I have just returned from walking for 14 days with the latest CHAT camel mobile clinic. It is a month long camel trek traveling thru Samburu district (northern Kenya).
I am traveling with 3 other ladies: Mercy a locum nurse who has never walked a camel trek before, Ester, a family planning mobilizer, and Sofina, our HIV counselor & tester who also does family planning mobilizing. Sofina is the boss of the expedition. We have 5 camel handlers on the trek, all very experienced, they have been working for CHAT most of their lives: LeKuyieya – young, quiet, considered, polite, very nice, he makes the decisions with Sofina. Koloseg – older man, walks with a limp, but these guys walk 12 hours a day with no issues, Koloseg walks in the middle of the camel train to keep the camels from going astray. LePris – again young, our “Mr Cookie” (my nickname for him), our food saviour, then Abdi the bush boy, who is a whizz with the camels, very quiet, no English and who likes nothing better than sitting up a tree and the others love to give him shit! And finally Koperi, the clown and entertainer. He was camp manager, my translator, and such a hard worker. All the boys were so hard working, uncomplaining, with lots of initiative. Pity that they only get paid $3 a day. The best thing I loved about this group was the free and easy chatting and joking, even in harshest of conditions.
Day 1 – Kirimon
Market day in town, but by 11am we had not managed to get there, we had dramas with the solar fridge for the vaccines. People started coming to us. Mercy, the nurse, is quite slow with removing implants (she got faster and faster as the days progressed). So at about noon, we load up a camel with the 2 boxes of medical supplies and walk into the market place. It is a riot of colour: Morans (warriors) in their red kikoi (fabric wrapped around the waist) and red ochre hair, the jangle of silver, beaded jewelry, the ladies with rings and rings of beads around necks and Morans with plastic flowers on their heads.
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Our camel and I, the mzungu (white person) cause quite a stir. The camel is belligerent, not liking the crowds. We set up under a tree, moving out the old men, who have taken the prized shade. This is a bit of a bad move as they hang around, curious, and the women don’t come to talk family planning when there are men around. LeKuyieya, our best camel handler, is the translator. The tribe here is Samburu. Like most people, LeKuyieya can speak his own tribal language, Swahili, English and several other tribal languages, depending on his heritage. Mercy, our nurse is a Kikuyu, so the old folk, who cannot speak Swahili need translating.
In the market there are plastic shoes, cheap torches, beads, clothes for sale. I chat to George, the only urban looking guy, who is not a market salesman.George is the local policeman on a 2 year posting from Eldoret. Police are posted from other tribal areas, to ensure they are not involved in the local conflicts. George is very nice to chat to, and he stands with me to authorize my photo taking.. very embarrassing. Again, like all African men, he thinks we should marry!
Armedio comes into camp in the afternoon via a long boda-boda (motorbike) trip with a fuse for the fridge. LeKuyieya, Koperi and I return to camp. Yah! The solar fridge is now working. It was a blown fuse. The guys return at the end of the day and they have done about 40 implant removals and over 50 implant inserts, amazing. They had to take over the Moran bike repair shed next to the market, to do all the family planning work. Sofina tells me that Samburu’s are much nicer, friendlier than Turkana, so they didn’t have to pay anything to use the bike shed.
I so enjoyed the atmosphere of the market today, too hard to describe: exotic, different, I don’t want to disturb it to take photos, yet I am so likely to forget this experience / image quickly.
I so enjoyed the atmosphere of the market today, too hard to describe: exotic, different, I don’t want to disturb it to take photos, yet I am so likely to forget this experience / image quickly.
Dinner tonight is goat, rice, potato & cabbage. Lunch was ugali (maize flour) & cabbage, all slow cooked on a small fire, Ester teasing the fire to continue. It is cold, cold and rainy. Armedio is high (as usual) on mirrar (mild narcotic weed) and talks ALL night long. He is certainly unique, but ok! Had a wash in a pail, need to get used to this .. note: my hygiene standards certainly dropped dramatically as the days went along. We sit around the fire all night; LeKuyieya & Ester get a fire of acacia spikes going with lots of smoke. And we start to get to know each other … everyone thinks I must have ONE baby. And now.
