Me: “How many children do you have?”
Toby (see later): “ummmm, 5. I think.” Cue raucous laughter.
Silas: “I only go down here in the day, don’t go at night” Cue Silas smiling ear to ear while pretending to choke himself to death.
Me: “Sooo why do so many people get murdered around here, is it a gang thing?”
Silas: “Many people rob. If they rob me at night and see/recognise my face, then they will kill me” Cue shaking of head in disbelief whilst laughing his face off.
Dorothy: (every time she sees me): “Hello, my future son in law”
Dorothy (currently training in the area of mental health): Scribbles something on a piece of paper, then hands it to me. It says “Mentally challenged. Behind you”. She looks at me nods behind me and declares “have you seen?!”
Random: “What’s up my nigga?”. Makes a nice change-up from the constant Mzungu (white person) calls.
Friday - Big day out
Went to the Kenyan Youth Football Association (KYFA) for a meeting with the head honcho there, an American lady by the name of Rachelle. In passing during the week I mentioned to my work supervisor that I was hoping to find somewhere to play footy on a regular basis and before you know it he gets the lady on the phone to book an appointment. KYFA organise a disability football tournament once a year which is how my super Silas (sounds like a crap superhero that!) knows her. On the phone it turns out her child has some hearing impairment and speech delay/disorder so a lovely mix of business and pleasure was in order. Rachelle was lovely, explained that KYFA was set-up with a grant in 2004 to give more opportunities for social interaction, play and enjoyment in life, particular to those from poor areas/backgrounds. There are currently 150 teams of under 10’s, 12’s, 14’s, 16’s and 18’s in Kisumu with an organised football calendar of matches/leagues. She gave me the number of the nearest club to me which needed/would appreciate extra help which I proceeded to phone and agreed to join that afternoons practice at 4.30... After discussion about her child I’m planning to do an assessment as soon as possible with the child whose main difficulty seems to be word order difficulties.
4.30 rocks around and I walked the 15 mins from mine to the “pitch” - it’s essentially a patch of dusty earth with some sticks either end for goals. I meet Antonas, a lovely guy who works as a social worker, studies AND trains the team everyday (!) from 5 - 6.30. He was immensely grateful I wanted to get involved and so I got introduced to around 25 kids from around 8 to 11 years old… this proceeded into Antonas running me through the usual warm-up which almost freaking killed me - I was pretty red faced, out of breath and sweaty at the end of it - and then some drills before a quick match to finish up with. The match was played in the worst storm I’ve been in for a while and the pitch quickly turned into a mud bath/swimming pool with everyone comicly falling over, sliding and then literally diving into the massive pools that had formed everywhere. Wish I had a camera with me at the time but considering my phone didn’t work for days afterwards it was probably a good thing!
Friday night was the first night I’ve properly been out in Kisumu - Met up with Rachael and a friend from home, Rosie and her gang, who were in their final week here after a 3 month stint doing some project work. Hit up an amazing Indian buffet that is pretty well known in Kisumu before heading on to a club where we had a few beers, threw some shapes and generally (me anyway) made idiots of ourselves trying to contend against the hip thrusting, groin gyrating, booty shaking that was going on all around us.
Saturday & Sunday - Tropical rain/hail forest
Rachael and I met with Stella and Carolyn (an American SLT undergrad who was just about to finish a 2 week stint) from Mumias on the Saturday morning in Kakemega to hit up a bit of walking and wildlife in Kenya’s only tropical rainforest. After a bit of a roundabout way of getting there (minibus - wrong minibus that we sat on for a while - back of a motorbike - walk) as soon as we arrived pretty much it started raining crazily heavily. Rain was joined by gale force winds for a bit of fun in pounded us with rain pellets whilst we waited idly outside our cottage for the key master to arrive. To finish off the madness, hail decided to show up and join in the festivites. In Africa… What the…?!?! We had a really nice, informative 2 hour walk with a guide/sound machine (imagine motor mouth jones off police academy if he could only make a variety of monkey sounds) seeing some pretty awesome trees, vines, flowers but wildlife wise was kinda relegated to some monkeys and butterflies.. If we got lucky/had different weather etc… we may have seen a load more different mammals, birds etc but it wasn’t to be. Sunday we plodded up to the viewpoint which was really really stunning - it’s been a good while where I’ve been at a viewpoint and could see pretty much nothing apart from dense lush green treelife. Beautiful stuff. PS: Had my first hot shower for 3 weeks and it was glllooorrrioouussssss!! :)
Monday - hospital
I joined the Occupation Therapy team for the first time (they work like physios back home - working on gross and fine motor movement), this particular area of hospital care is where the highest percentage of clients are most likely to need SLT intervention I think/feel. I was kinda meant to be observing for the day but I wanted to get stuck in and as there were a few kids who I knew would need some form of strategies put in place with the parents (either feeding or communication advice) I started going round informally introducing myself, what I do and if they were concerned/if their child does x, y or z.
The majority of kids I saw had a diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy (CP) or brain damage due to encephalitis/malaria/meningitis/birth complications. The four families I specifically made a beeline for and saw are all (hopefully) penned in to come back and see me on Friday or Monday as it’s really important for me to do an eating and drinking assessment as all the children were reported to be aspirating on intake (coughing/noisy breathing through food or drink being taken down the windpipe into the lungs instead of the oesophagus into the stomach). The OT in charge, Wesley Snipes look-alike Wilson (see below!), has given me my own clinic room and also told me he would be arranging a folder/notes etc… AMAZING!!! Met Esther, the lovely secretary of the Association for the Physically Disabled of Kenya (APDK), who have an office base at the hospital. She gave me a Luo name (the tribe/language of the area) - Jonathan Omondi (meaning born in the morning - which I think* I am!) and as I was leaving she insisted that I should return tomorrow for a special clinic that is held once every few months - a paediatric neuro team from Kijabe Children’s hospital near Nairobi visit for assessments and referrals.. soooo tomorrow I’m expected at the hospital ready to get stuck in at 8am!
In the evening I took footy training by myself for the first time and all the kids were good as gold, listening to me and seeming to enjoy me acting like a bit of an idiot half the time! I’m hoping to co-coach everyday as long as I can get back in time from work J I’m also planning to introduce some warm-up games based on classic English school ground games i.e: stuck in the mud, british bulldog etc.. maybe even throw in a bit of Kabaddi to boot (check it out on youtube if you have never had the pleasure).
Tuesday - hospital
During the day (8am til about 3pm) the team saw over 40 kids (4 months - 6 years) with almost all showing symptoms/diagnosed with hydrocephalus (swelling of the brain due to an abnormal amount of fluid our brains are cased within going into the various nooks and crannys). Five of the children were specifically referred to me - others were too young to gauge eating/drinking/comm difficulties or had non present. Of those referred, those living close by will return to see me (touch wood) for a proper assessment (prioritising feeding) and one family who live far away I gave a comprehensive written eating and drinking/ speech development stratagies for the parents to use at home and plan to ring them in a few weeks to see how things are going. Of the children I did not see, one particular case stands out - an 8 month year old who was painfully thin (imagine the charity adverts you see highlighting famine), had not only hydrocephalus but looked like her skull had not formed properly with a large soft downward dip in the centre and had a shunt malfunction (the drainage system they use to sort out hydrocephalus - the shunt drains the excess brain fluid redirecting it back into the body to absorb) which was causing seeping sores. Even though it wasn’t my place to say I nipped in to ask if she was being referred to a nutritionalist which she was.
Didn’t have a break til we finished at 3 which I wouldn’t be too bothered by but was absolutely famished as my “long-life” no need to fridge milk was off/lumpy this morning so pretty much had nothing all day! The entire team goes for a fish lunch down by Lake Victoria after these special Kijabe children’s day so we all headed down - me on the back of a motorbike ridden by a lovely funny bloke called Toby who is an orthopaedic technologist (making splints/orthopaedics as well as prosthetics). No chapati or rice was on offer so had to man-up and hit the ugali (a difficult to describe really heavy, stodgy maize and water mix)…it actually tasted half decent in comparison to the only other time I’ve had it and I pretty much had an entire serving which felt like the equivalent of 5 bowls of heavy stodgy mashed potato although that doesn’t even do it justice. The big boss also came over as I was finishing up - he looked at me, looked at my plate and then said in a pretty funny wild eyed way “EAT THE HEAD… EAAATTT ITTTTTT”.
Briefly after I got home straight to footy - game on - one of the kids who lives on the way to mine took me back to his to show the mzungu off to his family I guess. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so humbled - the kid, Marcos (striker for the under 10’s!) lives with his 2 sisters - aged 3 and 1 - and his grandmother (his mother passed away fairly recently and no father was also no longer alive). I was invited in to a tiny mud hut with no electricity (and I imagine no running water) and a single candle illuminating a tiny passageway from the front door to the only room, where the entire family were sitting. Marcos is immensely clever and has probably the best English out of the entire ratpack of kids I coach (including the 12 year olds) so acted like an interpreter between myself and his gran who was obviously very taken aback to see a big white guy enter the house. She humbly invited me in, apologised for them being poor, praised the lord for being lucky enough to look after the children (I gather many of the religious people I have met believe that everything happens for specific reasons) and then thanked me for the work I was doing. I felt totally blown away and not really sure what to say by it all..
Wednesday - Assessment day at clinic
Bloomin ‘eck, talk about getting chucked into the deep end! Through the non-stop 9am - 3pm session I saw a right smorgasbord of clients, both in terms of ages ( up to 14), abilities (from mild to severe impact upon communication/quality of life) and diagnoses; hearing impairment, stammering, learning difficulties, dysphagia (swallowing difficulties), speech delay, cerebral palsy, down’s syndrome and unknown conditions. I thought I’d quickly mention one client whose issues with staff at school is something that cropped up a lot today and is something that is within the underlying nature of people’s attitudes towards disability in this country unfortunately:
Tabitha, 14, has severe sensorineural hearing loss in both ears according to the audiology report with the audiologist reporting that hearing aids may not be of much help to her (I’m planning to follow-up this to double-check the results however) and cochlear implants do not exist as a realistic option here. Tabitha’s hearing loss has come on fairly recently and she has not told anyone until very recently and therefore her grades have been slipping at school and teachers, one in particular, are not being very helpful/receptive to her need with her even in some cases being punished for not being able to answer questions due to her not being able to hear. Tabitha was visibly very shaken (she cried a number of times) by the way she is being treated at school and straight away we gave strategies to Tabitha (she has to sit at the front of all classes, to not be afraid to ask for repetition or check her notes with teachers after class) and the teacher she came with , to give information to the school’s staff (make them aware of Tabitha’s hearing impairment, make sure they are facing the class whilst talking, be happy to answer Tabitha’s questions and check she is understanding). Rachael lives closer and will visit the school as soon as possible to give a training session and to ensure these strategies are being put in place.
On the way back, a 20 yr old came and sat next to me on the minibus saying he knew me from the area I live in (as in he has seen me about) and introduced himself. Oliver, proceeded to ask me what I do here whilst coping with a fairly severe stammer to which I replied I work with people who have swallowing, communication and speech problems. Immediately he asked what can help “cure” him and I briefly explained the nature of stammering and some strategies that have/can work for people but have the opposite effect on others. We exchanged numbers and I’m planning to give him a load of printed information about stammering and maybe meet with him every few weeks for an informal session.
Thursday - A quiet day (phew!)
Silas booked in a client for me to see in the morning who was travelling from really far away for his child (hearing impairment, non-verbal, age 3) to be assessed and advice to be given. The dad and kid travelled for 6 hours (though think there was a load of transport problems and should’ve taken less) and ended up arriving at 12.30ish. Unfortunately, this booking system is how things work in Kenya - you tell someone to come in the morning or afternoon as people in general never turn up on time for anything so you don’t give appointment times. The bad thing is you end up sometimes waiting around while you could be doing other things :( ! After seeing the very lovely kid and receptive dad I headed straight over to my supervisors (about an 45 mins away door to door) for a 2 hour supervision session that I was immensely grateful for. We chatted through the plethora of clients I have seen this week and the things I did with them while Rach gave me a few pointers/pieces of advice aswell as being very supportive that everything I’m doing sounds good! :)
J xxx
Top 3 Itunes songs whilst writing this:
1. All my fiends - LCD soundsystem
2. Is this love? - Clap your hands say yeah
3. Against the grain - City and colour
My address!:
Joylands School, EARC Kisumu District, Kisumu, P.O: 1790-40100, Kenya
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