A fun weekend

Edit: I started writing this on Tuesday (now it's Saturday evening and Jon has returned home) but then my computer died and it's not coming back to life, plus we've had several lengthy power cuts :-( I'm using a borrowed laptop now and it's slow but I'll try to catch up on my posts!

I wrote:

Jon has been here for 11 days now and his holiday is shortly coming to an end (here's where I try to steal his passport so he can't go home!) We've had a great time together and done lots so there's been little time to blog it, but we're having a quieter couple of days so I'm going to start catching up! 

He arrived on Friday evening, all went very smoothly and we were back from the airport just before 11pm. The next day we'd half-arranged to meet up with some church friends and have a picnic in Uhuru Park which is near the centre of Nairobi - depending whether Jon felt up to it. He did, and bravely ventured into town on his first day here, something that took me months to do! At least we travelled on buses which are slightly more civilised than matatus. We met up with people on the way and bought food, then set up our picnic in the shade once we'd arrived:

L-R: Jennifer, Jon, Deb and Florence

While we were eating we were approached by a couple of children asking for food, including this boy who, from what we could gather, was 12, an orphan and living in the park. He was very polite, sitting near and not asking us for anything while we were eating, and he let me take his photo. He had such a lovely smile:

There were also several people selling different things, from sandals to ice creams, and offering various services - including cleaning your glasses!! Deb had told us about a man called Francis who did nail painting and was really good... and then she spotted him! She called him over and Jennifer and I had our fingernails done - he did designs on them too and only charged 150 shillings!

The finished design

Francis at work

I was impressed! Next, Jennifer and Florence went on a ride - I thought it looked a bit much, especially just after lunch!

We then decided to go on the pedal boats on the lake - I'd never been on one before and I 'let' Jon steer but it was actually great fun! The views were great too.

Deb gained an extra passenger (and another later!)

After this we went to an ice cream parlour...

Ice cream sundaes!

Jon had a muffin instead

...and then caught the bus home.

We had a quieter Sunday, with church in the morning and a walk round the block in the afternoon:

Last but not least here's my care package from England that Jon brought - I just thought the random mixture of things was quite funny!

Excited!

Today was a good day, despite the sad cancellation of the bouncy castle that was due to come to Mahali for the children - we had no power! In fact that was about the third day without it, but at the end of the day it returned. The bouncy castle, and an exciting trip we're taking the children on next week, are thanks to the friends and family of a lovely little boy who turned 1 recently. Instead of gifts his parents asked for contributions so we could take the children on a trip - and there was enough for a bouncy castle too! So we look forward to it next week...

I had a really good Montessori session with the top class too. I haven't got photos but I do have some video - there's so much video now that it's going to take me ages to edit it, I'll try to get round to it in the Easter holidays. The top class are pretty lively and can be difficult to work with on my own, and they also struggle to cope with too much freedom, which is why I don't usually give them completely free choice. However, today I decided we would try. I explained about getting out one thing, playing with it and then putting it away, and on the whole they were excellent about it! They were noticeably better at concentrating on one activity rather than doing each thing for 30 seconds, and I was able to go round and work with one or two individually on some fairly tricky activities. There was also a marked enthusiasm for puzzles, and I could see real progress with some of them, which is so encouraging.

Today I also unexpectedly met a couple of ladies who I first got to know through walking and travelling on the matatus, and it was so nice to catch up with them. One of them greeted me, "Hello, Sarah rafiki" (which means 'friend') :-)

But the most exciting thing today is that Jon is on his way to see me! He is staying for almost two weeks, the first of which is a school week as he wants to see Mahali and the children again, and the second of which is holiday so we're going away to the Masai Mara for a couple of days! I'm heading to the airport to pick him up in a little over an hour - I can't wait!!

Visiting the hospital

Back in January I heard that some people from my church here were hoping to start up a ministry in Kenyatta National Hospital. One of the ladies is a doctor and another is the chaplain there, so they had a way in, and they wanted to gather a team together who could go and spend time with the children there, particularly those who were in the hospital on a long-term basis. The idea was to do little 'Sunday school'-type sessions with singing, a Bible story and prayers, to spend time with individuals doing colouring, reading, or similar activities, and to pray with them if they wanted that too.

I agreed to go along to the first of these, being on a Saturday when I'm free, feeling somewhat apprehensive. The hospital is huge and grey and not very appealing at all:

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Inside it is an absolute maze of corridors and staircases, very grey and not terribly clean-looking. Corridors stretch off in all directions, and without our guides we'd certainly get lost!

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The ward we go to is not so bad, it's actually decorated in a fairly child-friendly way with fun cartoon characters on the curtains and so on. It is for children with cancer, and I think it has been improved by charitable groups who have gone to help out. All the children are there long-term, which is sad but also good in terms of getting to know them and build relationships. Some of them are visited by family but others rarely have visitors so they love us coming. I've been three times now, and this time the children recognised us quickly and came for handshakes and hugs as soon as we arrived!

As I said, I was quite nervous the first time, and even though I know what to expect now, I still don't find it at all easy. You are aware that the children are seriously ill and many will not recover, and sometimes there are several who are clearly in a lot of pain. When the families are there it is so hard to know what to say, and I feel the language barrier more than I ever do normally. Having said that, many of the children are so positive and smiley despite all they are going through, and it really boosts them to have people spend time with them. Singing is great, they usually have favourites that they request such as 'My Bible and I' or 'Father Abraham' (they love it when we try to do all the actions to that one!). After we've done a story there is time for prayers, and it is amazing when these children pray out loud for each other. Here we are during a prayer time:

An important part of the time we spend there is just being with the children, playing, chatting and so on:

The second time I visited, a girl who didn't speak and only had one leg seemed to home in on me rather, and I spent a lot of time with her. She liked my scarf and she swapped it for her leso which you can see her putting on me in this picture:

She was quite demanding and I found it hard to handle her at times, especially as it was unclear to me how much or little she understood - actually I think it was more than she let on! But she very definitely wanted to be held like a baby, cuddled, even rocked - it made me wonder what she had missed out on in her early childhood. Here you can see me playing with her, tipping her back which made her laugh:

Although I do find these visits quite physically and emotionally draining, I am glad to be able to do a small thing for these lovely children. I am also gaining from watching those who are more experienced or perhaps just more gifted in this ministry and learning from them. Please pray for the children in Kenyatta National Hospital, for their families and for all those who care for them.


Most photos taken by my friend Florence - thank you!

Ugali for dinner

Ok so this isn't from today, but every Monday this is the dinner we have at school. I thought I should take a photo as I'm sure I've mentioned ugali a few times - it's a very Kenyan dish - but I'm not sure I've ever posted a photo! It is made from maize meal and water, and tastes of very little, but it certainly fills you up! Here it is in all its glory, accompanied by cabbage, carrots etc:

I think my mum liked her Mothers' Day present!

It's a Kenyan mummy doll with a baby on her back. I found her when I went to the Masai market on my one and only trip into town so far! Here's the baby:

A good day

I am trying to post more often on here, as I'm sad I only managed one post in February, but I'm finding it harder to find new things to say. I've settled into a routine at Mahali so I suppose there are fewer new things happening. So I'll try and do some little posts with snippets from the day which I might otherwise forget.

Today's snippet is that I had a really nice session with middle class over two lessons; their teacher and I agreed we'd divide and conquer! During the first lesson I took six of the less able children to work on sounds - we used the wooden letters and did the 'Jolly Phonics' actions for each sound which some of them loved and caught onto well. Then we used a puzzle that I'd bought where they had to match sound and picture. The children did really well and had fun! After that I took some of the more able to do some Montessori activities on the senses - we did a listening activity and one with thermic tablets (made from different materials, some that feel warm and some cold) where they had to use a blindfold and match up the different tablets just by touch. When they'd finished I let them choose, and as I was looking at what they were doing I spotted this boy who'd found the wooden numbers and the zebras, totally unprompted, and had begun to count out the correct number of zebras for each wooden number. I was so excited!

A medical experience

So there I was, preparing myself for a week of leisure (well, I had quite a few jobs saved up!) when on Tuesday morning I awoke with stomach pains and shortly found myself rushing to the loo... I'll spare you the details, except that I'm pretty amazed I didn't faint as I felt so awful, was sweating like mad and could hear the blood rushing in my ears!

Anyway, after a while I managed to phone Peter (Dee is away at the moment) and got him to send Cecilia, their house-girl, over to me. Even though she wasn't working that day, she sat with me for a while and just having someone there really helped. She got me some water to drink and I started to feel slightly less awful, but we decided I ought to go to a doctor to get checked out. Peter very kindly made an appointment and drove me to Karen Surgery:

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I saw a lovely lady doctor, who turned out to be the niece of a lady I met at my home church before I first came to Kenya!!! She suspected a bacterial infection, probably food poisoning, and sent me for a test to confirm this, giving me a prescription for antibiotics to get if this was the case. So I spent the afternoon at the local branch of Nairobi hospital, which happens to be in a nearby shopping centre (you can see the signs on the top floor in the first photo):

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The hospital is beautifully clean and I didn't have to queue, I just went straight to register at one desk and pay at another, then took my sample to the pathology lab where they told me the results would be ready in an hour. Conveniently I was then able to go downstairs and into the Nakumatt branch to stock up on a few things like crackers and white bread, which experience has taught me I need in such circumstances! It would have been perfect if I hadn't been feeling so awful, but I managed to get the things and withdraw some more cash before returning to sit in the path lab waiting area. In the event it was a bit more than an hour, and I was almost falling asleep by the time the results were ready. From there I phoned Karen Surgery and was able to speak with the doctor who said I should start on antibiotics as the results indicated she'd been right about the bacterial infection. I should know more tomorrow when I get further results. The hospital has its own pharmacy, so I was able to get the medicine there and then, together with some more oral rehydration stuff, and then I returned home.

All in all my first experience of doctors and hospitals here was extremely positive; however, there's another side to it that you may have already guessed... the cost! Now, I have fairly good medical cover on my insurance and tomorrow's job is to find out how to claim back - I've never had to do this before but I've got all the documents and receipts and I'm hopeful it will be ok. But it made me think - what do most ordinary Kenyans do? Surely most people just can't afford good healthcare and that's the end of that. I estimate that I paid around £60 with the consultation fee, medicines, payment for the pathology report and so on. We are so fortunate at home to have the NHS - Cecilia couldn't believe it when I told her that going to a doctor in England was free! I know our hospitals have their problems, and the speed of things here in Kenya was much better than at home, but it seems so unfair that these wonderful facilities are only available to the select few, while most people have to visit sub-standard doctors if they go anywhere at all. Just another stark example of the gap between rich and poor...