November 22 – 23 From the Masai Mara to Amsterdam and then home

On The Road Home!

We are in for two very long days of travel to get back home. Although we had a great time and a wonderful experience, the homing pigeon in me tells me that it is time to head home. Here is a quick update:

Wake up: 6:00 am Saturday Nov 22 (8:00 pm Friday MST)

Depart Fig Tree on the Masai Mara at 8:00 – plan to do a “game drive leaving” as Martin called it.

Game drive around a new area of the Masai Mara near the gate that we will take to get on the road to Nairobi. More on the game drive in a minute! – but I will give you a bit of a teaser 🙂

We leave the Game Reserve around 11:00 and get on the very rough and very, very dusty road to Narok. Remember that these vans do not have AC and it is about +25C outside the van and about +35 inside the van. We try to open the windows when we can but the constant vehicle traffic create huge clouds of dust that seep in every nook and cranny in these safari vans. It is a very desolate area with Masai villages scattered here and there, and cows/sheep feeding along the highway.

We get to Narok, and do some shopping for Len – he is looking for headlights for the 4 clinical officers that are involved in our pilot project. As it turns out, one clinic for sure does not have electricity and the medical officer there has to deliver babies in the middle of the night using only a flash light. At least, if he has a head lamp, he will be able to keep both his hands free while birthin’ these babies!

After having lunch in Narok, we head for the huge city of Nairobi. This road is very busy with many large trucks, old, over loaded work trucks, half tons with stock racks on them that are just full of live or nearly live sheep on them (Vicki and Barb called it a “Jenga Sheep Truck” — it was actually very disturbing to see 20 or 30 sheep piled in the back of a small pick up truck with no water, no food, and left in the +25 degree temperatures. After a while, we saw more dead sheep in these vehicles than we did live ones.

Anyway, we are getting closer to Nairobi but we have one last obstacle to over come – climbing from the bottom of the Rift Valley to the top of the escarpment surrounding it. This climb is roughly 6,000 vertical feet that you climb in about 10 km.

The road is steep, narrow (no shoulders), with sheep, goats, and cows feeding in the ditches, and there are few, if any, guard rails.All of these over-loaded/underpowered trucks belching cheap diesel fumes, coupled with all of the buses, motorcycles, and fancy Toyota Forerunners are piled together in a traffic jam that would make Deerfoot Trail on a Friday afternoon look like a walk in the park!

It takes up to 90 minutes to travel this 10 to 15 km stretch. Remember it is +25C outside, +35C inside and besides dust, we are now sucking up an incredible amount of diesel fumes and soot. However, there were some interesting sights, sounds, and smells! Here are some pictures:

We made it to Nairobi and had to meet up with another Voyage Afrique driver to hand over some supplies that are staying in Nairobi. We had to make a stop at a fancy souvenir shop to pick up some trinkets to bring home, Then we made a stop at a Nakumatt (something like Walmart) because Len couldn’t find the head lamps in Narok but we did find them in Nairobi. We also picked up a few pounds of Kenyan coffee – might was well buy it in a Nakumatt rather than the overpriced coffee they sell in the tourist shops. Then we had a quick bite to eat at a hotel near the airport, and finally, at 8:00 pm we get to the curb-side check-in at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport.

A personal note for my van mate Bob – you will never guess what we ran into when we stopped at the Nakumatt in Nairobi.

Yup – you guessed it – a KFC. No one else will get the joke except those of us in Van 4!

 

 

We arrive 2 hours before our flight which, to most, sounds crazy that I wouldn’t be here three hours early? But, they only let you through the security area 2 hours before flight time so no sense standing on the curb waiting.

The system in Nairobi is rather inefficient, There is only one security screening machine for this entire building. All passengers must have their baggage screen and go through a full security screen before we can even enter the building. Then, because we had such poor Internet access at the Fig Tree, we couldn’t do the boarding pass thing. Plus, Vicki and I are bringing a hockey bag of stuff back home for Len and Barbara who are extending their trip by spending a week or so in Spain. We stand in line to get our baggage weighed before we get to the gate. We go through a document scanning process, then to the kiosk to print out boarding passes, then take the baggage to the drop off counter, where it is weighed again, before we get our baggage tags. The next step is to go through Kenyan Passport Control – our finger prints have to match the ones they have on file, upstairs to wait for our “Gate to Open”. Once the gate is opened, travellers flood to this area like flies to a piece of elephant dung! The race isn’t so much to get through first but this is a 747-400 aircraft – over 300 people, and with waiting room inside the gate can only hold about 150 people. Another passport check, then through another security screening gate, and then scramble to find a seat. It takes an extra hour to load the plane – there is some technical problem plus there is only one ramp to get passengers onto the plane.

We find our seats and the lady sitting with the aisle seat is sicker than a dog – oh good – we get to spend the next 8 hours and 30 minutes sitting to this poor lady. However, I guess it isn’t any worse than sitting in the clinics in close proximity to all of the Kenyans we dealt with for the last two weeks.

It is now 8:48 in Amsterdam – we don’t leave for another few hours so I will post some great pictures of our last game drive and go back to fix us some of the other blogs.

Hope everyone has enjoyed following our 2nd “Once in a lifetime!” adventure – it looks like it will be a trilogy at least 🙂

Glen

November 21 – Game Drive Day

Well, we have come to the end of our 2nd African adventure. I feel we have had a better experience this time around as we knew what to expect and were able to contribute a bit more to A Better World’s overall program. The addition of the Mobile (cell phone) Health Project has, in our opinion, the potential to have a significant impact on health care in the remote areas of Kenya. I guess we will have to wait and see the effectiveness of this project over the next 12 months. It is safe to assume that if it is successful, we will be back to expand it to other clinics throughout the country.

Today was our last full day in Kenya. We started with a game drive at 6:30 am with our new friends from California (Dr. Karen and her husband Dennis). They live between LA and Palm Springs and we plan to meet them in February for dinner when we are in Palm Springs in February. It was a pretty quiet game drive – no big pussy cats but it was a nice way to end their trip.

After the first game drive, we return to the Fig Tree, had breakfast and started packing. Another game drive in the afternoon with a picnic lunch on the Masai Mara was pretty quiet as well. But I was really tired today and spent most of it just sitting in the back of the van enjoying the sites and left most of the picture taking in Vicki’s hands – I think I even had a nap while we were bouncing around. I don’t know why I was so tired but I guess after nearly a month of being on the go nearly every day, the stress of being much more involved in the clinics this year, the pressure of trying to get the cell phones ready for our pilot project all came to end and I just crashed!

Our game drive was cut short by the sudden arrival of a really big thunderstorm! We have had thunderstorms here just about every afternoon but they are small in size and are short lived. This one was different. Our driver told us we were leaving and leaving now! There were at least 2 places where we had to drive across dry river beds and that IF we didn’t get across before the rain, then we would be spending the night camped in the van on the Masai Mara. That thought wasn’t really appealing and we weren’t going to argue with Martin. We made it across the river beds before the run off started (when it rains here, most of the water runs off the land before it can be absorbed). However, by the time we got close to the Fig Tree, the road was turning into a muddy mess. The vans we are in are only 2 wheel drive and we ended up doing a lot of slipping and sliding around. Martin did get us back to the camp and all was well.

I went back to our tent for another nap. It was fun being in a dry tent during this massive thunderstorm but I soon fell asleep for a couple of hours.

After the ran stopped, Barbara talked Martin into another game drive. Vicki declined and I was still sleeping so the three of them headed out. Of course, when we weren’t with them, Barb and Len saw three male lions trying to get close enough to a wildebeest. It was a great show but the wildebeest got away and the three lions went back to what they do best – sleeping. This is the second game drive that I missed this week. The people on the first drive saw a large pride of lions and two cheetahs. This one Len and Barb saw the three male lions. I guess people are going to ask me stay in camp from now on!

With that being said, we had some wonderful game drives! I wonder how long the authorities are going to protect this game reserve? The Masai people continue to push large herds of cattle onto the reserve even though it is against the law. The rangers patrol the area and will fine the farmers but the farmers just turn around and do it again. The cows are pushing the native animals further and further south towards Tanzania. And, like Canada, there is simply not enough funding. There are too few rangers to protect this savannah.

Anyway, we headed back to the tent to do some last minute packing. Tomorrow (Saturday), we will do a game drive enroute as we wind our way back to Nairobi to catch our 10:40 pm flight to Amsterdam and the connecting flight to Calgary. I know we will be in the air for 16 or 17 hours but I need a calculator to figure out how many hours it will take to get us from the Fig Tree Camp on the Masai Mara back home to Vulcan. Oh well, will rest up when we get home.

Here are some final pictures of our trip – you could call it the day of the buzzards – or at least, the day of the scavengers!

glen

November 20 – A Better World Mobile Health Project

We were up early for a quick game drive with Karen, Dennis, Barbara, and Len. We wanted to be back by 8:00am to say goodbye to the rest of the team who were heading back to Canada or to places like Amsterdam or Spain. We have made many new friends but especially our van mates Christine, Bob, and Val. The five of us, along with our driver Martin, spent a lot of time together over the last 2 weeks. It was great to have such nice people to travel with and they certainly made those long and bumpy road trips most enjoyable.

Bob reminded us of Cleo in so many ways. Bob’s jokes were as bad as the jokes Cleo tells. He has that same “off colour” sort of sense of humour that I just about split a gut laughing at. Vicki told the two of us, on many occasions, to just “shut-up” which of course just encouraged us to try harder. Bob is also like Cleo in that given any kind of problem and rudimentary tools, a solution is in the works instantly. Thanks Bob and remember “KFC”!

After our goodbyes, it was time to get ready to meet two people who will be very involved in our A Better World – Mobile Health Project. The first gentleman’s name is John and he is in charge of the 9 medical clinics in Masai Mara province of Kenya. The second man’s name is Duncan. Duncan runs the clinic in Talek a village just outside of the Masai Mara National Game Reserve (which is the northern part of the Serengeti).

In a nutshell, the tele-health project is the brainchild of Barb, based on her observations that the clinical health officers work in very remote area where it is difficult to access information in a timely manner. Add to that the observation that the vast majority of Kenyans own cell phones, and an idea was born! Before leaving Canada, Barb and Glen bought five android cell phones and loaded them with various medical information programs, such as the MSF (Doctors Without Borders) app and the Burmese Border Guide, obviously very reputable and credible information sources. This was not as easy a process as first thought, but they persevered and a ton of information was installed on the phones. Once over here, we met with medical personnel to identify their greatest needs and to make sure that the phone project would help a dedicated group of professionals be even more proficient at their jobs. We then distributed the phones to five clinical health officers and the same programs were installed on two other devices for other clinical health officers. A workshop was provided for all personnel involved (we are calling them our 1G group – First Generation for all of you who are as good with computer acronyms as I am!). That was an amazing experience for us, as they “got it” instantly and immediately began saying things such as “This would be great for patient education in the waiting rooms.” and “We can ask each questions about difficult cases.” and … Their enthusiasm, gratitude and most importantly, their passion for their jobs and patients was extremely thrilling for us. There are many ways to extend this project, but we have to remember to walk slowly before we start galloping full-out.  So far, it has been very successful; now we just need to keep it up! (Vicki)

We ran the information sessions for John and Duncan on the 19^th and with the four clinical officers on the 20^th.

Here are some pictures of the 1G Group:

We managed to get in morning and evening game drives on both days. However, our morning game drive on the 20^th was a bit more interesting than the others. We wanted to squeeze in the game drive before our training session with the four clinical officers. This meeting was supposed to start at 10:00 am. We wanted to be back to the Fig Tree by 8:30 so we could get cleaned up and get the meeting room set up for our session. However, at 8:30 we were still on the Masai Mara looking at a very pregnant cheetah and an old, male lion. We weren’t more than 5 metres from either of these big cats. We finally had to convince Barbara that it was time to head back to camp. However, we just started going back when we were flagged down by park officials. They wanted to see the paper work permitting the van onto the game reserve. There is a very pricey daily fee involved – in the range of $75 to $100 per person per day – and there was a very lengthy discussion between the boss ranger and our driver. We also had Juma with us which was a big help as he is a Masai from this region. There was a very animated discussion in Masai and/or Swahili which we really couldn’t understand but we had a pretty good idea that we were going to have to pay more money (the old shake-down). They couldn’t resolve the issue in the middle of the savannah so we had to drive back to what they refer to as the Talek Gate.

The problem was with a letter from a so-called official in one of the surrounding cities. The travel agent who looks after all of this for A Better World was told that we wouldn’t have to pay for the extra days as he had “free passes” for us. After a delay of more than an hour, many phone calls to Eric and the travel agent, and more animated discussions, we finally found out what we were dealing with. It turns out this official was not authorized to give us free passes so the guards here were right in detaining us. However, what the official was after was money directly from Eric at A Better World. He was likely going to pocket the money and not turn it over to the park itself. Needless to say, Eric is not happy and the police have been notified.

We hurried back to the Fig Tree, had breakfast, and set up the room. As it turned out, the four clinical officers were advised of our delay and showed up at 11:00 and we were good to go with our training session.

Here are some MORE pictures of the game drives.

November 19 – Segera and Talek Mobile Health Project

The morning started with a short game drive as we wanted to be back at the Fig Tree before 8:00 in order to say goodbye to most of our new friends and team mates. It was a real pleasure getting to know all of the folks on this year’s trip. This group of mostly strangers came together to pull off some amazing feats in what we would consider to be adverse conditions. Our thanks to all for making this trip a very memorable – if not exhausting – experience!

After the good byes, we met with John – the Head Medical Officer for this region. John is responsible for some 9 clinics in a vast geographic in and around the Masai Mara game reserve. It can take 4 or 5 hours to reach some of the clinics in this area. We wanted to find out more about the availability of cell phone technology in this area as well as what his priorities are in terms of the health needs of the people living in this area. For example, pre- and post-natal care of mom and baby was on the top of his list. The very high incidence of asthma in the Masai population was another (Masai women cook on an open flame inside a dung hut that doesn’t have any ventilation what so ever – everyone in the hut breaths in smoke-filled air for lengthy periods of time). Malaria was a third one. Plus, he talked about educating the people to reduce the high incidence of dysentery and the importance of vaccinations, to name only two.

We talked about our pilot project in some detail. We came to Kenya with 5 pre-loaded smart phones and an android tablet. We included 5 apps plus a number of digital medical reference books, teaching videos, and videos for the medical officers themselves. The goal of the project is to provide resources that they medical officers can use in the field when they do not have Internet access. These apps can be used to help the medical officers assess their patients, arrive at a diagnosis, and provide them with a list of treatments/medications that they can use. All of the resources are designed to be used in a rural setting and most are written specifically for Africa. We have included an external SD Card and thumb-drive with the teaching resources for patients as well as the physician resources.

John gave us the go ahead to proceed with the project and he told us he would send 4 local medical officers to meet with us tomorrow for a full day of training.

We did a game drive but the mosquitoes are getting bad tonight. I am working in the restaurant which is an open-area – the WiFi only works in the restaurant or the bar. As usual, I am attracting more than my share of mosquitoes and, although I am taking Malarone, I am not crazy about being sucked dry by these pesky bugs. I must say, however, that the number of mosquitoes are far fewer than we get at home in the spring – it is just that this little buggers could be carrying malaria and I don’t really want to deal with it.

No pictures tonight! Will try again during the heat of the day tomorrow.

November 18 – Talek Mini Clinic and Teaching Day

Today was basically the end of the clinics. A couple of docs headed from our camp over to the village of Telek to look at a few patients.Barbara went with them to do the patient registration.

Dr. Karen and Dr. Charolette did a couple of teaching sessions for 14 or 15 local medical officers similar to the sessions they ran earlier in the trip at the Segera Mission. I stayed with the two docs to make sure their Power Point presentations and videos worked.

The rest of the group had a day of so-called optional activities. These included hot air balloon rides, shopping, visiting another ABW school project, and visiting a nearby Masai Village (more shopping).

There was a big surprise today – while Dr. Len, Dr. Jim, and Barbara were at the Telek Clinic, a baby decided he was going to be born. Now, to hear Barbara’s side of the story, she delivered the baby by herself while the two docs and Duncan, the local health officer, just stood by and watched her. I don’t think that this was quite how it happened but she did participate in the birth of this baby.

The evening started with a short meeting, followed by each group personally thanking all of the van drivers for their efforts. Some did skits; our van did a Power Point Presentation for Martin our driver – including our version of the song “On the Road Again!” The skits were hilarious and I know the drivers enjoyed being thanked in such a thoughtful manner.

Eric had another surprise for us. He had arranged for another bush BBQ in an area of the Fig Tree area that is set up as a Masai village. This is like a very small version of a Heritage Park – with a couple of dung huts, the branch fencing to keep the lions out, and a cooking area. About the only thing that wasn’t real was the electric lights. Masai warriors performed for us – it was a great wind up!

We turned in early as we had another 6:30 am game drive planned for the next morning!

Tomorrow, most the team heads home and we will get started on our cell-phone project with the local health officers.

Until tomorrow – here are a few pictures of the day!

November 17 – Sopa to the Fig Tree Tented Camp on the Masai Mara

Today was set aside as a game drive day! We were moving closer to Talek – a Masai village on the Masai Mara near the Kenya-Tanzania border. It was only about an hour drive but we left the Mara Sopa Lodge at 8:00 am and arrived at the Fig Tree Camp at 6:30 pm.

We had a wonderful game drive enroute, including a white table cloth BBQ-lunch beside the Mara River (the one that you see on TV all the time with the wildebeests crossing it and being eaten by crocodiles). There were also some “shopping” opportunities as you will see.

It was a wonderful day of watching and photographing the critters – including lions, elephants, a cheetah with five kittens, and a leopard resting in a tree. I will see if I can upload some of the pictures. As you will see, the highlight of the trip so far was seeing the leopard. Although it was sleeping in the tree, it is a very rare sighting! I do not know how our friend Juma (a Masai himself) was able to spot the leopard in this location but I guess when you are born and raised in this part of Africa, your life depends on being able to spot potential predators.

Here are some of the other pictures of our journey to the Fig Tree Camp.

We missed the wildebeest migration this year. As a result, there were fewer crocs lying around. However, our armed guide told us that a pride of 14 lions had herded a hippo into a tiny cave in the bank. The hippo couldn’t turn around. It took the lions awhile to complete the job, but they finally killed it and had a rather large dinner. As we walked back to our vehicle, the guard pointed out that the lions were still in the area and sure enough there was one walking, as it turned out, very near to the spot where we stopped for our bush-BBQ! Don’t worry, we had two armed guards and a Masai warrior keeping us safe from the lions, hippos, and crocs.

After our bush-BBQ, we continued the game drive and finally ended up at our last stop on this trip – the Fig Tree Tented Camp! It was one our favourite spots two years ago and hope that it will live up to our expectations. This is a very large camp with numerous tents and cabins.

The Fig Tree Camp is located along the Talek River. This river is home to hippos and crocodiles. Lions, hyenas, baboons, monkeys, bats, and many other forms of wildlife live in and near this camp. This year, one group of campers had quite a surprise when they returned to their tent. A lioness was sitting on the front porch of their tent enjoying the view. We weren’t that lucky, but the hippos, hyenas, baboons, and kept us a wake on many evenings.

November 15 and November 16 – Olkoroi Clinics

[Poor connectivity in the middle of the Masai Mara – who would have thunk it? Sorry no photos right at the moment but here is what we have been up to in the last few days.]

I don’t mind telling you that, after two straight days of clinics, we are both bone tired and sore. Bone tired because of the stress of dealing with approximately 500 patients and sore from the bone jarring ride we have had to make over the last 2 days.

The Masai outpost of Olkoroi is probably 25 kilometres from our lodge. There is a school, a church, a few houses, and a two room clinic serving the Masai people living in this area. The Masai do not recognize political boundaries and they walk from Kenya into and out of neighbouring Tanzania.

You would think that it would be about a 15 minute drive from the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge to Olkoroi. The reality is takes us a good hour to make this drive. The reason is this road is ridiculously rough – it is really a no road – just a maze of trails cut through this rather inhospitable landscape that people drive on. There are crazy washouts, crossing dry creek beds, trees that elephants have pushed down, rocks, mud bogs, and who knows what else. There are no direction signs so how on earth the drivers can find this place is way beyond me! Here are some pictures of the road.

On our first trip in, we arrive at the clinic in three vans – including the one carrying Eric. This is a new clinic for A Better World and he wanted to see for himself how things were going to go. Fifteen people on the Blue Team and a van full of medication arrive at the clinic in Olkoroi. There were three people waiting for us! There is dead silence in our van – all this way, all of these resources sitting here and only three people??? We are met by a local health officer named “Sammy.” He was very excited to see us and quickly reassures us that there are 100 Masai people waiting at the school for us.

 

There wasn’t anyway we could have set up in this small clinic anyway, so back in the vans and drive over to the school. On the way, we see groups of people emerging from the bush walking towards the school. We were advised that this people had walked many kilometres from Tanzania just to see the doctor. When we turn a corner there are more like two hundred people dressed in their classic Masai dress – men in red, women with some yellow in their clothing.

We have Juma with us.  Juma is a very well respected Masai man who has devoted his life to helping his people. His father had 7 wives and he is one of 68 children. He explained some of the cultural differences between Masai and other groups. Some of these differences were polygamy is still widely practiced; women cannot go to school; their wealth is based on the number of cows they have; the man is the absolute patriarch of the family; 13 year old males must go through a public circumcision without flinching; and although males no longer kill a lion to prove how brave they are, the young men must display other forms of bravery.

Back to Olkoroi. The team disembarks and starts to set up the clinic and this is not as easy as it sounds. Tables, desks, and chairs have to be rounded up and moved into the various classrooms. Improvised examination tables are made out of two school desks covered by a plastic table cloth. The RNs get their triage area set up while the registration team is lining up our local translators, the pharmacist is unpacking and organizing the 5 or 6 hockey bags of pharmaceuticals we have brought along with us; Bob, the handyman on the team, has rounded up plastic water bottles and is making chambers for the inhalers; and the docs are setting up their offices. It takes about a hour to get things rolling. Val is busy registering our local translators to make sure they are recognized at the end of the day.

In the mean time, Juma is circulating through the hordes of people sorting out those that are really, really ill, from those that are ill, from those that just want to get some Tylenol for their aches and pains. There are mothers with babies in arms, pregnant women, women who have had partial abortions, children with obvious physical disabilities and others with obvious mental disabilities. It is really an unbelievable experience!

Vicki has been team with Oksana our pharmacist.

 

Vicki’s role will be to council patients on everything from when to take their medication to how to use an inhaler. My role is that of a patient navigator. There are several of us in this role and we have to take a triaged patient to the right physician’s examination room (we have five physicians working today). If a doctor has prescribed medication for the patient, we escort that patient to the pharmacy, and hand over the paper work to the pharmacist. The pharmacist fills their prescription, Vicki counsels the patient, and off they go. All of us depend very heavily on our translators – without them, we might as well go home!

Things start out a bit on the slow side as we only have 1 RN on the team and they try to get some patient history, find out why they are here, and do things like blood pressure and temperature. However, there are 200 people waiting outside the door in the sun, and five doctors waiting for patients.Even our leader Eric gets involved in the triage process

There is some tinkering of the triage process to move patients through the system faster and it starts to work. The upside is more people are getting in to see the physicians. The downside is the pharmacy is soon swamped with prescriptions to fill and people to counsel. Dr. Wayne pulls me out of the patient navigation role and puts me and two additional translators in the pharmacy. I am now counselling patients as well. This isn’t bad, as I am now inside a cooler building – downside is I am sitting right beside people who are coughing, sneezing, wheezing, etc. I am glad I have had all of my vaccinations.

Lunch comes in boxes but we are too busy to really eat. Besides, our translators do not get any lunches provided for them, so we grab a bit of our lunch and share the rest with our translators. By the way, the translators get paid – between 500 and 1000 Kenyan shillings (roughly $5 to $10 dollars) which, considering the average monthly salary over here is roughly $65 per month, isn’t too bad –  although they put in a long day as well.

By the time 4:00 pm comes along, we are exhausted, somewhat dehydrated even though we have water in the room, there isn’t time to drink it or we don’t think about it for some reason (might have to do with the washroom facilities!) As a team we have handled well over 200 patients – it was a fantastic team effort! We sent between 70 and 80 people home with a tag promising that we would help them tomorrow. Once again it is tough to turn people away but there is only so much that we can do with four docs, 1 nurse, 1 pharmacist, and a handful of unskilled volunteers (which was our very affectionate nickname from the medical team).

We have to pack everything back up, load it into the vans, drive for an hour getting bounced all over the van on these crazy roads, and get back to our hotel about 6:00. We head to the shower, then to the lounge, and then go to our nightly meeting with Eric. The meetings are an important communication tool as we are advised of what is going to happen in the next day or two – including what time the vans are leaving. From there it is off to the restaurant for a good meal (food is really good at the Sopa Lodge), back to the lounge as this is the only area in the hotel where you can get Internet access. The hotel’s WiFi is great but their access to the Internet is frustratingly slow. There is a limited number of IP Addresses available but even if you are lucky enough to snag an IP address, there are so many people online that it is so slow you can’t access iTunes or download any files at peak times. [But who would have thought that you would be able to get WiFi/Internet access at all in this very, very remote place?]

Back to our room and off to sleep.

Next morning, we will be back at it – leaving the hotel at 8:00 am and back to Olkoroi.

November 16, 2014

Back to the Olkoroi Clinic.

Here are some photos from our two days in Olkoroi

November 14 – Exotic Hotel to the Masai Mara Sopa Lodge

Today is another long travel day. This is our longest travel day in terms of distance – a total of some 200 km. In Alberta terms 200 km doesn’t sound like a great distance to travel but in Kenya, 200 km is a long way!

Eric describes the trip as 2 hours of driving on pavement, 2 hours of driving on Masai Mara roads (goat-trails), and 1 hour of driving on no roads. Maximum speed on highways in Kenya is 80 kmh and our vans have governors on them so we don’t go any faster than 80. Plus, there are numerous speed bumps every few kilometres on all major highways. The speed bumps are capable of launching the people seated in the back of the vans several inches into the air – even when we are wearing seat belts. You can add police road blocks every often. These road blocks are for commercial vehicles but they slow traffic because the police officers lay these massive nail-belts across the highway to make sure vehicles do not try to “run” these check stops.

We are heading to the Sopa area on the Masai Mara. Our host will be Juma Sampuerapp, a clinical officer who has been working with A Better World for many years.

We will be staying at the Mara Sopa Lodge located on the edge of the Masai Mara Game Reserve. This Lodge will be our home for the next two or three nights. We will  run several clinics while we are in this area and, of course, we will be able to squeeze in a couple of game drives!

More to come!

The Masai Mara Sopa Lodge is a beautiful hotel on the hillside overlooking the village of Sopa. It is built right into the vegetation of the area and is isolated from the other camps along the way. This area is situated right next to the Masai Mara Game Reserve. Many of the these camps sit near enough to the Masai Mara to allow their guests the opportunities of game drives but far enough away that the guests only have to pay for the days that they go into the reserve. The costs of entering these parks varies but ranges from $75 to $100 USD per person per day. On the other hand, the Fig Tree Tented Camp which will stay at for a few days at the end of the trip, is located in the game reserve and we will have to pay the daily fee in addition to the cost of our food and lodging.

November 13 – Ndanai Small Home, Ndanai Clinic, Kaplomboi Clinic

Today was a busy clinic day. We left the hotel at 8:00 heading for the villages of Ndanai and Kaplomboi.

Our first stop was the Ndanai (pronounced Den-aye) Small Home. This Ndanai Small Home is home to about 50 physically challenged children. It is assisting 53 challenged children by providing them with physiotherapy, daily living assistance, and education. The school adjacent to the home has integrated the challenged children into their regular classes. Four of the twelve teachers have special needs training. A Better World has helped build new buildings, adding concrete side walks, and drainage ditches. <Will add more when we have time>

 

The photograph is part of the local team plus a team of physiotherapists and occupational therapists from Alberta who stayed onsite for a couple of weeks working with the staff in this facility.

Information from the A Better World Web Site:

“Ndanai Small Home is a residence for disabled children next to the Ndanai Primary School in the Kericho region. This small home was established by the government in 1986, but later closed for lack of funds. It was reopened in 2003 under the leadership of current manager Justus Tanui. It consists of dorms and toilets for children, plus a kitchen and dining facility, a physiotherapy room, office space and a well. In 2013, 21 boys and 18 girls lived in the residence, with 10 more on the waiting list whose disabilities were too severe for the existing staff to take on. Two staff assist Tanui in operating the residence, while two special education teachers assist the children who are integrated into the classes across the schoolyard.

Our Involvement

When ABW discovered the small home, the disabled children were required to sleep in bunkbeds and eat in their dorms in desks wedged between the beds. We first built a kitchen and accessible dining area in 2007, following that with roomy dormitories for boys and girls with a capacity of 30 each, building office space on the side of the boys’ dorm. (The old boys’ dorm was converted to a physiotherapy room.) We provided a well and water system, improved the site drainage and installed sidewalks to allow children in wheelchairs or on crutches to move around the site more easily. Recently we added a basketball court. Many of the children at Ndanai have received corrective surgeries funded by ABW.

Notable Features

• A government-paid physiotherapist from another project ABW has supported also assists children at Ndanai. Other volunteer physiotherapists with ABW have helped with assessments and therapy plans.
• Manager Justus Tanui has incorporated adapted games competitions to allow disabled children to participate in physical activities, and has received several awards for his work.”

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Team Red went to the Village of Ndanai while Team Blue (our team) headed down the road (I use the term road very, very loosely) to Kaplomboi.

Kaplomboi is in the middle of nowhere. There is a small clinic/hospital run by nuns in this area. Vicki was helping out in the pharmacy while I was in the main clinic doing traffic control – my name for a patient navigator. We arrive to a crowd of well over 100 people sitting and waiting to see a doctor. We know we are in for a very long day. <will add more when we get time>

The clinic gets rolling along and the docs are seeing as many patients as they can possible see. The OBYGN is trying to see as many of the pregnant women as she can while the other docs are dealing with everything from runny noses and ear infections, to chronic illnesses such as asthma, and hypertension.Many of the elderly suffer from arthritis The pharmacist is kept busy all day writing labels and filling prescriptions.

The day is going along fairly smoothly until later on in the afternoon. Many of these folks have walked many kilometres to see a physician and we are running out of time. We have to shut down the clinics in these remote areas by 4:00 in order to get everything back in the vans on our way back to the hotel during the daylight. These back roads are bad enough during the daylight hours never mind trying to navigate them at night. As things get later, the people outside get more anxious and start crowding closer to the entrance. There is some pushing and shoving which is made even worse by a sudden thunderstorm. So now we have perhaps a hundred anxious, cold, and wet people trying to get into see the docs. They start pushing closer to the gate of the building which, as you can see by Kelly’s eyes in the above photographs, starting to worry those of us inside the clinic. However, Barbara, along with a few of the translators, gets the crowd under control and we can carry on for the rest of the afternoon.

There are many disappointed people still waiting to see the doctors when we finally have to shut things down. It is stressful knowing that you can’t see everyone – even if we came back a second day, we wouldn’t get to everyone who wanted in the doors. There are too many people and simply not enough physicians! However, we leave knowing that, through the triage process, we have helped those who need it the most. Those that just want some Tylenol for a headache may have been missed but this is a regular clinic so they will get looked at by a health officer at some point.

That is it for Kaplomboi for this year!

 

November 12 – Nakuru to Kericho

We are leaving Nakuru and heading to Kericho and the tea country of Kenya for our second stay at the Exotic Hotel. We think they changed their name to Exotic from Exotica – not sure why?

Kericho is a Kenyan Town located in Kericho County, located within the highlands west of The Kenyan Rift Valley. The capital of the is Kericho town. The district is home to the best of Kenyan tea, known for its brightness, attractive color, brisk flavor and textures of fragrant leaves. The town is also home to some of the world’s best long distance runners, many having won gold medals in international events.

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Up earlier than normal after a poor sleep! We didn’t have mosquito netting in our room and, although I thought I had closed all of the windows (windows over here seldom have screens on them), I  missed a tiny window at the top pane in the window. I guess a couple of mossies found their way in and I had a couple of bites in the morning. I am trusting that the $200 worth of Malarone will protect me if these little buggers were carrying malaria.

Our trip was all on pavement, well until we got to Kericho itself but that is another story. Eric wanted us to see at least one of A Better World’s school projects that is located right off the highway we were to travel.  We travelled for a couple of hours and then pulled off onto this “goat-trail” of a road for a kilometre or two as we headed for the Sogobet Primary School. We arrived at the school right in the middle of an awards ceremony. As it turns out, today was the last day of school for all school children in Kenya. Starting tomorrow the students and teachers will be on their two month Christmas break (something like our summer holidays).

All of the students were seated in the grass as their principal and teachers presented their awards.

The principal, teacher, and minister all thanked A Better World Canada for helping them build six new classrooms and an administration centre for the school. As you can see in the following picture, the old classroom was basically a three room, tin shack. It had dirt floors and no drainage so every time it rained (which is just about daily in this region), the water would flow right through the classrooms. When the sun was out, these building were like ovens. One of the teachers I talked to said it was most unpleasant trying to teach on a hot day. These metal rooms have windows but this school is tucked at the bottom of a deep valley which prevents the cooling winds from reaching the school grounds.

The new classrooms are made of concrete blocks and have a cement floor. They have a drainage ditch that surrounds the building. This ditch channels water around the buildings and into the small creek that runs through this valley. There are large windows that let in more natural light. It is a much, much better learning environment for the children. The rooms have some desks and a blackboard. There are a few posters on the walls of some of the rooms but that is it! Each room is basically a concrete box but the teachers and children are very  grateful to have a dry, bright classroom.

The students performed a traditional dance which I videoed. As they danced around our group, the children literally grabbed members of our team and dragged them into the dance. It was great fun. I hope to be able to upload the video so you can watch it but this might have to wait until we get home. We are getting into more remote areas of Kenya and, although cell phone coverage is extensive in this area, Internet access is somewhat limited – especially when you have 30 people from our group alone trying to access the net at the same time. Here is a gallery of photographs from this school:

After leaving the school, we drove into a tea plantation for a picnic lunch. This plantation had this huge area with grass as well as examples of most of the trees found in Africa. All of the trees were labelled with their scientific name as well as their common name. It was a very nice setting for veggie samosas and egg rolls.

The drivers joined us and I was able to get a few pictures of them as well.

After lunch, most of the group went to the Toror Tea Factory in Kiechio.

Toror is one of 75 tea factories in Kenya. There are several steps to processing tea:

Plucking
The top two tea leaves and their buds are plucked during early spring and early summer. All of the plucking is done by hand.

Withering
Tea leaves begin to wilt soon after picking, with a gradual onset of enzymatic oxidation. This process is called withering, and is used to remove excess water from the leaves and allow slight oxidation.

Rolling
Rolling shapes the leaves and wrings out the juices.

Oxidation
For teas that require oxidation, particularly our black teas, the leaves are left on their own in a climate-controlled room where they turn progressively darker. Oxidation is important in the formation of many taste and aroma compounds. Green teas are not allowed to oxidize in order to retain the most important polyphenols and antioxidants.

Drying
At the desired level of oxidation, the tea leaves are gently heated to stop the oxidation process and hence seal the natural flavours till the tea is brewed in your home.

This particular factory produces only black tea One of their managers walked us through the process. We went into the plant but the machinery was so loud that most of us couldn’t hear what he was saying. So it was interesting but what was more interesting is they wouldn’t let us take pictures in there. This was something new as even the drivers hadn’t heard that tourists couldn’t take pictures inside the plant any longer. We didn’t get a reason but it could be a fear of industrial espionage? I am not convinced that they are doing anything differently today than they did 20 or 30 years ago. The equipment didn’t look brand new or something that they would worry about other plants knowing about any secrets in how this company produces tea. My guess (and it is only a guess) is something has happened in terms of employee safety. This place would not be allowed to operate in Canada. It is really loud and, although the employees are told to wear ear protection, we couldn’t see any evidence of it. There is tea dust in the air and employees are supposed to wear masks but I observed no one was wearing a mask when we first walked in to the plant but, by the time we got into certain areas, the employees were all wearing them. Fire exits were either locked or 150 kg bags of tea were stacked in front of them. The machines themselves were not enclosed and there were moving belts, tea leaf cutting equipment, rollers, motors, etc.  But, this plant is in Kenya and it employees 150 people, and it is what it is in this part of the world.

– The bags of tea leaves carried on the heads of these women can weigh 50 kilos

From the tea factory to the hotel is only about 20 km. However, they were working on the only through street in Kericho and it was a sight to behold! Heavy machinery, open excavations, no fencing to keep people away, and mud everywhere! This is a two lane highway but they have torn it to pieces and there is no place for the traffic. This is a main highway in Kenya and trucks, cars, and motorcycles are going in all directions. It could be a 2 lane highway, but around here, if there is a space anywhere on the road there is a car or truck in that space! It is  hard to figure out why they would tear up the road for 10 km without having some place for the huge numbers of cars and trucks to go — you just had to sit there and shake your head!

We made it to the Exotic Hotel about 5:30 and were welcomed with hot, damp face cloths to wipe of the dirt, dust, and smell of diesel fumes. Hot, mixed tea with sugar and a piece of cake were served as we waited for our room key. The rooms have been upgraded from our first trip. We were impressed. Now, this isn’t this Hilton but it was clean, they had put in mosquito netting, the electrical connections, at least in our room, were all enclosed (last time there were exposed wires with grommets on them right in the shower!)

 

Rain again this afternoon for 2 hours. I think you can set your watch by the rain – starts at 2:00 ends at 4:00 and, at times, can be torrential. The rivers are really running high here. No flooding that we know of but there is a great deal of water coming off the hills.

Up at 6:30 tomorrow morning. Leaving at 8:00 am for two medical clinics – one team will go to Danai while the other team heads for Kaplamboi. More on those clinics tomorrow – one thing is for sure, we will be busy at both clinics!