one or two other things such as proverbs.   I think if I can learn some of them parrot fashion, it will give me a basis on which to build ... some words ... some phrases ... and it might be easier to progress that way rather than trying myself to construct simple sentences, where the tenses catch me out, as well as a lack of vocabulary. 

So here goes:-

'Nguono mar ruothwa Yesu Christo

Hera mar Nyasaye wuonwa

Kod achiel ma wanjo kuom Roho Maler

Obed kodwa duto nyaka chieng'.

Amina.

The first two lines are firmly embedded in my rather thick head; the next two very shakily indeed !   

Oh, and its the prayer we call 'The Grace' ... (a rough translation from Dholuo would be: The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the father, with unity from the Holy Spirit, be with us all forever.  Amen.)

Maps ...

This is to show you where Kisumu is in East Africa ... showing the whole of Lake Victoria.

And this second map shows the area of Pandipieri (coloured in a pale orange smudge).   (Thanks to the bicycle project people who emailed me).   I've also found Victoria Hospital where my #1 daughter was born !   (Arrowed)

I've finally managed to locate Pandipieri !

(Remember this.. http://luolaughter.blogspot.com/2010/08/pandipieri-shanty-town.html ?  When I said shanty towns are never named or even shown on maps ?)

Continuing my internet and map searches, I think I've now found where Pandipieri actually is.  This very interesting web-site is about a Dutch project by design engineers to improve the ubiquitous bicycle that is the major form of transport used in Kenyan cities, and indeed most of the country.  Bicycles are used to transport EVERYTHING ... from chickens, children and wives; to simple goods for sale on the streets, such as sweets, peanuts and fruit; to small furniture ... everything, in fact !  It is a very common sight to see a second person riding on the back carrier of a bicycle, and a third perched on the cross-bar, so bicycles have to be rugged.  But they do have the advantage over cars in that they can be repaired by almost anyone, and that they are comparitively cheap, and can be ridden through bush tracks to homes.   ANYWAY, the Dutch team were working in Pandipieri ... and their site has photos of it.

Do have a look at this site.

http://africanbicycledesign.wordpress.com/

So ... Pandipieri ... it appears to be where I suspected it might be; south of the main part of the city, on the flat plain edging the lake.   I remember that area as being used by small boys to graze their goats; the Kisumu Yacht Club is there, and also Dunga fishing village, also the sewage works, and Hippo Point ... where tourists can often see hippos in the shallow water of the lake.  It is clear of papyrus, so hippos come/came out at night to wander on the plain and indeed, in peoples maize shambas, to graze on the grass ... and maize !   If there is now a shanty town there, it must have grown up rapidly, possibly in the last 15 to 20 years.

I'll see if I can find a better, bigger scale map than the one in the right hand column ...

Luo fishermen on Lake Victoria

HIV/AIDS

I'm not sure how this entry will be received as I'm going to talk about sex, circumcision and other delicate matters !

It is supposed that the HIV virus entered and was spread through Kenya and Africa generally by long distance lorry drivers.   But in the late 60's when I first lived there, a doctor friend who was researching various diseases told us of a new illness in monkeys and great apes in the Congo and Ruwenzori mountains of Uganda, which he thought was passed one to another by sexual contact.  It eventually killed them.  It was also found in blood from those animals.  NOW, I'm not sure about this ... but I've heard since that this could have been the start of the HIV epidemic. 

Lorry drivers taking fuel and everything else under the sun from Mombasa on the Kenya coast up country to Lake Victoria/Kisumu, through the border into Uganda and then to Rwanda and the Congo are well known to have 'night stop-overs' with local girls ... indeed, some of them may have actually been proper wives.  And so, somehow, somewhere along the route, the disease entered the human population ... no need to speculate how !

And thus it spread through Kenya along the main road, and from there, outwards until the whole country was affected.   Nature is very cruel ... using sex, procreation to spread a disease.

Then when the epidemic was recognised, doctors and scientists started to study it, to find out how and why it spread ... and various anomolies were found.   Some of the prostitutes in Nairobi's shanty town of Banana Hill didn't seem to get the disease, even though they had multiple partners.   Some tribal groups, such as the Abaluhya, who lived close by the Joluo, had a low incidence of HIV, whereas the Joluo seemed to be at a much higher risk.  Why ?   What was the difference in peoples who lived so close together ?  

The Luhya people were tested for blood types, food they ate, water they drank and cultural customs !   And that was it !   The Luhya circumcised their little boys, the Luo didn't !  So doctors decided to ...

(look away now if squeamish !) ...

... collect circumcised foreskins and examine them microscopically to see how they differed from non-circumcised foreskins.   And they found the lining just under the removed skin was different to the skin that remained.  There seemed to be some mystery substance secreted which acted as a deterent to the HIV virus ... not always, but enough to make a statistical difference.   

So when these findings were told to the Joluo, many fathers decided to get their sons 'done' in an attempt to prevent them getting the disease when they became sexually active.   I haven't been able to find information or statistics to see if this effort has helped ... 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now Kenya has an estimated 1.5-2 million people living with HIV; around 1.2 million children have been orphaned by AIDS; and in 2006   85,000 people died from AIDS related illnesses.  

We will be working with people who have HIV ... some will be aware, some won't.   They all deserve our sympathy, love and understanding, especially if they want to talk to us about it.  

 

Cheques ...

I got three more sponsorship cheques today towards the amount I have to raise ... people are SO supportive and generous; it makes me feel almost tearful at their kindness.  

Thank you friends ... you know who you are ... 

xx


P.S. ... you are donating towards a very worthwhile charity ... 'Giving a hand, not a hand-out' !!

Bed bugs, mozzies, cockroaches and other delightful companions !!

When we go to Kisumu to do our project next February, we are taking mosquito nets with us, so should be safe while we sleep from mozzies ... but I suspect we may well encounter other crawling and creeping and flying beasties !  

There is reported to be a world wide increase in bed bugs   and the experts are predicting a positive plague of them ! 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-11165108

I remember (sorry, reminiscing again !) one house we lived in near Kisumu had bed bugs in the old mattresses and beds left for us (government accommodation ... a lovely old colonial style house) so once we had suffered mysterious bites and itches, bugs were diagnosed !  So we burned the mattresses, and fumigated the house by using some sort of bug killing smoke bombs; and washed the bed frames with paraffin and bought new mattresses ! 

Cockroaches are another matter ... they can and do even exist in English houses, or blocks of inner city flats.  They are nasty and crunch if you accidentally tread on one in the night !   But they are almost impossible to get rid of ... we spent years trying, so the alternative to being completely free of them is to eliminate all you can, then ensure that all food is well covered or in plastic boxes in the fridges ... and yes, cockroaches can live in fridges ... and just ignore them. 

Mozzies (there are at least two varieties in Africa) ... and it is the Anopheles type that carries malaria; the other one, Culex, is harmless, except both sorts make you itch when they bite.   The harmless one rests in a hump-backed posture; the Anopheles rests with its body straight, and at an angle of about 45o to the horizontal !  
 

(I do hope I'm not alarming my fellow companions going on this project !  I expect my English friends that I know are blog readers,  will be horrified !)


I'm not sure about other creepie crawlers that we might encounter in Pandipieri.  I only ever encountered scorpions in the bush; snakes might be seen, and indeed my Luo 'son' Joseph was bitten by one in Kisumu once.   Its possible that hyaena's may scavenge in the shanty town, and pi dogs are best avoided as they can carry rabies.


HOWEVER, be assured that we are unlikely to encounter anything too nasty ... the mosquito is the most dangerous animal in Africa, and we will be protected with bed-nets at night, insect repellent by day, and anti-malarial drugs internally !   And I lived in Africa for about eleven years and have lived to tell the tale !!