Home

After saying goodbyes in Lwala, a 4 day safari, and 39 hours of sitting in airplanes and airports, I’ve finally arrived home to Denver. Jet-lagged and missing Kenya, I’ve thought multiple times, “I should’ve just stayed in Lwala,” but then I fill up a glass of water using a faucet, or switch on a light to read by at night, or stand under a constant stream of hot water in the shower, and I’m reminded at how truly easy (and wonderful) life in the US is.

Our safari was incredible. We saw giraffes, elephants, a pride of lions, hippos, thousands of flamingos, a rhino, a migration of zebras and wildebeests, and monkeys galore. Our guide pointed out a cool bird called the “Secretary Bird” and asked us if we knew why it was named this. When we didn’t know, he replied in his thick Kenyan accent, “It’s called the Secretary Bird for two reasons. One, it walks like a secretary. Two, it looks like it has black leggings.” We should have known.

One of the highlights for me of the safari was when we saw a group of 10 elephants- two of which were babies- literally fifteen feet from our vehicle. One baby elephant crossed right in front of us, stopped to face us, and waved his trunk like he was saying “Hey! What’s up!” It was pretty great.

Looking back, the trip to Lwala was very successful. I’m left with amazing memories of both people and moments in Lwala- I’ll never forget the baby who came to the clinic with blistered, peeling burns over both legs, the man with late stage malaria (sweating, shaking, with a fever of 105), the pregnant women who heard their babies’ heartbeats for the first time in the clinic, the man who came to the Ochieng’ house with a bad snake bite, dancing with the women’s group, listening to the choir, playing the huge African drum, walking miles every day, and the kids at the school eagerly writing their pen pal letters.

I included some pictures of the village. If you want to see more, just click on the links below.

Thanks for the support during my travels, and if you’re interested in making a donation to the Lwala clinic, just let me know!

Ortiti,
Abbie Atoti


Album 1:
vanderbilt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069689&l=22d41&id=4700947


Album 2:
vanderbilt.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2069683&l=631ec&id=4700947

July 13, 2007

Talking Kenyan Goats?

There are goats all over Lwala. Big goats, baby goats, pregnant goats, skinny goats (you get the idea) are everywhere chewing on grass. So a common noise to hear walking down the dirt paths is the familiar (and constant), nasal goat sound, "beeeehhhh." One evening, over a kerosene-lamp-lit dinner of sukuma and kwon (kale and millet bread), Fred tells this story of Flo, his younger sister (who sadly couldn't come to Lwala this summer… she's in nursing school in the US). Apparently, when Flo was a little girl, she'd always walk around the village saying "ber ahinya!" ("hello") even when no one was in site. People were confused at tiny little Flo who would say "hello" to air- and then one day, she went up to her mom and said, "Mom, the goats talk to me!" Her mom, probably trying to hide her amusement, said "Really, what do they say to you?" Flo said, "When I pass them on the road, they always greet me, 'Ber!' And so I say, 'Ber ahinya' back to them!" ("Ber" means something like "good day" and when goats make their "baaaaaahh" noise, it really does sound like they're saying "Ber.") So now, every time a goat goes baaaaaah when we walk past it, we all say in return, "Ber ahinya!"

It's our last Friday in Lwala. We (Dani, Ben, Natalie, Kat and I) leave for a four day safari in Masai Mara on Monday, and although we're so excited about the famous "game drives," we're all incredibly sad to leave Lwala, the clinic, our friends and of course, the chapatti.

Today, Friday July 13th, is a big day in Lwala. Not only is it Friday the 13th (a cool day in general), today we (1) had an opening ceremony for the brand-new protected well that our Vanderbilt group facilitated building, (2) started selling malaria-preventing- bed nets in the clinic that our group raised funds for, (3) met with Yucca, the chairman of the Lwala Women's Group, to discuss future plans for the chicken house the women have built with funds we raised selling their hand-made baskets in the US, (4) collected letters written by grades 6 and 7 at the Primary School for their pen pals in the US, and (5) will be swimming in the river and cooking chapatti and leso (mmm) for my 23rd birthday dinner. It's been a good day.

My time in Lwala this year has been very different from last summer, due in great part to the open clinic. Rather than trying to treat patients in the Ochieng' home (and encountering patient after patient who had really no option in healthcare), this year sick villagers have had access to a fully-functioning clinic, free medication, and excellent medical supervision.

Last summer, I went with Fred and Milton on several house calls to patients who desperately needed medical care; a woman gored by a bull, a severe case of tuberculosis, a man who overdosed, a severely malnourished baby, a women with horrible stomach pain, case after case of malaria, a baby with burns all over her body, and the list goes on. Fred and Milton would do the best they could to help the patients, but they aren't doctors yet…. and the feeling of helplessness we experienced not being able to help these people was overwhelming. Now, we can send sick villagers to the clinic- the one that Fred and Milton and so many others have worked so hard to start.

But even though the clinic is open, I still see sign of poverty and disease in the village.

Onyango, the little 5-year-old who lives next door, runs around with ringworm on his scalp; it's a fungus infection that causes loss of hair, and produces round, white patches on the skin.

There's a one-year-old baby who lives a few huts away from ours named Ouma. This sweet, quiet baby (like so many in Lwala) is so tiny… and who I expect has kwashiorkor- severe malnutrition. His little face is swollen, and his belly is inflamed, but his arms and legs are shockingly skinny… this is caused by not getting enough proteins (or food in general) in his diet.

85% of the school children (tested so far by Johanna, a med student here in Lwala doing research), have some form of worms or parasites in their intestines.

HIV/AIDS is rampant in Lwala with something like 40% of the women infected and 30% of the men. So many women in the women's group I work with here are HIV positive. About 8 of 20 of these strong, beautiful women who stand so tall and proud and graceful- and who have endured so much in their lifetimes- are infected. My friend in the women's group, I'll call her Faith, told me with sad eyes that "I won't be here to see you as a doctor in Lwala, I have HIV and will be gone by then." I try to spend as much time as I can with the women; they sing and dance and laugh and play with my hair (all while holding their babies in cloth on their backs). They've made my time here so memorable, and it breaks my heart to know that almost half are suffering with HIV.

Five children who I've grown incredibly close with during the past two summers live with their HIV positive father and his two HIV positive wives (polygamy is practiced in the Luo tribe). The youngest child breast-fed from his HIV positive mother so we're not sure if he's infected, and one of the wives is pregnant again (and HIV is passed soeasily from mother to child during birth)…

In one of the letters written by a sixth grader in Lwala (for the pen pal program we're starting), she says, "I am 11 years old. I like to run and play football (soccer). When my mother and father were living, they were very loving of me because I was [the] only girl. But they passed away a long time ago with my baby brother and now it is just my older brother and I." This was most likely due to HIV. Dani and I found this while going through the stacks and stacks of letters this morning- and were silent for a really long time after reading it… it's hard to know what to say or do when there's such tragedy in the life of a child.

So clearly, work is just getting started in Lwala. In the next few
years, the Lwala Clinic Committee will develop an extensive HIV/AIDS program, providing testing, treatment, counseling, support, and medication for HIV. The clinic is also starting a maternal-child health program, focusing on pre and postnatal care for mothers and their babies. Education is paramount in changing the health of a community, so we also hope to partner with leaders in Lwala to improve health education (prevention, caring for the sick, etc.) in the community.

It's been an incredible 3 weeks in the village- to say our time here
has flown by is an understatement. Our last few days will be spent doing one last load of laundry (hand-washing everything takes forever, by the way), hanging out with Fred, Grace, Dada, Harrison, Apiyo, Onyango, Rastus, Toby and Joy, dancing and singing with the women's group (on Saturday night… I can't wait), and learning to cook a few last meals over an open fire.

And of course, I'm excited to write about our upcoming safari (it will be my first one!).

(Oh, and Owen… happy 1st birthday, buddy! Can't wait to see you in a few days)


Matek,

Abbie

“Mama Africa”

… is the name of a song we often hear while traveling in crowded matatus (mini-buses that serve as public transportation). They’re supposed to fit 14 people, but just today we squished ourselves in one that held, get this, 34 adults. I had two babies sitting on my lap, and was pressed against an elderly man wearing a tattered top-hat. Practically sitting on his lap, I apologized to the elderly man for cramping his space. He laughed and said “Don’t worry mah sweet child. Welcome to Africa.”

I’m rounding week 2 here in Kenya. I spend my mornings waking up to roosters, washing dishes outside in buckets (usually using rain water), walking to the well to fetch water (either to shower or for cooking), and drinking chai tea (with fresh ground ginger, masala, and milk from the cow outside our door). The sky opens, the hot African sun rises from the horizon, and I leave to go spend my day in the clinic, or at the Lwala primary school, or to visit friends in their mud huts with thatched roofs.

I love going on afternoon jogs around the village. I imagine it must be quite a site to see this white woman with long, red hair running down the dirt paths. Children always run up to the road to greet me (they want to shake my hand- and afterwards, run away looking at their palms to see if any of my whiteness has rubbed off like paint…hahaha).

It’s kind of hard to get very far on my run before someone stops me to chat. Not many people in Lwala jog just to jog, so there’s always confusion when people ask what I’m doing. Here’s how a typical mid-jog conversation goes (Milty and Fred, sorry for all the spelling errors- I’m still learning how to write in Dholuo):

Villager: “Ber ahinya!” (“hello!”)
Me: “Ber ahinya!” (“hello!”… trying to wave and just keep running without being rude)
Villager: “Idhi nade?” (“how are you doing?”)
Me: “Adhi ma ber” (“I’m doing well” … slowing down a little)
Villager: “Intie?” (“are you here?” … a typical greeting)
Me: “Antie!” (“I am here!” … slowing the jog)
Villager: “Idecanye?” (“where are you going?”… walking toward me, reaching out to shake my hand)
Me: (I have to stop jogging to shake hands) “Onge, ringo” (“nothing, to run” –and this is where my grammar declines rapidly)
Villager: “An’go? Idecanye?” (“what? But, where are you going?”- as in “you must be going somewhere… nobody just runs without a destination”)

And this is where I get stuck. I don’t want to try to explain in my broken Dholuo that I’m just running for exercise, and that chances are I’ll just be running in a big circle, because that will take lots of time and probably cause lots of confusion (since I sound like a 2-year-old when I speak Dholuo). So I end up just saying,

Me: “Ade dala!” (which means, “I’m going home!” I feel badly because this isn’t totally true, but it’s the only thing I can think of that I know is grammatically correct- and I’ll eventually be going home, right?)
Villager: “Eeeee (pronounced like the letter ‘a’), erokamano” (“ah, yes. Ok. Thank you.”)
Me: “erokamano ahinya. oriti!” (“thank you very much! Goodbye!”)

Repeat that exact conversation about 15 times, and that’s what my jogs are like in Lwala. It’s pretty funny.

Just yesterday I was shadowing Nurse Rose in the clinic (or “hop-si-tal” as they say in the village), and our last patient of the day walked in. The mother wore a dress of bright orange splashed with a lively pattern of green and brown mangoes. Her baby lay on his stomach, weak and skinny with tiny arms and legs. The child looked no more than a year old, and so I was shocked to hear that he was in fact, three and a half years. The mother unwrapped the child from his blanket and lay him on the examining table, face down. Excuse the graphic description, but coming from his skinny little bottom was this huge, swollen, red mass of tissue- the baby had a rectal prolapse, which means his rectum had bulged out from his thin body. Apparently this condition is a result of severe diarrhea, which is extremely grave for children because it causes serious dehydration and malnutrition (which explained his shockingly small size).

Rose said the prolapse was the largest she’d ever seen- that she wouldn’t be able to treat the child in the clinic by herself. So it was 5:00 on a Friday, and Omondi (the clinic manager) agreed to take the boy (who I’ll call “Samuel”) and his mother to the nearest private hospital (2 hours away). Bill Young (who is here working on clinic stuff), Samuel, his mother, Sam’s 9-month-old sister and I piled into Omondi’s car. Sam, who couldn’t sit or lay on his back due to the prolapse, lay his head on my lap and fell asleep, despite the bumpy ride down the rocky, dirt road.

We arrived at the hospital (nice by Kenyan standards). It was dark and POURING rain. I’m talking sheets of rain, so torrential it feels like the sky is falling down; rain so loud you can’t hear your own voice, or cars on the road, or the babies crying (no, screaming) in the injection room.

Two hours later, after several attempts to insert an IV into his hand (and lots of whimpering on his part), Samuel was sleeping soundly from some Valium. His prolapse had been fixed thanks to a kind Clinical Officer (who’d never preformed the procedure before, but managed anyway).

I felt for Samuel’s mother, who’d never been in a hospital like this in her life. Coming from Lwala, from cows and maize fields and mud walls, to this huge hospital with electricity and multiple floors and plastic everywhere- it must have been a huge culture shock. Eyes wide, looking out of place in their Lwala-style clothing, the mother with her two young children agreed to spend a night at the hospital in the wards (sharing one bed, of course). We plan on returning today to visit them in the hospital. And already, Omondi (Lwala clinical manager) is looking into getting an ambulance for hospital referrals from Lwala.

In the past 6 days I’ve also seen in the clinic: a man with a serious snake bite, several babies with kwashiorkor (extreme malnutrition), a severe case of malaria that required IV, pregnant women galore, a older man with the biggest open leg wound I’ve ever seen, two cases of shingles, and tons of kids with bellies full of intestinal worms. They’ve all received excellent medical care, and most are doing much better after taking their prescribed medication. It’s incredible the difference this clinic is making in the community.

So now it’s Saturday and we’re off to walk the five miles back to Lwala (after, of course, purchasing some rabolo, sweet, small bananas that women sell on the side of the road).

Hope all is well wherever you are reading this.
And just in case anyone was curious, if you need to use the restroom here, you say “lach oh ewa” which literally translates to “the urine is defeating me.”

I love Lwala.

Matek,

abbie

July 2, 2007

I walk down the dirt paths of this peaceful village and my heart
tumbles with a love I can't answer or explain as two little kids in
their school uniforms run toward me giggling and yelling "Atoti!
Oyaore! Edenade?" -which translates roughly to "Atoti (my nickname in
the village), good morning (literally, 'oyaore' means, 'the sky is
opening'), how are you?"



I'm back in Lwala, Kenya: home of the Luo tribe, where there is no
running water or electricity, where you must greet every single person
you pass on the road with a handshake, where children play in trees
and walk cows, and women can balance practically anything on their
heads.



Coming home to Lwala, I've been overwhelmed with feelings of
familiarity and comfort. I didn't realize how much I missed the Kenyan
accent, the nights we spend cooking over an open fire in the kitchen
hut, carrying buckets of water on our head from the well before we
bathe, the home-grown food (kale, beans, rice, tomatoes, onions,
lentils, peanuts, etc.) and the dear Ochieng' family who so graciously
hosts us in their home. It's amazing to see Onyango, Apiyo, Rastus,
Harrison, Dada, Toby and baby Abbie after a year- they're all so much
taller! It's amazing how quickly these kids have grown. When I arrived
in the village after a long 3 days of traveling, tears literally
streamed down my face as Apiyo and Yuka and the rest gave me the
typical hand-slap greeting followed by a hug (first to the right side,
then to the left side).



And the clinic is now open. Nestled in corn fields, tall grass, and
banana trees, the clinic has already seen more than 1,000 patients in
the 3 months it has been operating. Every day, all day, lines of men,
women and children wait outside for hours to see Rose, the nurse in
the clinic. Rose is beautiful, with kind eyes, a warm smile and a
gentle Kenyan accent that reminds me of fresh linens drying on a sunny
day. I get to shadow her in the clinic. She is an excellent teacher,
always encouraging me to do as much as I can with the patients (blood
pressure, weight, etc.) and to "check heh tempehture please."



The other day a pregnant woman came into the clinic for a check-up
(something that never happened before the clinic opened- before, women
had no pre-natal care and would just give birth in their huts,
sometimes all alone). The woman, tall and elegant, dressed in a
bright, thick African print, laid down on the examining table. Rose
brought out a metal fetoscope (looks like a short silver trumpet) and
pressed it up against the woman's pregnant belly. Rose said to me,
"listen heaaa, Atoti." I put my ear up to the fetoscope and faintly, I
could here the baby's heartbeat! It was amazing. And then the baby
kicked me, literally. The pregnant woman laughed and said in dholuo
(the tribal language that is spoken in Lwala), "there's a person
inside!"



The four Vanderbilt undergraduates that are with me in Lwala this year
are integrating themselves beautifully into the culture. Dressed in
their skirts and head scarves, Dani, Kat and Natalie are perfecting
their carry-a-bucket-full-of-water skills. Ben, wearing the long pants
typical of Luo men, can be seen sitting under the large tree next to
grandma's hut talking to other elders of the village. While we're
here, our group will facilitate the construction of a protected spring
(where the village can get cleaner water), and will sell hundreds of
bed-nets for about 10 cents each (so everyone in the village can sleep
under a bed net to protect themselves from malaria).


We're also working on becoming conversational in Dholuo. So far, our
favorite phrases are:


- "kiki wondre" which means, "don't cheat yourself." You say
this jokingly to someone at meal time when they're too full for a
second helping.

- "nang'o" which means, "whaddup"

- "owimore" which means, "the sky is closing (goodnight)"

- "lik lik mamit" which means, "sweet dreams"

- "awacho Dholuo matin" which means "I only speak a little Dholuo!"

- and finally, "akia" which means, "I don't know" (its really useful).


In other news…

Last night, the Lwala choir came to our ot (house) to sing. There was
only one kerosene lamp in the room, giving the performance a magical
feel. The women in the choir wore beautiful headscarves and kangas (a
colored fabric) wrapped around their long, lean bodies. Their voices,
rich and deep and melodic, sent chills down my back. At one point the
choir began to dance rhythmically around the room, making me have one
of those "Wow, I really am in Africa" moments. The other night I
made chapatti in the ktichen hut with Dada and Grace (Kenyan sweet
bread that is on my "top 10 foods of life" list). Oh, and in the past
two days we've walked twenty miles… yes, twenty miles. (That's what
happens when you're in the middle of nowhere and you don't have any
means of transportation except your own feet).


Hope all is well in the US (or Nicaragua, or Spain, or Taiwan, or
China, or France…or anywhere else you may be reading this). Wa biro
nenore bang'e.


Oriti (goodbye) for now!



Matek ("in a strong way"),


Atoti