Out on the road with the Yellow 4WD

Today we visit a small community outside the gate of Ol Pejata Conservancy.  This 364-sq-km private wildlife conservancy is owned by UK based Fauna & Flora, and houses the full palette of African plains wildlife, including the Big Five, eland and plethora of birdlife. Once one of the largest cattle ranches in Kenya, as wildlife moved in and stock became less profitable, conservation became a means to both economic and environmental success.

As we park the yellow 4WD outside the gate, rich expensive game driving vehicles go past, along with herds of donkeys lazily strolling by, the electric fence looks solid and expensive.

It all seems such a contrast to the people that come to visit us, they are so dirty and ragged. The children tell us they were chased away from school because the teachers were asking the parents to help put in the foundation to a fence around the school, and their parents were not helping. The school is funded by a UK church group that pay the salaries for the school teachers, they installed a water pipe to the village, and sent a few kids away for medical operations (cleft palate to Nairobi, and heart surgery case to India).

A group of young girls cluster around us for a few hours, they are in their late teens and early 20s, sisters and cousins, all with young babies. They know and understand about family planning, and as I have a chat to them, I realise that they don’t want to use family planning to delay having children like we in the west, but to help space their children out. Having a child in your late teens is a normal and desired thing.

Here Pauline, the nurse, is giving a pregnancy test to Christine to make sure she is not pregnant before getting a 3-month injection for family planning.

Josephine and Mary are cousins, Josephine (left) is 17 years old and has a 1½  year old boy and she has a 5-year implant now. Josephine has 6 brothers and sisters. Mary (right) is 18 years old and has a young child Brian. Mary has 12 brothers and sisters.

 Lalah, a ragged looking lady was ushered towards us by the girls and we told that this lady is ‘bewitched’, it seems she may have suffered post-natal depression and now has some kind of mental condition. She didn’t acknowdge our presense and refused to talk, staring blankly all the time. She has 5 children, including twins. We were told that the birth of the twins triggered the condition. All her children (as with all the women in the village) give birth in the village. The youngest, a baby in her arms is 6 weeks old. All this information is imparted by Simon, her 10 year old son, very articulate and bright. There was no consideration to take Lalah to hospital, perhaps her husband might take her to a witchdoctor.

Pauline gives Lalah’s baby the full set of immunisations: polo, diptheria 5-in-1 injection, pnemonia, etc. The baby is quite upset, so she gives the child some special ‘grape flaoured’ pain relief from the box of special medicines donated by the canadian ladies:  a teacher and social worker had recently visited CHAT carrying a boxload of medicines in their fancy suitcases thru customs. CHAT was most appreciative as these medicines were of higher quality (stronger and more effective). Pauline kept them in a separate box to give them out to special cases.

The gathered ladies urge Lalah to accept an injection in her arm , saying it is part of the child imummniation, and Pauline gives her a 3-month family planning injection. If someone was more deserving of a 5-year implant this was one such lady, but she had no idea or comprenhension of what was going around her. So on CHAT’s next clinic visit, in 3 months time, Pauline will have a talk with the husband. The husband was not available today as he was walking the fields trying to find some charcoal to sell.

A gorgeous little girl in a pink dress approaches me. She is filthy, I have never seen anyone so dirty in my life! She has infected legs so badly, they are bleeding, with puss and swollen. But the dirt hids it all. Pauline, the nurse, asks the mum to go and wash her straight away and we will then help her. The Mum says, matter-of-factly, that it did not matter if the child died, she had many.

Later, Jana came back all shiny and clean and Pauline gave her some Benedictine and fungal cream.

Seku, came to see us, she was 8 months pregant with her second child. She quietly waited for a long time. She too will have her baby delivered in the village. She was anemic and pale, Pauline gave her  a tentanus shot, folic acid and iron tablets. Samuel, our HIV/AIDS counsellor have her an AIDS test (a strip test), it was negative. During the day, Sam tested about 10-15 people for HIV/AIDS.

There were a quite a few girls hanging around that were thinking about getting some family planning, but they were all a bit scared. Joyce came forward, an 18 years old with a 5 month old baby and she had an 3-month injection. Then Susan came forward for a 5- year implant, she had 5 children and wasn’t very sure of her age (many did not know how old they are). She was very scared, later she tells the assembled  girls “there is no pain, you just need the first person to be brave”.

On the way home we see lots of zebras and giraffes.