Rotary medical mission to Kenya additional notes

Notes from the mission are in the process of being added

Rotarians treating children at the Mukuru slum in Nairobi

These pictures show some of the treatments being provided by the Medical teams. Children had their teeth extracted under rather primitive but effective conditions. However, a few children were very reluctant to see the dentist and held on tight to the first thing that was available. For very young children a graphical eye chart was used. One evening we were hosted at the house to the Deputy U.S. ambassador and the U.S. ambassador spoke to us at a reception hosted by the Rotary district chairman. please see the attached pictures.

Video Vignettes of Rotary Keny Mission Participants

My appologies to those who are not included and to those who are.

Safari at the Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge

I had to get up at 4:45 to be ready to leave Darsi’s at 5:30 so that he could drop me off at the hotel for a 6:00 departure to the Kilaguni Serena Safari Lodge for a three day stay. We took the main road to Mombasa which they are turning into a super highway. However, much work is to be done and in the work sections the ride was horrible, especially in a van with now shock absorbers. We stopped half way at a gas station and gift shop which had sorely needed toilets. However, the men’s portion was more or less out in the open. By this time many in the group were on lomotil which stops peristalsis. However, the shaking of the van compensated for the lack of internal movement. We continued eventually turning off on a dirt road for 39 km more to the Kilaguni Lodge. What a surprise. It is beautiful. The main section (a giraffe is walking by as I write this on my rooms veranda) having one whole 150 ft. wall completely open to the water hole where the animals congregate. It is so beautiful that it is difficult to describe. The weather is very pleasant so that no heat or air conditioning is required. All the meals on site are served in the main section so one can have this wide panoramic view of the water hole, mountains and savanna. Kilimanjaro is in the hazy distance.

In the afternoon we took a game drive to a river that had hippos and crocodiles as well as monkeys and other fauna. The river was spring fed and seemed to emerge from some rocks. It goes all the way to Mombasa. Water is taken for Mombasa upstream of the hippo area, for good reason. They are not the cleanest of animals. They live in the river during the day and go out to graze, sometimes several kilometers away, during the night. Down the stream a ways they had built a circular structure in the water with windows so one could see fish and other marine life. There were a series of circular benches each at a different level.

In the evening we had a very good dinner served individually rather than the usual buffet while looking out over the animals drinking at the water hole. There were a number of elephants then and through most of the night. During the night there was a lion but I missed it.

The final day at the Mukuru slum

This is our last day in Mukuru and after this picture we started to pack up and head our separate way all having experienced a very fulfilling and in some cases life changing project.

The team picture

Some of the registration and triage group

A few moments of quiet

Children waiting for treatment

Coming to the end of the medical program Rotary Nairobi Kenya

Every morning we meet at the hotel that houses most of the team for breakfast and announcements. The dental process is not always popular with the prospective patients.

The volunteers have breakfast before the day's work

A prospective dental patient has second thoughts

In the Mukuru slum we are located at a Catholic complex

Rotary Medical Mission Kenya

This is a picture of children waiting to be treated in the medical building. There are separate buildings for dental (primarily tooth extraction) and optical. We expect to help over 2,000 children before the program is completed.

VCT AIDS program Nairobi Kenya Mathare slum

I was privileged to be present at the establishment of a temporary VCT clinic in the Mathare slum in Nairobi. A group journeyed into the heart of the slum and set up a small tent city. There were two chairs and a table in each tent so the counseling and testing could be carried out in private. Signs and music were used to attract patients. This video shows the process and an explanation of the process by one of the counselors, Deborah.

The supporters of the VCT program

Deborah


Erecting the tents

Video (you may have to click the arrow twice)

More work at the Mukuru slum

We are in full swing and things are going smoothly.

School children waiting for treatment
A view from the bus

It is not raining but the sun is hot

A local food store

Sep. 25th treating patients in the Mukuru slum Nairobi Kenya

We are into the swing of things registering and triaging patients at the Mukuru slum in Nairobi Kenya. Our group is focusing mainly on women with children with medical, dental and or optical needs. Kenyan volunteers including many college Rotoracters and medical personnel are helping thousands of school children in parallel with our efforts.

Regustration and Triage Kiosk

Mothers and children waiting for treatment

Eye testing for those who cannot read

Filling prescriptions in the pharmacy

Malinda (Hope Worldwide) and Erick confer at Muruku
They have been critical for the success of the program

Rotary Medial Mission Kenya 24sep08

Sep 24, 2008

Today we were to leave at 7:00 which meant that I had to get up at 5:30 to meet Darsi’’s driver George at 6:00 to make it to the hotel in time to make the bus to the Mukuru slum and the Catholic compound which is our base. The all went well. All the roads in the slum are incredibly bumpy I found by trial and error that one wants to sit in the front of the bus to avoid the increased bumpiness in the rear due to some form of leaver action.
More local Rotarians and Rotoracters seemed to be present today to ease the burden. Our group handled over 650 children today between the optical, dental and general medical groups. There is triage at the gate to give priority to the neediest cases. Our registration group handled mainly mothers with children and a few that came on their own. A number of school children came in groups and they were handled by local doctors and where necessary funneled into our functions. All the children who had not been recently de-wormed were given a worming pill.
In the registration process we are aided by local Swahili speakers many of whom are college Rotarians called Rotoractors. As time goes by I am getting to be able to utter a few Swahili phrases but the children are shy and difficult to understand.
Once the children have been triaged and registered with numbered armband they go and stand in front of one of three buildings that house the respective optical, dental and medical groups. Because of the large number of general medical patients a tent was erected to shade them during their wait.
The dental group has no chairs and other dental office stuff so each dentist wears a headlight and pulls teeth with their patients on a table. There is no filling as there is no equipment.
Our registration process is the first to stop as it takes time for the patients to work through the other groups. Next to the Catholic compound is a Catholic sponsored trade school. One of our interpreters, David who is a clinical laboratorian, took us over for a tour. The students are mainly high school age and get training in sewing and clothes making, hairdressing, wood working, metal crafts, electrical, knitting and math. The facilities as one might expect are minimal but functional. In the slum there are many small shops of people earning a living plying these trades. Also, there is a large industrial area near the slum which can employ the graduated students. The hairdressing course is six months with the others being one year. In the courses they make clothes for school children as well as things to sell. All the school children are in uniforms of some type.
After helping close up shop we took the bus ride back through the slum to the hotel. My host’s driver picked me up after delivering some medical supplies for the group. We stopped at a mall to get a few things like more had sanitizer. This mall would rival any I have seen in the U.S.. It was such a contrast going from the slum to this fancy mall. I have been comparing Dhaka in Bangladesh to Nairobi in Kenya. Nairobi is definitely a more advanced city but the slums are very similar.

Carl in kenya on Rotary mission

HI,

There are 70 of us now treating children in the Mukuru slum in Nairobi Kenya. Email access has been difficult but I have taken many pictures which will be posted to my Kenya blog http://kenyaaidscarl.blogspot.com/ later. The gourp is the largest such group in Rotary history and is composed of medical and non-medical personnel. The conditions in the slum are very bad but the people are wonderful.

Wish me the best.

Carl Good

Rotary Medical Mission kenya 23sep08

23sep2008

The bus left the hotel at 7:00 so George was to be there for me at 6:30 but didn’t arrive until ~7:00. Rineta drove me to the place where the cab drops him off in the morning so he wouldn’t have to walk the rest of the way to the house and then walked back by herself. George drove at breakneck speed toward the hotel. The only advantage was that I was still partially asleep and avoided conscious appreciation of the terror of the trip. As we were approaching the hotel we saw the bus coming toward us. I hopped out in traffic with George running interference with the car and was about to hop on the wrong bus. We have three sites and this one was going to another slum. Fortunately it was quickly followed by the bus heading for the Mukuru slum in which we were working.
As it wasn’t working out for my helping with the AIDS testing, today I helped register people with the help of an interpreter. Mostly this was David, a hospital lab technologist. Most of the patients were small children who were sometimes accompanied by a mother or teacher or friend. Some came by themselves. Often the mother and child has different names. Sometimes a mother would have two children and they all would have different last names. In some cases with certain tribes the mother keeps her maiden name and the child takes the father s last name.
We worked in a small gazebo that was mostly open. After interviewing the child and mother we would designate them for one of the three specialties; optical, dental or medical. Even if the child had more than one complaint they would only get one treatment to maximize the number of children who could be seen. Of course treatment was for the most important of the complaints. They would then go to another table to get a colored and numbered arm band and a de-worming pill if they handing had one recently and were over two years of age.
After their treatment the children and mothers would go to the pharmacy to get their medicines.
It is Spring in Nairobi and the weather very pleasant. In general, although being close to the equator, Nairobi has mild weather all year never getting to hot or too cold. My host’s home while being very nice has no heating or air-conditioning.
After arriving at the hotel George came to deliver some medicines and solutions for the next day and take me home. Darsi was on a business trip and I had a very nice dinner of pork and mushrooms in gravy with Rineta and her sister Bridget.

We are in Kenya and treating patients at the Mukuru slum

There are 70 of us now treating children in the Mukuru slum in Nairobi Kenya. Email access has been difficult but I have taken may pictures and had many fantastic experiences that will be posted later. The gourp is the largest such group in Rotary history and is composed of medical and non-medical personnel. The conditions in the slum are very bad but the people are wonderful.

Wish me the best.

Carl

Climbing Mt. Longonot Kenya before the medical mission begins work

I was very fortunate being one of a few Rotarians who was privileged to stay at the home of a local Rotarian and Doctor, Darsi and his wife Renita. He has a very interesting history and is active in the treatment of AIDS victims and in providing anti - HIV drugs .



I arrived from the U.S. at Darsi's at 11:00 pm. At 7:30 am Darsi and I set off for a volcano in the rift valley north of Nairobi. I had arrived at 11:00 pm the night before. We met two friends that work for the the United Nations and live in Kenya. It was a hand over hand climb near the top and I was wondering if my trip would be cut short by a coronary before it even got started. I did survive and enjoyed the spectacular views down steep foliage covered sides of the volcano from a very narrow path.

Evening
Darsi and Renita prepared a lovely dinner on their veranda of grilled or stir fried fish and salad. Earlier I had gone shopping with Darsi at a very upscale mall for Kenya to get veggies from the green grocer. These drives show the most affluent and most depressed areas of Nairobi. There is a vast difference. On our drives to the volcano and then the green grocer, Darsi gave me more of his history. He is ethnically Indian but was borne in Nairobi. His grandfather came over to Kenya as an indentured servant for 50 rupees. It took him 5 years to pay it back. This grandfather must have been very industrious as he started several businesses. Darsi’s father was able to send 4 children to college with Darsi completing medical school. He has been involved in polio and then AIDS working for the government and several companies. At one time during the genocide in Rwanda he personally drove medicines from a pharmaceutical company to Rwanda as all the usual means of conveyance were shut down.

My hosts had invited a couple to join us. The lady was an ex-BA flight attendant who was currently running a bed and breakfast in Nairobi that seemed to cater to NGO personnel. Paula was having trouble getting paid. Her companion was a very interesting African who had spent 5 years in North Korea training as an insurgent.

The trip from Boston to Nairobi Kenya.

Nairobi Kenya is a long way from Boston. With the stop in London it will have been 14 hours with little sleep. Heathrow airport just keeps growing with me having to leave from the new terminal 5 with sub terminals B and C. I certainly got my exercise going from an arrival at terminal 2 and departure from 5B by way of 5A. However, part of our group from the Philadelphia area was also in Heathrow and going on the same flight to Nairobi as I. By the way, it is longer from Heathrow to Nairobi than from Boston to Heathrow by several hours. There is a lot of desert between the two cities. Nairobi is actually just south of the equator so this trip will be my first to the southern hemisphere but just barely. The Rotarians I met at Heathrow all had their tea shirts on that were specially made up for this trip. This makes them easy to spot. I won’t get mine until we get to Nairobi. At the airport I got some Kenyan shillings make even the poor old dollar look good with an exchange rate of about 65:1

After we arrive I will be taken to the home of the local Rotarian who will be hosting me and hopefully get some much needed sleep. Tomorrow we have an orientation day and will start our work at the AIDS clinics the following day.

Carl Good's trip to Kenya to work in AIDS cilincs

Blog of Carl’s trip to Kenya http://kenyaaidscarl.blogspot.com/

Hi,

This Friday September 19^th I leave for three weeks in Kenya on a Rotary program to work AIDS in clinics in Nairobi Kenya. The blog listed above will hopefully chronicle the event and a flyer describing the program is attached to this Email. It seems that there will be about 70 participants from a number of countries. During work at the clinics I will stay with a local Rotarian family as I did during the December 2007 Rotary Polio National Immunization Day trip to Bangladesh.

Wish me luck.

All the best

Carl

U.S. Embassy reception invitation

Below is a copy of the invitation received by the group going to Kenya to work in AIDS cilinics.

Flyer for Rotary AIDS mission

Late September 2008 I will participate in this program