Karibu Nairobi

Karibu (Welcome) to Kenya! While I'm not the blogger in the family, I promised Per I'd try to post updates from my time here in Africa. So, I figured, sitting here in the 80+ degree weather listening to the wind rustling the palm trees was just as good a time as any...sounds serene doesn't it! Actually, I'm mainly listening to heavy machinery grading the soon to be new road outside the grounds of the apartment complex I'm staying in...it is one loud engine...and, inside the grounds, I'm listening to a lot of banter between moms and their kiddos in Swedish and Chinese. Apparently, the Chinese are investing heavily in developing Kenyan infrastructure (ie the new road) so there are a lot of Chinese here to manage projects. As for the Swedish, there are 10 or 11 Swedish families that live in the complex while they are adopting Kenyan babies. They have to live in country for 6 or 9 months. The kids live with them much of the time and this ensures that the Kenyan government can perform "home" visits while making it an extensive adoption process to reduce any chance that the kids will be "adopted" for purposes of exploitation. Anyway, I arrived 5 days ago after a relatively easy journey. I'm having more difficulty getting over my jet lag than I usually do when I travel which has resulted in a lot of 3AM internet surfing. When I do get to sleep I'm having some weird mefloquine dreams...I was convinced my mosquito net, which was tied up in a knot hanging over my bed, was a number of human skulls that were trying to attack me...creepy. I'll remember to take my med on a full stomach next time! From the sounds of what I did on my first day here, you'd think I was in Seattle. I went for a run around the arboretum which was designed by the British and is full of both native and non native trees. The smell of Eucalyptus was lovely, however, the smell of raw sewage in the creek that runs alongside the trail, not so lovely. It was Sunday and there were probably 15-20 different groups having church services in the park. Kids running around and playing, singing and praying together...pretty awesome way to worship if I do say so myself. After the arboretum, we (I'm staying with a research director at the moment named Ben) went to a concert called Blankets and Wine with a couple of his friends...think Saint Michelle winery summer concerts with a little more funk. It was fantastic reggae/jazz music and good dancing...Ben's friends (both Kenyan) told him they were surprised I could dance...which is a HUGE compliment for a white girl with no rhythm, especially when dancing with a bunch of Africans with, let's just be honest, alot of rhythm.














The rest of my time here, I've been getting oriented to my program and getting to know my partner. For those of you that don't know, I'm here for 2 months through my residency program. Each year 4 seattle children's residents come to Kenya for 2 month blocks. We are paired with Paediatric (see how I used the British spelling there) residents from the University of Nairobi and travel together to a rural part of Western Kenya called Kisii. While there each pair works on a community project together and spends time working in the hospital as well.

My partner's name is John. He has been guiding me around the various hospitals and organizations this week. He is super nice and very social so I think we'll get along just fine...which is good since we'll be together a lot over the next 8 weeks. He is married to another doctor and has an adorable daughter named Natalie. There are definitely some cultural differences that have become evident as we've been getting to know one another. While this can make things more challenging, I think the partnership really makes the program. We both have a lot to learn from one another.

We have spent some time in the public hospital (Kenyatta National Hospital) which is overflowing because all government health care providers are currently on strike. KNH employs some government providers but also has it's own union of workers who are not on strike...they went on stike last year and bargained for a 100% increase in pay. Because KNH is the only public hospital still functioning, the poor from all areas around Nairobi are flooding KNH for care. The paediatric ward admitted 37 patients the other night...I complain when I have to admit 10-12. All 37 were in one room, some 3 or 4 to a bed. 1 nurse, 1 intern and 1 first year paediatric resident (and of course the patients mother's) caring for them. Many have fevers, pneumonia, diarrheal illnesses. One was cyanotic (blue), dyspneic (short of breath) and in florrid heart failure. He was sitting up (makes it easier to breath) trying not fall asleep so he could keep breathing, even though he'd been awake all night, breathing. Another, was being bag-mask ventilated because she had no respiratory effort. The resident had been trying to get ahold of the consultant (equivalent of an attending or supervising doctor) for the ICU for 1-2 hours to try and get the child appropriate care but no one was answering. The consultants are only there on occasion because the pay is poor so they have to take jobs in private facilities as well in KNH. All the while, the child's grandmother was sitting quitely next to her, resigned to the fact that the child was going to die. That was only 2 of the 37... It makes me mad and frustrated that there are such disparities in the world (and even across the street as the private children's hospital down the road from KNH looks very much like Seattle Children's). It was not an unexpected scene. I've worked in other developing countries. But it is morally wrong. It's not ok that people with money or people who are lucky enough to be born into a country that has the resources and policies in place to provide for its own, have access to all that they need. While the poor, particularly the extreme poor of developing nations must be resigned to watch their grandchildren die in front of their own eyes. Never speaking up, never yelling at the staff to do something/anything to save the child, never exclaming the injustice of it all...just sitting, watching, praying and saying thank you to an overburdened, underresourced staff with no options.