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