Mombasa, Kenya with Doctors Worldwide at the Khadija Centre

doctorsworldwide.org

khadijacentre.org

Coconut, mango, papaya, pineapple, banana, orange, apple, tamarind, melon – all the fruits of the tropics are here and they’re ours to devour!

We arrived in Mombasa to be very warm and humidly welcomed at the airport by Mohammed Mapapa, a friend and partner of doctors worldwide, the charity we are working with during our time here. As we arrived late on Friday night, we were told that we would be spending the night at his house before making our way to the Khadija Centre. We were expecting him to live in a small cramped house, offering us a single bed to share in a sweaty room; this couldn’t have been further from the truth. His car pulled up to the gates of his house which was draped by coconut trees and a guard opened the door, revealing what looked like a hotel with private swimming pool to suit. After acquainting ourselves with our lovely room with a four poster bed cooled by a fan and air conditioning, we made our way down to the grand dining table carved from solid wood. We were greeted by the Chef, named Safari who has massive dread locks tied together, lifted up and put in a white hat to make him look like he’s wearing a chef’s hat! We were treated to a fantastic homely meal which was a far cry from our deceased Rosemary friend.

The next day we walked to the picture-perfect white sandy shores of Nyali beach, with few people around except for the annoying local beach boys, who will do anything to chat to you and offer a boat ride, snorkelling session or water sports. We resorted to making out that we had come straight from Iraq and couldn’t speak a word of English, which worked a treat, probably because they thought we had explosives wired underneath our t-shirts! One man said that we were the first tourists from Iraq he had ever seen in Mombasa! We took a boat and sailed out to the coral reef to snorkel with the marine life, which was moderately impressive.

We later met with Mr Faisel Sherman, founder of the Khadija Centre- a school in a very remote, rural and poor area called Rabai, about an hours drive from Mombasa. He is a charismatic businessman who originates from Yemen but spent most of his life in Mombasa. His family moved to London about seven years ago so that their youngest son could complete his education, and this is where they currently reside. Faisel took us in his air-conditioned car and did a whistle-stop car tour of Mombasa, pulling over at various sites to breathe in the air and smell the spices. There is a deep charm to Mombasa, which is a mix of African fun and laziness, Indian spices and textiles and Arabic foods and language. Walk down the Jasmine-scented streets with fireflies lighting your path, gaze into the crystal clear start-lit sky and smile as you crack open a coconut and drink it’s sweet juice. The majority of Indians here are powerful businessmen and are the ones in the fancy cars and big houses. We stopped off on a cliff overlooking the Indian Ocean, where we ate deep-fried fresh Casava crisps with chilli and lime juice. Later that night Faisel invited us to his brothers house where we were served with a slap-up Kenyan meal followed by spicy Masala tea.

The next morning we made our way to the Khadija Centre and were welcomed by the bubbly and motherly Mama Hawa (Mother of Hawa; Eve), local manager of the Khadija Centre. She looks after us in every way possible, cooking us meals and making sure we settle in well. The centre is a very impressive, purpose-built complex with classrooms, offices, a mosque, teacher’s accommodation and a medical clinic, surrounded by acres of coconut palm and mango trees. The clinic is very basic and is usually run by Fernando, a retired nurse (clinical officer) with a background of obstetrics and gynaecology and serves the children at the school and all the people in the surrounding village (around 4,000). The nearest hospital is about an hour away on a terrible dirt track road and the majority coming to the clinic are extremely poor and cannot afford to get there anyway. This leaves a massive amount of responsibility on the clinic and the lone clinical officer running it, so Doctors Worldwide regularly send doctors from the UK there to support the clinic and improve its service and operation. Clinics run all day from Monday to Friday and cases typically seen include simple malaria, viral and bacterial infections and administration of childhood vaccinations. I was initially surprised to see mothers freely and openly breast-feed their children anywhere, be it during my examination of their child to quiet them down or in the waiting room! Someone has recently kindly donated a light microscope to the clinic so we’re taking blood samples and checking for malaria using thick films and have seen quite a few cases already.

The palm trees scattered all around the area are full of coconuts and whenever we want to drink their sweet juice or eat their soft flesh, we ask a man called Khamees (meaning Thursday) to climb up the tree and get us some. He would climb up the thirty foot palm tree with his bare hands and feet with no support and chop them down for us. Or there are the fresh mangos, papaya or any number of delicious fruits to delve into - simply divine!

It was very easy picking up the language with the local lads, I simply got a football out and off we started getting to know each playing footy on the slanted, cow-pat infested, crater mine field pitch. Just keeping the ball at your feet was difficult enough with all the natural obstacles never mind the players!

To get into town we take a Matatu which is a microbus that evidently has no maximal capacity. Hosting about fifteen seats, we have been on when at times there are some twenty-five people squeezed into every crevice, sitting on imaginary seats or on the window ledge, with the bus going at ridiculous speeds doing crazy manoeuvres it’s a miracle we’re still alive. Once we’re dropped off in town, we hop on a Tuk Tuk which is a cross between a bicycle with a motor and chasse and Brum from the children’s TV show. These guys weave in and out of the traffic taking short cuts down tiny alleyways and places vehicles certainly aren’t built to go down. But it’s all good fun in the spirit of Mombasa!

This weekend we plan on going on Safari in the Tsavo, can’t wait.

Marwan

Time's up in Ethiopia, the herds have moved on.....Next Stop: Mombasa, Kenya!

There Goes Ethiopia……

The two weeks following the departure of the surgeons left us with the responsibility of looking after the patients who had had operations, some of whom required more attention than others. It is truly remarkable to see how the patients coped with the aches and pains of the days following their surgery, a great ordeal within itself for anyone, let alone some of the young and lonely children/adolescents who had travelled alone, across the country for days to a strange and unfamiliar place. In addition to the dressing changes and wound care, moral support and reassurance was what they needed most, and there wasn’t much that a generous amount of TLC couldn’t fix. However the language barrier did present us with some challenges with the explanation and reassurance side of things. Then came the farewells. Day by day we were reviewing each patient and assessing their recovery in lieu of their fitness to return home. Along with Dawit, we arranged for them to return to their villages, sometimes in groups so that they wouldn’t be travelling alone, or along with their guardians who had come to collect them. Saying goodbye was a happy-sad affair. There was a reluctance to see them leave after having spent so much time getting to know them, yet simultaneously a huge deal of pleasure in seeing them fit, well, transformed in some cases, all happy to be able to go back home. As the patient numbers began to decrease from the original forty down to the current remaining six, the work at the Cheshire took less and less of our time. Following the daily morning round we often found the afternoons free for us to wander around the hillside, or take a ride into town, or as became our popular choice explore the surroundings on horseback.

We came to know of Eve, an English guy living in Ethiopia who owned some stables on the Cheshire premises. Since this was so convenient and easy to arrange we went out for hours trekking through forests, jumping over streams, galloping through fields. With Jigsaw and Polly as our noble steeds, we soaked up the sun and immersed ourselves in the beautiful highs and lows of the hills and valleys surrounding us. On route we spotted hoards of magnificent African fish eagles by a semi dried reservoir in the fields, as well as ibises and a mongoose.

Ethiopia has been a very pleasurable and hospitable host to us over the past six weeks. Our experience here has been unique in many ways and the links and ties we’ve made here are strong and sure to last. The people we have met have been so broad in their lifestyles from local Ethiopians to foreign aid workers or foreigners who have married and settled amongst Ethiopians, all of whom have inspired us in their own way. The lessons we have learned from the way of life here have taught us to appreciate the lifestyles we have back home and that we have much to be thankful for in way of opportunities and potential. Most of all it is a reminder that wherever you go, although life may not always be fair, it is still a life worth living.

Hiba

Farewell Abyssinia

“Meester. Meester. How are you. Fine?”
“Hey. Halo! Where you fram?”
“Ferenj! Ferenj!” (Foreigner! Foreigner!)
“Money-money-money-money-money-money-money”

Just a taster of daily tourist life walking around town. Whatever we do, we just cannot escape the fact that we stick out like tourists with sore thumbs. Change of dress, speaking the language, hanging around non-tourist areas- these are all futile efforts to blend with the locals in view of the one simple undeniable, unchangeable fact- our skin colour is not dark! There are so many poor people in the town asking for money that one cannot simply give to everyone, otherwise we’ll be out of pocket. So we have adopted the ethos of giving to those who are trying to earn money, rather than just expecting to be given by sticking their hands out. An example is the little boys who want to sell you a packet of chewing gum, tissues or mobile phone cards. Also it seems that any Arabs visiting here tend to be quite wealthy, and this is reflected in the amount of money they hand out. Therefore there seems to be an expectation of people that we will inevitably give out large sums of money to everyone. We’ve been followed by little boys about a mile or so down main roads and farm lands, continually asking for money and confronted by groups of woman wearing headscarves, speaking Arabic, telling us that if we don’t give them money we’re going to go to hell. All countries have people in need, but no country that I’ve visited so far has it so evidently placed everywhere you go. This is contrasted with the daily lives of the average Joe going about their business in the forest, the farm, the main road, the construction site- everyone from the tiny toddler to the withering woman is working. Be it herding cattle, building wooden tables, on the way to an interview or carrying firewood for a daily wage; each person has assumed a job in sustaining their way of life and the economy of the country, and I admire them for it.

After two weeks of operating, the surgeons left for home, having successfully transformed the lives of forty-three patients. Of course there were some disappointments and complications, but by in large the patients were grateful for the work we’d done for them. Before making their way back to the airport, the team made one last visit to the Cheshire where Dominique, the flamboyant Frenchman, orchestrated a masterful magic show, which was truly stunning by anyone’s standards. The team were sent off with a coffee ceremony and on they went back to their lives. For us it was emotional as we really felt like we made some good friends that we will endeavour to keep in touch with in the future.

One day whilst playing my guitar, marvelling at the splendour of Menagasha Mountain on the backdrop of a clear cobalt blue sky, a handful of local children etched their way closer to me. I knew what they wanted; cookies, a pen, some socks or something. But no, they wanted to play the guitar! With my fingers on the chords, they strummed the guitar and began dancing to the tunes we created. Like little energiser bunnies, they couldn’t get enough guitar playing until eventually I had, and I followed by constructing a little bow and arrow for one of the boys, named Aklilu. He is around ten years old and the son of one of the nurses working with us at the Cheshire. Using my trustee ‘Victorinox’ pen knife, a stick that had a natural curve to it and elastic band I proudly began carving and knotting the pieces together to make the bow. Every so often Aklilu would try and offer his own suggestions as to how I should tie the elastic, what materials I should use or the type of wood. Of course, knowing best, being older and from the West I continually shook my head telling him to just wait and see as to what perfectly crafted weapon I would eventually create for him. After fifteen minutes or so of frustration, Aklilu ran off to find his own stick and string and within a few minutes, while I was just finishing off my weapon, he had already created his with a bunch of arrows to suit. Comparing the two, his was slightly larger and more threatening than mine, however the real acid test would be witnessing them in action. I decided to go first and show him how a real bow and arrow should work. I stood tall, arched my back and placed the arrow in between my index and middle fingers before gently pulling back on the bow, picking my spot on a tree branch some ten metres away. I released my grip like Robin Hood and off the arrow went some two metres or so plummeting into the ground beneath my feet. What an anti-climax. With prayers of failure whispering under my breath, I watched Aklilu imitate the same motions as I, releasing his grip on the hand-carved arrow. This time, the arrow flew through the air some fifteen metres or so hitting the exact spot he had intended, leaving me humiliated in our tribal warfare. I was a broken man.

Marwan,

How are you? I am Belete. Today is Wednesday. Can you come to our program with your wife to participate? If you came you are Happy!

Your senserly, Belete

The weekly Cheshire talent search begins at 7pm on Wednesday’s in the restaurant wing of the centre. It is overseen by Ayo and hosted by a bright young man called Belete, whom I have gotten to know quite well and become somewhat fond of. He speaks good English and has surprisingly straight black hair for an African, with streaks of white flowing through. He is bound to a wheelchair due to being affected by Polio as a child, although he does not let this affect him in anything he does, be it playing table tennis, football or basketball. The show began like most things here; with music and dance. The traditional Ethiopian dance is something that cannot be described by words alone and exceedingly difficult to pull off by a non-local. It is a mixture of hip, chicken neck and shrug you shoulders in a jerky fashion movements accompanied by unique up-beat music that just gets you in the mood. After this, the room was organised into a central stage and circling chairs as audience. Belete began by introducing everybody and explaining the first game- a kind of ‘Family Fortunes’ quiz with two contestants on stage. The questions covered a wide breadth of knowledge areas and I was impressed as to the audience’s knowledge. If no one knew the answers to the question being asked, they referred to me, the supposed all-knowing British Doctor, who would unfortunately often disappoint! This was followed by a drama acted by some of the children. The story was of a young man as part of a family who was infatuated with a girl. The girl made him late for class and consequently his homework on the prevention of AIDS was substandard. Unfortunately the drama was in Amharic, so that’s about all I grasped!

We were invited to Sunday lunch by friends of Lilla, trustee of the Cheshire and teacher of English at the British Embassy and Ministry of Defence in Ethiopia. Over the weeks we have gotten to know her and have developed a nice bond talking about all sorts from politics to religion to home cooked food and work. She is an active senior lady with a fiery passion in what she believes in and actions she takes. David and Bruket live one hour from Addis in a remote, picturesque and fast becoming touristic town of Debrezeit. We arrived at their lovely bespoke bungalow, with the sitting and dining room offering spectacular views of a large lake. The garden was arranged in platforms with a charming path linking them together, ending by the last part of the garden with the lake water flowing onto its shore. The final member of the group was Molly, another friend of Lilla’s at the British Embassy. Together we sat, ate and chatted about many matters and topics. After lunch, we went on a walk to David’s farm and got to see where peanuts came from- I never thought them to be pulled out of the ground like carrots, but out they came in their monkey-nut shell. The small villages were surrounded by hedges which needed to be pruned but the scene was one requiring an artist to sit and paint.

Our time here in Ethiopia has been one of a personal nature where we’ve really gotten to know these caring and generous people in a way unique to any other of my previous experiences. We may not have seen all the touristic sites, but sometimes all that doesn’t matter when you get to know the true heart of a country; its people.

Marwan