Homoeopathy in the Massai Villages

Yesterday was such a day – it is 5 a.m. and I haven’t slept for over an hour, so decided it would be better to get some of my thoughts down. I will put up photos & links to photos over the weekend.

On Wednesday I drove one of the cars down to Arusha – dark glasses and my head straight forward to avoid eye contact with the half dozen police stops. We unpacked at the convent then Lorraine and I ran a clinic in the local parish rooms here; I think we saw about 15 people, but it was less traumatic than Tuesday. Perhaps we are getting used to trusting that doing our best is enough.

Then yesterday, after a night of rain, we all went to the Massai villages. The temperature was pleasant, but the road was a mud bath and at one point we had to get out and gently push the car to stop it sliding from side to side. And then we saw it... the Great Rift Valley. I cannot describe it, the photos will not do it justice, it was marvellous. So we got out of the car and marvelled. A broad plain with great fissures and hills and mountains around. Massive.

All over the hillsides were huts in groups then areas of cultivation and mud tracks with people driving goats, donkeys or cows. And the smell was wonderful (I love farms). After the rain this place seemed incredibly fertile & green.

When we got to the first village, one group went up to some huts and Lorraine & I went to some others. Hiking in flip flops with an overweight laptop on my back – it seemed odd. We got to a small mud compound with round mud huts topped with thatched roofs. Small stools were brought out and we sat and opened up our laptops – this was now slightly surreal. However we found that the light meant that we could hardly see our screens (on power-save) so we tried sitting with our all-purpose cloths (for keeping warm/ sitting on/ whatever else) over our heads like a tent. As I heard Lorraine lament that she still couldn’t find her cursor, the absurdity of the situation hit me and it was all I could do not to laugh; the two of us huddled over laptops covered in bright cloth tents. Fortunately the people are extremely accepting and they showed no concern at this, though we soon realised that to take a case we would have to come out, so just worked as best we could in the sun.

The first child was a girl of 14, with the body of a 5 year old and a head barely bigger than a baby’s – it has been shrinking. Some remedies had helped with dribbling and mucous – we did our best. Later on we saw Danny, and he will remain a star in my day. A year ago, age 3, he could not walk and was shuffling around on his bottom. After remedies he can now walk and ran to greet us giggling and smiling – he loves sister Lavina who was accompanying us to translate Massai. Here the children offer you their heads, as to greet a child you place your hand on their head, Danny hurtled towards us offering us his hot little head before racing indoors to drag out small stools for us to sit on. It seems that he still cannot talk, so again we did our best.

After a few more we drove up to a small church and saw a number of patients, while the others dealt with other clinics. We finished early this time, so were invited down to the main area where huts surrounded a water hole, and were taken into a house where we were given hot sweet tea & chapattis. Hugely appreciated as we realised that yet again we had forgotten lunch. The house was breeze block, with a mud floor and raw meat hanging in one corner and a gauze-doored cupboard with some food in. A couple of wooden tables were used for food preparation, whilst two benches lined the wall; these we sat on. Some men came in for tea, or to see us, I’m not sure – Mazungis (whites) are not seen here often. We left a contribution then went up the hill again to wait, where we watched the numerous children carrying plastic containers for fresh water or herding goats or cows. Most were curious, some greeted us or replied to our greeting, but many just stared in wonder. It was a wonderful place.

Homoeopathy in a Chicken Coop

Today we travelled nearly an hour to a village where there are many AIDS patients. So many that Lorraine & I were on our own to take cases; we prescribed for 17 people... in a chicken coop. It was actually quite pleasant as there was a roof to keep the sun off and a gentle breeze through the window, however the rooster was not impressed and he made a lot of noise from time to time.

As before, some wonderful improvements could be seen to have taken place, but to be honest I am almost on my knees and tomorrow we go to the Masai area for three days where I am told the caseload will be worse. This is all I can write.

To Market To Market...

Hooray the weekend is here! Two have gone off with the Kilimanjaro Walking Group, to a lodge in the Arusha National Park for an overnight trip. Cynthia planned to go but unfortunately she didn’t feel well this morning so has had to stay behind. Me? I know that I need a bit of space to unwind, so I had planned to stay here anyway.

Saturday is market day and this was my destination. All our cars have gone to Arusha, so it is time to walk. Remembering some of last week’s lessons I set off early to try & miss the midday sun, and wore my hat. This was admirable, but would have been even more so if I’d remembered to take a bottle of water too – back home now, having drunk four glasses of water one after the other, I have reduced my thirst to merely desperate.

Setting off for the market I had noticed a Tuk-Tuk that had just dropped someone off. You wouldn’t normally see them up here so I flagged it down as it is cheaper transport that taxis and it struck me that the sooner I got there the sooner I would be back out of the sun. So, as I sat there praising my luck, we trundled off along the wide rutted dirt track to the market. En route I learned how to slide, hang on tight and lurch from side to side as we careered along – I wonder if I have been spoiled by 4 wheel drives? though to be honest I think it is proper flat roads that have spoiled me.

We hurtled round the corner up to a large gate where the market was; or at least should have been. Had I been walking, it would be at this point that I would have lain down and cried, because no market was in sight. Here again the valuable Tuk-Tuk showed it’s worth as he scuttled across the dusty, rutted wasteland until I could see, in the distance, the market. Hooray!

I had come armed with a piece of paper with all the numbers written in Swahili on it, so I would know what I was paying, however I had forgotten to include the words ‘how much?’ and ‘too expensive’.  Nevertheless, the little Swahili I have learned so far was useful, and people were very friendly.

There were hundreds of stalls in many, many rows, all selling clothes, shoes, bags and things, for this is the second hand market. I guess a large amount comes from tourists as there is a very western, if dusty, feel to the products, including. Kalvin Klein jeans and Luis Vuitton Handbags (!) But the majority are ordinary things, and it was to these that I was drawn. Such a wide range of colours, sizes, styles. Apart from the jeans, most female clothes were what I would call Big Mamas’ clothes, but hidden amongst the stalls were a few where they had found really tasteful dresses and it was amongst these that I wandered looking to augment my two-dress wardrobe.

 

I found a fun dress and bargained for it. I also got some lovely material to wrap around myself like a sarong – enough for me and a baby elephant it transpires – but that will be good to use at the pool.

Happy, I began to walk back, noticing how hot it was, because of course now it was the midday sun. I also noticed that everyone except me was walking on the other side of the road – in the shade – so I quickly nipped across. Around this time I praised the Tuk-Tuk for a third time because I would have been on my knees weeping if I had had to walk both ways. As it was I just sweated and walked, offering out the occasional ‘mambo’ to people (hiya). The nearer to home I got the more suspicious I became of my hat. It is purposefully broad rimmed to keep the sun off, but it does not have even a passing acquaintance with fashion, and my doubts were confirmed as the closer to home I got the more ‘pole’s I heard. Pole means sorry and is what you say to someone when you are sympathising with them. I suspect that they felt for me as dust clung to my sweaty face and the hat gave me that pitiable foreigner look.

                                                                                

The Colonial Life

Today we got a taste of colonial living. We were scheduled to have a seminar (sounds so grand!) at Melinda’s which is a fabulous out-of-town house and grounds where Melinda hosts events. Her food is fantastic, the drinks are fantastic the location is fantastic. What can I say? we were going to have a day outside in the shade with a cool breeze, rather than being huddled in a stifling room – at last the colonial life.

That said we did sit and learn about AIDS in Africa; its history and how Homoeopathy can be used to help. And this was very good. We also maintained concentration (most of the time) despite the naughty monkey entertaining us by leaping about in the nearby foliage and despite the totally indulgent lunch we had beneath the trees in the shadow of Kilimanjaro. An African take on Eton Mess (mangoes – need I say more?) almost finished me off, but a quick dip in the pool livened us up before we went back to studying.

Throughout our stay Michelle, a homoeopath who is here for six months, has been driving us around as the roads can be pretty dreadful and she knows the way. However tonight she out on the town to a party and felt she would prefer not to drive us home, so I offered [you know the book – Feel The Fear And Do It Anyway? – I decided to put it into action] I have no fear of driving (Hakuna matata as we say now) but I do not want to be stopped by the police. They have a system here, worse than our UK speed cameras, for collecting money from unwitting divers, which involves stopping you and giving you a fine for whatever takes their fancy. Why are you afraid? I hear you say, and to that I have no rational answer. So I drove.

And on the whole it was fine, but the windscreen wipers were a bit odd. OK, so I put them on to turn right, which was not the wisest of moves, but then they kind of shuddered to a halt in the middle of the screen and just stayed there. My intention had been to have my eyes fixed completely on the car in front, desperate to avoid being seen by any police (I was driving a 4 by 4, this was a vain hope) and these flipping wipers were in my way. I stopped the car and got out to move them, but found that they just scuttled back across the screen when I started the car again. Humph! My passengers all thought this was hilarious. I think it’s called in-car entertainment.

Still, home safe now and ready for some relaxation and good food this weekend. I have learned that even though they do have beef here, unless you have teeth of iron and jaws of steel it can still be a bit tough. We shall see...

The Wonders of Homoeopathy

Today we went out to a clinic where many of the patients had been at least once, so we could see how they have been helped.

The clinic was in another poor part of town, in a room with sofas and comfy chairs – luxury!  There was even mosquito netting on the windows and door. But before you think that we are living the high life, the toilet (yes, we asked in swahili... well had a bash at asking) was the usual hole in the ground and the heat was as intense as ever. However I have my health and plenty of bottled water, and my friend has hand wipes which she is kind enough to share, so I have no complaints.

Here are a few stories.

One lady who was HIV positive had had all her possessions taken from her, by her husband’s family, when her husband died of AIDS – this is something that happens. She was not taking any drugs for the AIDS as she had wanted to die; she had also been considering taking poison for herself and her children. She had been given a remedy and her symptoms reduced, the remedy was then repeated and her mood and pain symptoms improved a great deal. She told us that now she has been getting work again, enabling her to feed her two children.

Another lady was seen, who last time had to be helped due to lack of energy and the fact that she was trembling all over. This time she walked in by herself and seemed fairly cheerful. She had had malaria, severe night sweats, weakness all over with trembling and was urinating copiously throughout the night. All these symptoms had gone or improved – hard to believe that she had had to be helped in before! She said that now her biggest worry was that she needed to put on more weight. She was given a remedy to help.

We made a home visit to a lady who had been seen before as she was paralysed and crying wildly. This had all come on when she was told that she was HIV positive. This is often a response to the bad news. Today she was able to come outside the house with help (no room inside for so many homeopaths – even though we had given up the laptops by then). It was also clear that she was no longer so terribly distressed, although we could see that now she was fairly unresponsive so there is still some way to go. Nevertheless her husband said that her memory is starting to return (it had gone completely) and she smiled and waved at us as we left, having given her a remedy that should hopefully help her in this state.

I hope that I have described these well because to sit here and hear these people’s stories then see how they are after some homeopathy is truly amazing.

Food

Life has become much more simple here, there is work, there is heat (lots & lots of heat) and there is food.

After a long day we went to the market and I bought some meat. There was not much left (or more accurately no beef left) so I had to get goat. Not sure that I’ve ever eaten goat, but red meat is red meat and at 1000 feet altitude, every little healthy red blood cell counts. So we pushed through the heavy smell of farm animals looking to find the seller with the least wildlife on his hanging meat – no cold shelves here and certainly no shortage of flies.

So – how to cook? I cut the meat up into little pieces, to ensure it cooked properly, and threw together some vegetables  and coconut milk to make a Thai curry. Not bad. I suspect the key to eating goat is to make the pieces miniscule so that even if they are a bit chewy, you can still swallow them if you get bored. [Reminds me of a friend’s description of eating raw squid – you pop it in, chew for a while, take it out to look at it, note that it is still there in its entirety, pop it back in and continue chewing]

We had a shared meal last night and – guess what? – it was goat again. This time goat stew. Rather nice actually. I don’t miss chocolate much but I do miss sweet things and suspect I need to work out how to cook something like flapjack on a two ring gas burner....

Work continues to be challenging, with countless homeopaths squished into a different small, airless room each day, whilst we struggle to learn how to take cases. Six homeopaths plus six laptops generate one heck of a lot of additional heat and I am amazed that the patients say anything, faced with a barrage of Muzungi (white) faces poised behind open computers. But they do and we are grateful for the opportunity to learn.

Talking of learning, we had our first Swahili lesson last night, learning key phrases like hello, goodbye and where is the toilet? Make that where is the womens’ toilet? as Cynthia has already inadvertently entertained a group of young men by trying to get in the gents’.

So life is good and still challenging - but then that's partly what being here is all about.

P.S. I cannot get into facebook from here, so please pass this on to anyone you think may be interested.

Totally Exhausted...

... and it's only Monday.

We went cross country to a new clinic and sat in on 14 new cases. We didn't stop for lunch and only briefly for the toilet, though to be fair that was partly due to the toilet. (Please understand that these are squat-over-a-hole-in-the-ground toilets, so I have now become proficient in weeing & flapping around at the same time to discourage the mosquitoes.)

In the UK I would expect to take about 1.5 hours for each new case.

There was a fascinating range of people, including an old lady who was tiny and had to be carried in and a lady who had a black tongue - a sign of AIDS in Africa. We were all crammed in to a small room for many hours (there are now 4 of us on our induction week) so we probably drank a few gallons of water and ate enough biscuits and nuts to feed as small army.Fortunately we were able to keep making jokes which kept our spirits up. 

More of the same tomorrow so I need my bed....

Life lessons already

This is the stage where I start to realise what I really should have brought and what was a waste of space in my luggage.

Out goes the pyjamas – nights are way too hot as I twist around mixing up my sheets with the mosquito net.

What I wish I had – some skirts. Popo, one of our translators wears gorgeous skirts and I keep coveting them. A sin, to be sure, but they are so colourful! 

We went to a clinic in a poor area, organised by a lady called Eva. Initially I judged her by her clothes (bit racy) but soon realised how foolish I had been. She works hard to help the people of the area – which includes offering a room in her house for a clinic. So, after a dusty drive across dirt roads full of holes and ridges, we bowled up to a gate with a scrap of cardboard tied to it, announcing the clinic that morning. We assembled and Michelle started to see patients.

Unfortunately I had problems with my laptop, so when we found that there were nearly 14 people to see and 3 home visits, I offered to do the home visits. The walk to make the visits was a lesson in itself; smaller, more rutted, roads with scrawny chickens and barefoot little kids running around very ramshackle houses. There was even a boy running along with a motorbike tyre, using a stick to bowl it along. I’d never seen this but it reminded me of pictures of Victorian children I’ve seen, bowling a wooden hoop along with a stick. Simple.

First off we were taken into a one-room breeze block building with a couple of beds in it. On one bed, a man sat up slowly and welcomed us. The poor surroundings, the genuine welcomes, I felt humbled.  At the foot of the bed an old woman stirred a pot over a gas burner, with ugali in it. This is cornflour and water porridge – a staple food – which quite frankly looked like wallpaper paste, and may well be its nutritional equivalent.

We finished the day with a visit to the supermarket – indulgence heaven – where I bought nuts, seeds, fish and eggs. What? no chocolate or cake? fortunately the heat has put me off chocolate pretty much, and gluten-free is not a commercial concept here yet, so I shall wait until I’m desperate before trying to bake something (over the 2 ring gas burner!)

Travel & Time

I find it rather hard to pack for one temperature extreme when experiencing another, so my packing was random to say the least. We then drove very early to the airport in a snow blizzard which, now sitting in the sweltering evening heat, seems so far away.

There were a few minor incidents en route including landing in Addis Ababa and finding that the connecting plane had been over booked. There was a mass of anxious people hovering round the departure gate; I eyed up the opposition and decided that there were some large mothers I could not take on, but in general after a few swift shimmys I made it far enough up the queue to ensure my seat to Kilimanjaro. I may have left a trail of sprawling bodies behind me - I could not possibly comment.

Once in Tanzania, I searched for the driver holding up a board with my name (I was so looking forward to that bit) but no joy. It seems that there is a concept about time – Tanzanian Time - that involves adding 6 hours on and my lift was happily cruising around Moshi, waiting for 7 p.m. to arrive. Strange? well the story has a happy ending, so read on.

I tried a phone number I had but it didn’t work, and I couldn’t find the other numbers that has been carefully stashed away (I had been so sure of my lift!). But I knew the address (for ‘knew’ read ’thought I knew’) so got a taxi into town & we started looking for the road. We finally found it – and let me say that male taxi drivers do not ask for help when lost; it was after many suggestions that he stop and ask that I finally stopped and asked a man myself. Of course I know virtually zero of the language so in the end the taxi driver had to do the asking anyway.

So we found the road (for road read very rutted dirt track) and started cruising up & down, no make that slowly rumbled along, looking for house numbers. What no house numbers? Bugger, we’re back to asking people again and you know how much he likes that. Anyhow between me starting conversations and him finishing them off we discovered that the houses don’t have numbers. At which point I conceded I would have to find a room in town & email for help (HELP!)

I will not bore you with the different hotels & rooms I visited until I finally got the message across that yes, really I cannot afford these great prices, and found a cheap lodge. Once there I started to unpack my bag and found the number for the recommended taxi driver. Hooray! I bribed the lad on reception to use his phone with a £5 note (he was sweet and kept looking at it wondering what it was. I pointed to the ‘five’ and ‘pounds’ and assured him that it was worth a few dollars) I was then collected to be taken to the house. On the way it transpired that this recommended taxi driver was the man supposedly meeting me at the airport (how unexpected!) and he pulled out a piece of paper with my name and ‘7 p,m’, on it. How does that work?(and I know he was told one o’clock as Lorraine heard the booking conversation when one o’clock was repeated 3 times.

As I say – Tanzanian Time.

So I am here, I am safe and I am getting used to the heat. I sat in on a clinic today and already have seen some very grateful people who feel better for having homeopathy. There is a good purpose to being here.