water

here water is an issue, unlike back home ti doesn't just come from a tap, where i live cold comes but you have to boil hot, and equally if you and to drink it you have to boil or to wash you have to heat, sometimes the gas doesn't work so we do it on a charcoal outside,
where my friend Lea lives (in one room with here two sisters, a house girl and her sister's daughter) the water only runs in the evening to you have to fill up buckets so that there will be enough in the day for all the washing. so in the small amount of space around the toilet, which bear in mind does not flush without water, there are multiple buckets to step over
at Anas house the water only runs on the weekend only during the week,
and where Mukami lives (she has just one room and shares an outside tap with around 6 families) you must of course go outside as it is a shared tap, around the corner, past the chickens on mud path to the tap, fill your bucket and go to the small hut next to the non flush long drop hole with an old wooden door to wash.
then Mukami told me that where her mum stays the water comes at 11pm so people rest then get up with al their buckets and might wait an hour to fill them.
so all in all it is much more of a polava! but don't let me make you think that i am complaining as actually, spending the night at Mukamis was the funnest night that i had that week, it didn't matter a bit that everything took a bit more effort, i spent the time think how lucky i was to be welcomed into her home and what a privilage it was to be there, it made me see how much we have back home that we take for granted but also think that is essential and really isn't. equally at leas i love going to spend time there with here and her family and it is more fun even that we are all in one room. tonight i have invited Mukami and Lea to where i stay for dinner and to stay the night, i am almost embarrassed at how much space there is compared to where they stay and what they will think, will their behaviors towards me change? and then i wonder WHAT it would be like taking them to where we live in england?? but then i know that is is just me that is worried as the point is that we are spending time together and they know that, they are so nonjudgemtal compared to me that i know they would always think the best of me. the friends i have me here amaze me, i am very lucky.

then on the point of water there are the beautiful lakes, the view from my window to lake Nakuru with the flamingoes, the view from the top of Mt Longonot to lake Navasha. a coutry with so much water that you can see but so little that you can access.

PGH this week

So, I have gone back, the pull towards a challange was too strong. but is has been oh so satisfying, I have been back to the ward and have bought them a kettle, the patients were SO greatful to have hot water for washing and drinking and the nurses were too (you see they used to have one but it broke ages ago and the hospital has not got around to getting another one) so i believe that it will actually be put to use.
it has also been great to see appreciation from patients and their families for my mere presence and talking to them, on friday afternoon i went in, did not change into my apron just sat outside with a group of the patients and had a great political, historical discussion about all sorts, i was able to tell them about the relationship between england Europe and the uk and then go into the diferneces between england and Australia... it was great to teach them something about my background as i have learnt so much about theirs!
then today i took in some postcards from back home which were so greatfuly recieved, they really are hungry to learn which is great, so much better than seeing them just sit looking dejected and forlorn.
becides work on the ward i have been spending time at the Youth Centre were tomorrow we have visitors from Nairobi coming so we have been decorating the place, last week i helped move a pool table in and made a large assortment of posters and leaflets. it is nice there now, even the guys from the hospital maintenance congregate there to play pool!
we also went on a school visit on monday to a school for orphans and street kids. we gave them a talk on HIV, health and growing up, somewhat nervewracking for me as i had not been told what to prepare then was in front of 200 kids... i think i wil get better at it with time! but this saturday we are going back to the school to do smaller group descussions so that we can adress their own indivitual questions. i am looking forward to it and at least this week it seems that i have been able to make a differnece to some people!

some other things that i may not have mentioned but have been highlights over the past month:

• holding a mothers hand whilst her baby was born! then holding the baby only a day after it was born 'fate' she was named.
• catching a grasshopper with my bare hands
• seeing Moses (a patient on the ward who is a prisoner)'s apreciation of me simply saying that he could keep the pen that i had lent him
• making dinner for Mukami, sweet and sour chicken with egg fried rice, and it tasting better than i had ever done it before!
• praying out loud for the first time and enjoying it

so long for now, love to all and please do write me a letter if you have time!
bron xxx

Mount Longonot

this weekend i accompanied my friend John on his uni trip to Mount Longonot, an old volcano (dormant!) about 2 hours away from Nakuru (would be less but the roads are shoddy). so 25 of us, in fact most people only knew one or two people so I was not the wierdo (apart from the colour of my skin) in two matatus to the national park.
it took us (the ones at the front!) about an hour to make it up to the edge of the crater then, deciding that we could make it up to one of the higher peaks, we set off, the six of us at the front. so after walking 2hours and a half we reached the second highest point with a fantastic view over Naivasha lake.
but that was only the starter, we are planning that in January we should go to Mount Kenya.
it was very dusty and hot, so that all of us, once at the bottom again were gray, not black or white!

so sunday was spent relaxing at the house with a film, the plan of going out to church failed as my muscles said NO!

it was god fun though and by now my body is feeling back to normal!

recent news

as many will know this week has been hard phycologically, I have been wondering what impact I have been making, if any and what is the point. many quastions have been arising duse to social situation here and other reasons.
so i decided yo give myself a bit of a break from PGH, some thinking time, while i went to Nakuru Nursing home instead. so this week has turned out well for me emotionally, i needed the time to reassess and to tell myself not to worry. for the moment i am thinking small rather than looking at the big picture, the big picture is too scary for now.
so i have occupied myself with making leaflets and posters for the Youth Centre at PGH where they give free testing for STIs and free councelling. this has meant that i can feel productive. i have also been visiting Sipora- she is an out patient in NNH who has been there for 5 months now as she cannot aford to pay the bill. i go and visit her to chat, have been reading to her and now suggested to her that she could write some letters for Amnesty International. she is board restless and want to be out. i feel for her.
so far i have gotten alot more than i have given from being here but i am learning that i have to accept that at least for now and help in small ways that i see each day. try to help individuals until i see my plae in the grand scale of things.
i have been praying alot, Africa i feel brings you closer to God. I thank everyone for their thoughts and prayers, they are SO valuable to me and what yet me through each day.
love to everyone xxx

Food

I have had many requests for details on what the cuisine here is like so at long last here goes...

The main staple dish for most Kenyans is Ugali, this is a rather horrible tasting and textured mixture of flour and water steamed, hence why it is the staple dish- it is cheap. I have tasted it but since have simply said honestly that I dont like it as there has been no occasions where it is the only thing served and Nancy is very understanding!
It is served with Scumawiki, a kind of boiled green vegitable similar to cabage but discusting.
OR it is served with Vegetable Salad, a really yummy combination of cooked shreded cabage and carrot which I personally could eat an entire plate of! (there must be some kind of spice or something used but Im not sure what)
Otherwise there is alot of Rice cooked with onion garlic and often some masala spice or something
we eat 'spaggetti' tastes more like noodles and mashed potato alot at the house, sometimes green vegetables are mixed in with the mash, or peas or sweetcorn.
Chapatti -my new favourout thing...
Matoke a mixture of mashed potato and mashed sweet and under ripe banana very good actually
beans, both green and the small ones often mixed with sweetcorn (called maise here)
meat: mainly beef, as is not expencive, in stews or with the beans not seen any chicken, pork or terkey like we eat at home. Otherwise fish is common, we have had it fried and steamed.
The main way of cooking is on the hob, of when the gas is not working (it only comes on in the evenung anyway) on a coal BBQ type affaire- for many people always this way as many people- most of my nurse friends at NNH included, dont have a kitchen, they live in one room and cook outside. Poople therefore even if they own one, are not accostimed to ovens.
Lard is used in GREAT quantities (kenyans arent ones for the low fat option!)

Snacks:
no chocolate here really, you can buy t but is is expencive (ok the same as back home but comparitively expencive- a small mars bar costs 80KSH, the same as 16 Mendazies)
people tend to eat Mendazies- fried dough in a triangle shape -soooo good, or Dot Coms- a different type of dough in a sphere shape and more crispy rather than soft. these are sold and made by the side of the road.
Steamed or BBQd maise eaten in the same way as corn on the comb (for that is what it is) with salt instead of butter.
Sandwiches are seldome eaten, you cannot buy or order them anywhere though people might have them at home, on sliced bread, people dont have loaves from the bakery. Not really big on cakes, you can but dry sponge in the supermarket as you can biscuits but not fresh anywhere.
Chapatti is also eaten as a snack
boiled egg
Sugar cane can be bought and sliced buy the side of the road too.
FRUIT!! it is everywhere here banana, pinapple, mango, pawpaw, these different type of plum thing that are very nice...

Tea- a very different affaire to back home- water is boied on the stove (kettles dont seem to exist here) milk is added in equal quantities to the water, sometimes pasturised but often dried. Mixture is boiled, copuous amounts of sugar are added and brough back to the boil then tea granules are put in a sieve and the mixture is sieved through it several times. The whole thing is then poured into a plastic thermos flask, even when it is in the house or hospital.
Coffee my oh my dont go there it is rank

The hard times

Each day bringing myself to come into PGH this week has been hard, I put it down to God that I have survived a whole week to tell the tale! But really, inside that ward, no-one should be subject to it. At least now it is a tad cleaner, I have spent this moring and yesterday morning pedantically going around with a cloth and a spoon (all i could find) to chip off the blood, food, grime, insects... that are on the walls and bed frames. The most descusing though might be the bedside cabinets, I would really like to throw them away but where would the money come for for more? They are rusty and completey falling apart. This is not the place to be recovering from wounds.
I spoke to one patient today who has been in PGH for four months after being electrocuted whilst he was at work. He was first put in another hospital far away from home which he told me was alot cleaner- he said there there were people who came and cleaned each morning- here someone mops the floor but anything else gets gone by the nurses, ie does not get done beacuse there are only three and they have other things to do such as dressing wounds and giving out medication.
These people are so board. There is nothing to do for them, in any case what would anyone want to do in this environment? I did spend some time doing a sudoku with one 15 year old boy, he seemed to enjoy it. But most of the time everyone looks downcast.
The working enviromnet is hard, the complete opposite to NNH where I feel completely at ease and everyone is so friendly. At PGH the nurses have been pretty hostile, probably beacause of their heavy work load and the fact that they are underpaid. The work here could not be described as fun as it can at NNH. Everyone is tired and seems to have accepted the state of things rather than fighting for improvement- something that I find hard. Towards the begining of the week I was working alongside the nurses doing what they did, the first day, they basically ignored me, the second there were student nurses in from the university which was great as they too were shocked by the poor conditions (lack of medication, poor filing...) so I had somepoeple to talk to! But wednesday, now that was tough- as there were only two nurses and me I was asked to help with dressing, I was on my own trying to help a man who had sawn off his fingers to remove yesterdays dressing (hard to do seeing as it has septically stuck onto the gause so he was, without painkillers mind, peeling this discusting rag off his hand. Words do not aptly describe the scene. Then, he asked me to squeeze his finger stub to get the pus (brown goo) to come out and then dab it off, I did not know where to look, I could not look at the wound but equally could not look at the man's face. I felt like i was physically going to be sick. Then he said that some of the skin was dead and had to be removed, the other nurse came and asked me to use a blade (we have no scissors) to cut the skin whilst she held the hand still. I had to ask to leave.
Standing outside in the sun with the stench of the loo I wanted SO BADLY to leave and never come back. should I return? Do I have to return? I did. But went to talk to patents instead. The language barrier is a problem in some cases but I have learnt some basic phrases which show that I mean well and I think that with time and practice I will improve.
So I thank God that he has helped me to last this week.

PGH (Provincial General Hospital)

This is large general hospital that services most of the rift valley, services are not free but conciderably cheaper than private hospitals. I had been told by Keranga (our rep her in Kenya) that it would be advisable to start at least working in Nakuru Nursing home as PGH was likely to scare me off, he was right.
So this monday, after meeting with the superintendant on friday, I came to PGH looking for more work as at present Nakuru Nursing Home has only 5 patients. believe me there is more work.
The place is living hell, there are no mozi nets, the windows are broken, the celing is cracked as is the paint, 50 patients to a ward many sharing beds and only 3 nurses to care for them all, that is on a good day- yesterday there wre 2nurses and me.
The place is FILTHY, flies everywhere and what overwealmes you the most is the smell. There is only one long drop toilet for all of these patents and one tap.
The floors are mopped but that is about it.
One of the duties that I was assigned yesterday was to make the beds with the nurses, pretty difficult concidering the matresses are falling appart, there are not enough clean sheats and the 'clean sheats' are covered in holes, stains from urine and blood and do not aptly cover the beds. So I was made to make the hard decision of who to give new sheats to and who could wait till tomorrow when the same situation would occur.
The patients: PGH has around 4000 patients admitted per month, at any one time 15 wards with aroud 50 patents. This week I have been on ward, a mens medical ward. There I have seen a glimpse of hell. Here are just a fw cases:

• there is a prisoner who accidentally sawed off three of his fingers and thumb with a chain saw whilst chopping wood, the wound is septic and he cannot afford painkillers
• there is a man who has been in the ward for FOUR MONTHS as he has seveare burns (bear in mind here that there is also another whole ward dedicated to burns) and his family live too far away to visit, he cannot afford to be transfered.
• there is another man who's feet are stupps and has burns whith some kid of mould growing on them all over his legs and arms, he is close to a corpse
• a young boy of 15 with an ingrown testes, it has been operated on but how a wound can heal safely here I do not know- last week there was a mother in Nakuru nursing Home (about my age) who had had a cesareian at PGH but the would had gone septic so she had come to NNH to have it sorted out. With beds so close together cross contamination is sure to occur.
• There are numerous cases of men that have been beaten up in the street so have head inguries, the worst of which greans constantly and thrashes around.

these are just a few.

BUT what amazes me is that today when i asked one of them how he was feeling, this was a post operative case, he said oh about 96% not 100% yet but almost, how they can be so positive i do not know.