The final blog's down duh duh duhhh duh, duh duh duh duh duhhh

And here it is. The last blog. Some very short mostly non-work related lists about what I’ll miss, what I won’t and what the future holds (both for me and for Speech and Language Therapy in Kenya). So here goes, my last first things that spring into my head - it’s been quite nice rambling on with my thoughts and getting some lovely feedback to boot. So thank you for listening:


What I’ll miss

1. The people
Yes yes yes, I know it’s a bit of a cop-out but what I mean is actually less the great people I’ve met/worked with who I will also miss, but more the community spirit/general happiness I automatically associate with people from Kenya. Part of what I’ll really miss is the daily exchanges with people both known and unknown - “Habari?!”, “mzuri” - The equivalent of a hark back to how I imagine the olden days of people greeting each other jovially in the local community.

2. Lack of technology
Although it was an absolute saviour on many a night (laptop/internet) I honestly feel fair more relaxed without being around technology, feeling the need to constantly check e-mails/face book etc.. or more to the point wasting hours scouring through pointless articles and websites. I read more books in my 6 months out in Kenya then I think I have in the past 6 years and thoroughly enjoyed making a bit of time to switch off from technology to settle down with a nice cuppa and curl up with a book. Something I shall endeavour to continue whilst back (He says watching football on TV whilst typing away on a laptop with an iphone beeping away beside me).

3. The work
In a slightly selfish way, I’m going to miss the work for a few main reasons: Firstly, I’m not sure when I’ll be able to grab a job within speech and language therapy in the U.K and I love what I do and secondly, I feel like I made a bit of a difference out in Kenya and as many people have mentioned I have probably gained more experience and knowledge in the 6 months past than I will in my first few years of work. And I’m a geek for Speech and Language Therapy so loved having to do research across such broad and wide ranging areas, both Speech and Language related and not.

4. Being outside England
I’m a bit of a traveller at heart and find anywhere and everywhere infinitely more interesting/exotic than England I’m sad to say… So plonking down in a 3rd world country, with a culture I had not previously experienced, with very little support was something that I absolutely adored.

5. The food
Bit of a weird one as in general there is not so much variety in Kenyan foods. Let’s see.. Barbequed or fried meat, ugali (maize staple), sukuma (kale), cabbage, beans, green grams, chapati, samosas, rice… is pretty much it on the whole. But I loved it. Sure, at times I had huge cravings for all sorts (mostly cheese, sometimes odd random things  - mussels, pork pies) but really could have eaten chapattis, green grams and bbq meat forever. And gotten very fat.

Things I won’t miss

1. Getting hassled
Out in the streets. Outside my home. In my home. On the phone at 6 am. On the phone at 10pm at the weekend. There were some great advantages being a foreigner (especially when it came to work), but there were some huge disadvantages - mostly based around people wanting money/food, thinking because of the colour of my skin I’m rich or clients phoning me at all hours asking for money, wanting to date me (!) or asking when I will see them next/when will their child get better.

2. Mosquitos
See the first part of number 1. Hassle! Also being able to jump straight into a bed and not having my feet or head touching net is absolutely lovely. I’ve been home 5 days and still have a few itchy bites/scars/lumps remaining. Grrr.


3. Not having a fridge
No explanation needed. It’s pure joy being able to have allsorts of different food, being able to have cold stuff(!) and not having to eat everything immediately or have the same thing for dinner and breakfast otherwise it’ll go off.

4. Risk to life
I’m not over exaggerating when I say “risk to life” - you do get used to things and end up not thinking about it too much but there was on average a big matatu (minibus) crash that made the news every week or so with deaths and severe injuries.. I was taking one of these or sitting on the back of a motorbike/bike with a very unsafe driver in a very unsafe environment (no traffic lights, signs or rules of the road really) on average twice a day. It’s nice to feel a bit safer even though cycling in London is a bit dangerous! An anecdote to describe this nicely was someone who laughed at me when I said I failed my driving test. In Kenya there is no test - you just pay for a license pretty much. On a lesser scale, safety issues at night meant it was not advisable to go out after dark unless with a lot of people/in a very public place. The freedom of being back here is delightful.


5. Some of the scenes
As expected in Kenya there were some pretty difficult things that I saw that I will probably carry with me for a long time, if not forever. In many of the situations, some good came of many of these situations, whether it be a client “coming up”, families/staff learning more and working more efficiently together or other but equally in many situations there was no possible solutions or staff/families did not care or were not doing there job properly which proved to end in the worst scenario imaginable, death.

The future!

Kenya:
As it currently stands, there are a few universities in Kenya who are interested/enquiring about starting up a university course to train speech and language therapists :) The only course currently in East Africa started 3 years ago in Kampala, Uganda and from the ideas inception to the course producing therapists took in the region of a decade. Therefore although it’s brilliant that through X, Y and Z, speech and language therapy is getting noticed in Kenya it will undoubtedly take a very long time for a course to be active in Kenya as one of the primary issues is the government need to recognise the profession to provide funding for university courses and ultimately jobs within Kenya.
The remaining 2 speech therapists in Western Kenya will be toiling away until June but there will be another SLT/P carrying on some of the work I have started/set-up in Kisumu from the end of this month for 6 weeks :) additionally, come the summer months there will hopfully be another short-term volunteer who I am in the process of persuading to come to Western Kenya rather than Mombasa so fingers crossed! Lastly, I’ve been asked at the university I graduated from last year to do a presentation on my time our in Kenya so who knows, possibly there will be some interest in coming out like I did and there may be more continual support come September/August time with some luck! Please refer back to http://jonathanmlfagan.blogspot.com/2012/01/some-pictures-and-little-bit-of_6409.html
for some more facts and figures about speech and language therapy in Sub-Saharan Africa, particularly Kenya.

Me:

After eating far too much cheese and chocolate (I never thought there would be a day where I would say) the first few days I was at home.. I got straight back into work at a nursery school I previously worked at. They have been extremely lovely and I have been unbelievable lucky to have been given my previous job back until I get that magical job in speech and language therapy (a report on the BBC a few months back said only 20% of new graduates in the field get a job within the first 12 months :( ). So that has been absolutely great. Catching up with friends and family, having things to do in the evenings, enjoying the cold weather (though like a traditional Englishman I’m already complaining about it) and in general settling back into western life has been really nice so far. Hopfully it’ll continue and fingers crossed I won’t get itchy feet too quickly and I’ll get a job in speech and language therapy before too long.

For those of you who are interested and haven’t checked it out yet, there is a SLT/P E-book project I’m working on which is slowly but surely (hopefully) taking form - Please get involved if you are interested/can.

Last thing!

Thank you all for everything. I know I’ve done platitudes and all previously but I guess deep down I figure as blogs can’t always express emotions (and no emoticons are not good enough) repeating something enough times might make you guys think I mean it.

Loads of love and thanks for checking out my blog and supporting me!

Jon x

Top 3 songs played on Itunes shuffle whilst writing this:

1. The Lighthousekeeper - Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly
2. Jolene - Ray Lamontagne
3. Floating Vibes - Surfer Blood