Blog 1 November 1, 2010
Blog 1
Kisumu, Kenya
November 1, 2010
Hello family and friends,
So once more I have come to Kisumu, Kenya for another round of volunteering.
I spent my first night in Nairobi in a very large slum and it was enlightening to see how people live in a large urban slum in a large city here in East Africa. Lots of garbage – there is no garbage pickup. Little to no water; and poor toilet facilities. But, lots of people have to live like this. Many families with 2 parents and a couple of kids living in only 1 small room, or 2 rooms if they can afford it.
I arrived in Nairobi on October 14, and here in Kisumu on the 15th where I was met by Festus, Roselyne, their 2 children Agnes who is 2 and Kennedy who is 8, and Roselyne’s sister Christine. It was warm and wonderful welcome, and feel good being back with this family, and coming back to my old room. I have swung into my old routine of helping with the dishes and some of the cooking which is not what most African men do, but for me it is OK, and it gives me a little more to do, especially in the evenings, I have made good spaghetti sauce (from scratch), salami and eggs, and smoked salmon fettuccine. If all of that sound good, it was. But Roselyne is a pretty good cook, and I eat well, and she sees that I have plenty to eat – too much. She is like a Jewish mother at times. Festus and Roseline and everyone else here take pretty good care of me.
Agnes, the two year old calls me sweetheart, and visa versa. I think that she calls all white men sweetheart also, so I guess that in her eyes I am no one special.
Someone once said: “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Well, I am one of those three things – certainly not wealthy, and perhaps a little wise. Get up at 6 and usually in bed by 9:30. As far as heath, my blood sugar levels continue to drop, and my insulin intake is drastically lower than when I left. Is it the food, lack of stress, or ??? But I feel good.
KMET is going to build a new facility, and I have come here to help. Monica, the KMET Executive Director left for month for Sudan and Ghana on business, and she was kind enough to let me use her office while she is gone. Am also helping to hold down the fort until she returns.
I have to say, that the KMET staff is so warm and welcoming. I love them all and hope that the feeling is mutual. We are family, as I am with Roselyne and Festus.
This new building will house KMET’s flour production program, and also Sisterhood for Change and Safe Space – KMET’s program to help train vulnerable and abused girls.
So the KMET campus continues to grow and I am happy to be part of it. I am now in the process of helping to revise the construction budget, and obtaining bids, as well as helping out with other things while Monica is away.
I want to tell you about an interesting and ongoing experience that I am having. Someone that Hinda and I both know is in the Provincial Hospital here with AIDS. This hospital is known as Russia – I think because it was built by the Russians, or perhaps because the architecture of the building resembles Russian big city buildings. It is painted pink, and one of the entrances is marked Obama Gate.
In any case, this 33 year old woman, very beautiful with I think 4 children from about 5 or 6 to 16 or so apparently became ill about 10 months ago. Because of the stigma of having AIDS she went to a city some distance from here to get tested, and then waited for a very long time – some several months before she startedon a regimen of pre-ARV drugs. I think it was her husband who has two other co-wives who infected her.
Then, like so many other people she stopped taking her drugs and became very sick. When her family tried to help her not knowing that she was positive, she continued to deny her status, until finally there was no other possibility but AIDS and it was in fact confirmed by a test.
This mother of 4 or 5 was able to return to her home to continue her treatment – she had started to take ARV’s, but because of her oral thrush associated with AIDS could not eat and now she is back in the hospital getting treatment.
So this is how it is in this hospital: She is on a ward with perhaps 15 or 20 other women, some of whom are positive and others have different illnesses. It costs family members who have to come and take care of her 400 Kenyan Shillings a day – about $5 to stay with her around the clock. She must have that care: she needs to be changed and have her toilet needs met; she is fed through a tube, and it is friends and family who have to provide the food and feed her; she has to have her sheets changed by them, etc. It is not a clean place. Let me say it like that.
The other night, two beds away from her, a woman who had been alive and talking just moments before abruptly died and it was quite some time – at least 30 minutes before a hospital worker came to cover her and not completely at that. One leg and one arm were hanging out and so out of respect for her and the patients on the ward I covered her. After an hour or so, two men came to remove her body, and it pretty much like flinging her onto a cart, half naked, just like she was a side of beef. And all of this in front of the whole ward. There are no privacy curtains.
My friend who is the woman with AIDS needed oxygen, and all of a sudden the oxygen ran out. After another supply was located, it ran out also.
A friend of mine told me that if you think this is bad, you should have seen it before. I don’t want to imagine that.
When I told someone how the hospitals are in the US and elsewhere in Europe, and other similar places, her comment was: "I want to go there and be sick". Funny but sad.
Well enough of this gruesome and sad story. Our young, beautiful women with AIDS is not out of danger yet, but we hope she is improving and we are hopeful. Her CD4 count continues to rise. (an indicator of how ill with AIDS one is). The oxygen is working again, and after a couple of tries, her feeding tube was inserted successfully. Her loving family and friends tend to her 24/7. However, her lab test came back today from a spinal fluid test and it showed that she has bacterial meningitis – not good. The hospital’s machine for doing this test is broken and so one of us family / friends had to run into town to a private lab and have the test done. Also, yesterday, the hospital didn’t have the drugs she needed, so again someone has to go and pay our of their pocket. This takes time and as you can imagine, things take a long time here. As Festus always tells me: “There is no rush in Africa”. And you know what? Festus is right.
As you know, it is not the AIDS that does you in but the opportunistic infections like the meningitis, TB, pneumonia, and more. Her meningitis is treatable and hopefully it will work. It will be good to see her in her feet again.
I told her that I wanted to dance with her on her next birthday or mine. I have done that before, so I am optimistic – the glass is half full, not half empty.
Well, after 72 ½ years of life I got my first pedicure and manicure. Not, not finger nail or toe nail polish. Not yet anyway. My heels and the bottom of my feet were removed of calluses. Maybe I should get a facial next. Actually what I really need is my hair and eyebrows back.
As some of you know, Hinda is going to join me on January 2nd and we will celebrate our 50th Anniversary (January 4th) by taking a 16 day second honeymoon to Morocco where both of us really want to go. And we are both anxious to see each other again. As Hinda says, phone conversations once or twice a day just doesn’t cut it.
Finally, the last bit of good news: I decided to take an AIDS test to see what it was like. Pretty much like testing my glucose each morning and of course I was negative along with the 3 other friends of mine who decided to check their status also.
Last finally: At the Nairobi Airport the night I landed, someone unzipped my back pack while I was walking to get a visa, reached in and stole my glutocometer – they probably thought it was a camera since it was in a small black pouch. I had brought an extra one to give to a diabetic friend of mine at work, but will use it until Hinda brings me another in January. All’s well that ends well.
OK for now, This is getting a bit lengthy, so I’ll end it now.
Take care, stay healthy and be good.
Love, Peter
Peter
Kisumu, Kenya
November 1, 2010
Hello family and friends,
So once more I have come to Kisumu, Kenya for another round of volunteering.
I spent my first night in Nairobi in a very large slum and it was enlightening to see how people live in a large urban slum in a large city here in East Africa. Lots of garbage – there is no garbage pickup. Little to no water; and poor toilet facilities. But, lots of people have to live like this. Many families with 2 parents and a couple of kids living in only 1 small room, or 2 rooms if they can afford it.
I arrived in Nairobi on October 14, and here in Kisumu on the 15th where I was met by Festus, Roselyne, their 2 children Agnes who is 2 and Kennedy who is 8, and Roselyne’s sister Christine. It was warm and wonderful welcome, and feel good being back with this family, and coming back to my old room. I have swung into my old routine of helping with the dishes and some of the cooking which is not what most African men do, but for me it is OK, and it gives me a little more to do, especially in the evenings, I have made good spaghetti sauce (from scratch), salami and eggs, and smoked salmon fettuccine. If all of that sound good, it was. But Roselyne is a pretty good cook, and I eat well, and she sees that I have plenty to eat – too much. She is like a Jewish mother at times. Festus and Roseline and everyone else here take pretty good care of me.
Agnes, the two year old calls me sweetheart, and visa versa. I think that she calls all white men sweetheart also, so I guess that in her eyes I am no one special.
Someone once said: “Early to bed, early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise. Well, I am one of those three things – certainly not wealthy, and perhaps a little wise. Get up at 6 and usually in bed by 9:30. As far as heath, my blood sugar levels continue to drop, and my insulin intake is drastically lower than when I left. Is it the food, lack of stress, or ??? But I feel good.
KMET is going to build a new facility, and I have come here to help. Monica, the KMET Executive Director left for month for Sudan and Ghana on business, and she was kind enough to let me use her office while she is gone. Am also helping to hold down the fort until she returns.
I have to say, that the KMET staff is so warm and welcoming. I love them all and hope that the feeling is mutual. We are family, as I am with Roselyne and Festus.
This new building will house KMET’s flour production program, and also Sisterhood for Change and Safe Space – KMET’s program to help train vulnerable and abused girls.
So the KMET campus continues to grow and I am happy to be part of it. I am now in the process of helping to revise the construction budget, and obtaining bids, as well as helping out with other things while Monica is away.
I want to tell you about an interesting and ongoing experience that I am having. Someone that Hinda and I both know is in the Provincial Hospital here with AIDS. This hospital is known as Russia – I think because it was built by the Russians, or perhaps because the architecture of the building resembles Russian big city buildings. It is painted pink, and one of the entrances is marked Obama Gate.
In any case, this 33 year old woman, very beautiful with I think 4 children from about 5 or 6 to 16 or so apparently became ill about 10 months ago. Because of the stigma of having AIDS she went to a city some distance from here to get tested, and then waited for a very long time – some several months before she startedon a regimen of pre-ARV drugs. I think it was her husband who has two other co-wives who infected her.
Then, like so many other people she stopped taking her drugs and became very sick. When her family tried to help her not knowing that she was positive, she continued to deny her status, until finally there was no other possibility but AIDS and it was in fact confirmed by a test.
This mother of 4 or 5 was able to return to her home to continue her treatment – she had started to take ARV’s, but because of her oral thrush associated with AIDS could not eat and now she is back in the hospital getting treatment.
So this is how it is in this hospital: She is on a ward with perhaps 15 or 20 other women, some of whom are positive and others have different illnesses. It costs family members who have to come and take care of her 400 Kenyan Shillings a day – about $5 to stay with her around the clock. She must have that care: she needs to be changed and have her toilet needs met; she is fed through a tube, and it is friends and family who have to provide the food and feed her; she has to have her sheets changed by them, etc. It is not a clean place. Let me say it like that.
The other night, two beds away from her, a woman who had been alive and talking just moments before abruptly died and it was quite some time – at least 30 minutes before a hospital worker came to cover her and not completely at that. One leg and one arm were hanging out and so out of respect for her and the patients on the ward I covered her. After an hour or so, two men came to remove her body, and it pretty much like flinging her onto a cart, half naked, just like she was a side of beef. And all of this in front of the whole ward. There are no privacy curtains.
My friend who is the woman with AIDS needed oxygen, and all of a sudden the oxygen ran out. After another supply was located, it ran out also.
A friend of mine told me that if you think this is bad, you should have seen it before. I don’t want to imagine that.
When I told someone how the hospitals are in the US and elsewhere in Europe, and other similar places, her comment was: "I want to go there and be sick". Funny but sad.
Well enough of this gruesome and sad story. Our young, beautiful women with AIDS is not out of danger yet, but we hope she is improving and we are hopeful. Her CD4 count continues to rise. (an indicator of how ill with AIDS one is). The oxygen is working again, and after a couple of tries, her feeding tube was inserted successfully. Her loving family and friends tend to her 24/7. However, her lab test came back today from a spinal fluid test and it showed that she has bacterial meningitis – not good. The hospital’s machine for doing this test is broken and so one of us family / friends had to run into town to a private lab and have the test done. Also, yesterday, the hospital didn’t have the drugs she needed, so again someone has to go and pay our of their pocket. This takes time and as you can imagine, things take a long time here. As Festus always tells me: “There is no rush in Africa”. And you know what? Festus is right.
As you know, it is not the AIDS that does you in but the opportunistic infections like the meningitis, TB, pneumonia, and more. Her meningitis is treatable and hopefully it will work. It will be good to see her in her feet again.
I told her that I wanted to dance with her on her next birthday or mine. I have done that before, so I am optimistic – the glass is half full, not half empty.
Well, after 72 ½ years of life I got my first pedicure and manicure. Not, not finger nail or toe nail polish. Not yet anyway. My heels and the bottom of my feet were removed of calluses. Maybe I should get a facial next. Actually what I really need is my hair and eyebrows back.
As some of you know, Hinda is going to join me on January 2nd and we will celebrate our 50th Anniversary (January 4th) by taking a 16 day second honeymoon to Morocco where both of us really want to go. And we are both anxious to see each other again. As Hinda says, phone conversations once or twice a day just doesn’t cut it.
Finally, the last bit of good news: I decided to take an AIDS test to see what it was like. Pretty much like testing my glucose each morning and of course I was negative along with the 3 other friends of mine who decided to check their status also.
Last finally: At the Nairobi Airport the night I landed, someone unzipped my back pack while I was walking to get a visa, reached in and stole my glutocometer – they probably thought it was a camera since it was in a small black pouch. I had brought an extra one to give to a diabetic friend of mine at work, but will use it until Hinda brings me another in January. All’s well that ends well.
OK for now, This is getting a bit lengthy, so I’ll end it now.
Take care, stay healthy and be good.
Love, Peter
Peter
posted by Peter and Hinda Schnurman at 3:20 AM
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