Sawa...

What is going on everyone? I am feeling a bit detached from back home but also a little bit more settled into day-to-day life in Kenya. It is insane here. I spent most of my weekend navigating through Nairobi City Center and some of the surrounding areas on my own. What an experience. I have never felt so scared in my life to be traveling on my own. I don't even have a cellphone. Eek. Though, you don't need to worry Mom because, needless to say, I am still alive and what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Right?

Saturday I went through the City Center to better understand how to get around and also do some discovering. I went and spent time with a few of the workers from my organization, VICDA. They were willing to help me with coordinating some sight seeing and how to navigate the crazy matatu system in order to do it cheap. Like I described before, matatus are city buses but the size of vans. They hold a minimum of 14 people but, during rush hour, they hold approximately 20 people with many people having to sit on each others' laps. There have been a few times now that I have been ripped off by the 'conductors'. They over charge tourists but it is still WAY cheaper than taking a taxi. For a 10.00 dollar taxi ride you can take a matatu for 0.20 cents across the same distance.

The thing I learned or more so experienced this weekend is the huge amount of corruption that plagues countries like Kenya. For example, we were pulled over by the cops for the driver not wearing a seat belt and the police officers opened the drivers wallet behind the van and just took the money from his wallet before letting him go (Chadwick don't get any ideas). A similar situation happened earlier last week with one of the drivers from our organization. Even with VICDA, the organization I volunteer with, they over charge us on taxi rides, day trips and pick-ups from the house. If we were to organize these things on our own it would be nearly half the price. It is really hard to trust people here, and at the bare minimum, I would have liked to at least trust the people I am working for.

After spending time with the organization staff, I went to the Masai Market in Nairobi city center (I will post a picture). This market is fairly large with a lot of cool things in it. Mostly everything in the market is made by hand from natural resources. I was by myself, so I immediately got flagged by the hustlers that try to walk you through the market and sell you the merchandise. Once they sell you the things they want they go back and give a small cut to the vendor but keep the majority of the earnings. I was trying to be really firm having experienced similar markets in Jamaica, but they are persistent and follow you around. By the time I was done, they were trying to charge me THREE HUNDRED USD for merchandise that probably and fairly cost maybe 60 USD. I ended up walking out empty handed out of pure frustration. I will attempt to go back with my house Mama, Charity, who can derail the corrupt hustlers in Swahili.

On Sunday, I had planned to go to the Elephant Orphanage (picture below) and the Giraffe Center. A friend of mine from Vancouver, Jody, had connected me with his friend Simon, who is currently in Nairobi for roughly six weeks. He was recently hired to work as a Canadian Immigration Officer (he is Canadian himself) and he is attending a training program here in Nairobi. We had roughly planned the night before to meet at the Elephant Orphanage for when it opened, so I had to get there solo, and, of course, by matatu. The first matatu I took got me from my volunteer house into the City Center. Then I had to walk for about 20min, further into the city and a little to the outskirts, to get my next matatu at the Railway Station. This was so SKETCHY. This is probably when I was most afraid. Even having a Jamaican father, and slightly darker skin, I felt sooooo white and out of place. Hahaha. Oh well.

I finally found my matatu number in a zoo of matatu vans. I asked before hand how much, roughly, it should cost as to not get ripped off. I was feeling pretty confident. The ride started off well and I thought they understood where I wanted to go, but they let me out at the Animal orphanage (where I went to on my second day of orientation). Damn. I knew they were letting me out at the wrong place but they almost forcefully made me get out. So I stood on the side of the road alone waiting for the next matatu to come along. I jumped in and luckily the lady I ended up sitting beside knew were I was going and pointed it out when we came to it.

At the Elephant Orphanage Simon found me in the crowd of ALL white tourists who were there to look at the baby elephants. I went from feeling like a scared minority, to almost embarrassed to be around so many tourists at once, gawking at elephants. It was quite amazing though how many there were and some of the stories we heard as to why the were brought into the orphanage. One, for example, was lost from his pack and shortly after a hyena bit off his tail and part of his ear. Tear.

As Simon is working at the Canadian Embassy (and getting paid), he got to the Elephant Orphanage in style, a personal driver for the day that is. Thanks to him, we took his driver from the Elephant Orphanage to the Giraffe Center, which in retrospect would have been a nightmare if I had done it by matatu, as originally planned.

The Giraffe Center was cute. We got to pet the Giraffe's feed them and give them a 'kiss'. LOL. After that Simon was nice enough to drop me back off closer to where my volunteer house was to save me some matatu rides. Overall it was a great and relaxing weekend.

Unfortunately for me, and to my feeling quite comfortable in Kenya, Simon told me how on Friday a Canadian was kidnapped in Nairobi. However, I think the man is fairly wealthy and he was kidnapped outside his compound after having dropped his son off at private school. Supposedly, they are in the midst of trying to arrange the ransom demands. AHHHhhhhhhh.

Today was my fourth day in the clinic and my first Monday in the clinic. It was fairly busy today. The doctor didn't come in agai, so in the morning it was just myself and one other nurse. Due to my lack of Swahili, I am not very helpful with doing health assessments, nor am I able to prescribe the medication. A lot of the patients at our clinic are from poor to low income bracket families and therefore did not attend school, thus have little to no English. I worked in the dispensary again today, as well as the treatment room. I had a few injections to do and, for the first time, I had three wound dressings to do. Two were on boys who had cut themselves playing or roughing it up with their friends and the third was bullet wound dressing. I made little to no conversation with that patient.

I wish I would have brought some dressing trays with me. The clinic has nothing sterile in it, and no equipment to sterilize anything. Strictly relating to wound care supplies that is. All the needles are sterile and individually packaged. So the best I could do was apply a clean dressing with clean gloves, some saline water, gauze, tape, and iodine that they have in a giant jar. The patients are told to come back every two days for dressing changes until it heals but the nurses told me today that they rarely see those patients ever again.

The kids in the clinic are still loving the crayons and colouring book pages that I rip out for them. Its amazing how far something so small can go. One of the other volunteers from the house, who volunteers at the Nairobi Children's Home (she happens to be a nurse but wanted to work with kids), asked me to come by the orphanage on my way home with a anti-parasitic tablet for one of the kids they think has worms. When I got there she asked me to check out another kid - actually this little girl was more like a toddler. The toddler was napping in her crib and half asleep when I saw her. I HAVE NEVER SEEN SUCH BAD HERPES ZOSTERS, especially on such a young kid. Katie, the volunteer, told me that all the orphanage is doing, and sadly enough, more like all they can do for this little girl, is putting iodine on the open blisters and giving her antibiotics, not even acyclovir medication. With a quick glance and assessment, I think she also has physical signs and symptoms of HIV. The reality is, the home cannot afford to send any of their children to hospitals due to lack of staff and funds, so the kids who are sick only get basic care from the doctor at my clinic who comes in once a week. Again tears.

Well, I am trying to stay strong. There are times I want to run into the wild African bushes and cry my eyes out but then I think of getting beaten up, kidnapped and/or mugged. So I hold it in and walk my 25 min walk home with my chin up high.

Kwaherini rafikis - Goodbye friends

Jake