Irene: update of our week in Nairobi

Finally we have found ourselves at an internet cafe and hopefully I can write a slightly more descriptive entry. Although there is internet access at Didi's place, there has only been one computer from which we can log on and she pays for her internet by minute, so I've been trying to keep things short and sweet. Maybe I'll even get to upload some pics while I'm here.

Today will be our last day in Nairobi for now, as tomorrow we'll be meeting up with Ameet our supervisor and we'll be travelling to the Toru clinics in the villages. I don't know if we'll have internet access there.

I wasn't able to talk about our very first clinical day here in Nairobi. We were dropped off at Kariobangi, Abha Light's flagship clinic right in the middle of the Nairobi slums. There homeopaths treat the ghetto residents for a very affordable price with, of course, homeopathy, but also with nutritional advice, massage, and sometimes even with acupuncture. This clinic is a little slower-- I'd say less than 20 patients walked in that day. With the resident doctor we examined a child with an umbilical hernia, a woman with chronic malaria and concurrent pneumonia, and another child with very purulent otitis media (ear infection). The 5 of us were actually quite surprised to find that we actually did know a thing or two! We were able to perform effective physical exams-- this was my first time hearing crackles and rales in a patient's lung fields and feeling extremely fast heart rate. I'd also never seen so much discharge coming out of anyone's ear. However, as a team we were able to come up with some probable causes of the various infections and prescribe what we hope were effective treatments. All you readers who have just completed 2nd year at CCNM, I just really want to share with you all that our 2 years of education have come to something! We actually know more than we think we know! So have faith everyone!

We also met a very nice gentleman named James who had lived in the ghetto for many years who helps out at the clinics with translation and other odd jobs. I found him to be incredibly intelligent and knowledgeable, despite the fact that he wasn't as educated as he'd like to be. He shared with us that his life dream before he dies is to go to university to study anthropology, then come back to his neighbourhood and give something back to his community. He wasn't able to pursue his dream just yet as he didn't have enough money and he had 6 kids to take care of. He gave us a quick tour of the area... I wasn't sure how I'd feel seeing so much poverty... but one thing I have to say is that the residents have a certain spirit and camaraderie that I'd never sensed in the West. They, including our patients, seemed so willing to share with us their homes, and they were very proud of who they were and where they came from.

I've already written a bit about the first orphanage we visited. I had said that there were 100 kids living there, but there were actually 120, and they were very sick too. There appeared to be a malaria outbreak amongst them all and over half of them also had ringworm.

We visited another orphanage yesterday, and what a stark contrast! This orphanage had less children for one (only 47), they actually had some toys and a playground, better food, mosquito nets, and all were enrolled in school. Working here was much less tiring than the previous day. There were fewer cases, but each was more unique. Now I want to share my very first cure! I was paired with Janet, a student from Abha College, and together we received the case of a young boy who had a severe headache. He was listless, nonresponsive, and very reluctant to answer our questions. He could only say that his head feels painful. His headache began on Saturday he told us, but when we asked what had happened that day he was unwilling to talk. Eventually however, we got out of him that on that day his father died and he didn't want to talk about it because it makes him cry which makes the headache worse. Because he had a headache from grief, we prescribed a single dose of ignatia. About an hour later I turned around and saw this same boy curiously going through one of my books, much more alert. It was like he was a completely changed person! I asked how he was feeling and he immediately said "good!" The listlessness had completely gone. He later came up to Janet and asked for more medicines. I was excited to see a homeopathic treatment work so fast for the first time!

I'm going to see if I can upload some pics from here. I'm warning you though that I have a lot of photos of kids. A lot. They LOVE getting their picture taken in all sorts of poses, and I'm a sucker for these guys.

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