Friday 18th November
Six am, as it turns out, is quite nice. There is no traffic to speak of, the bus is on time and so am I. I board, recline my seat and fall deeply asleep, only waking as we reach Nakuru where I wee, get back on board, fall asleep again and wake up in Kapsabet. From there, there is not that far to go. There is a slight confusion as to my destination : Julius calls it Cheptulu. Easycoach calls it Kaimosi and they are really quite far apart on the map. But Julius is at the stage and we get out the baggage, make a short tour of booming Mama Biashara businesses in town, have a cup of tea and a chat and board a couple of motorbikes for the trip to Julius’ village. Risk of hideous mamings and fatal accidents aside, motorbike is a fabulous way to travel. Especially through the Western Kenyan countryside. Slightly disturbed by the people shrieking and pointing at my whiteness.
My lodgings are with a sweet old bloke who was doing quite well for himself as a professional chef until his wife got cancer and all their worldly goods were sold up to pay for her inept treatment. Her grave is outside the door of the house. He had been reduced to running a small bakery as his wife got sicker but, as the Luhya tradition says that, with widowing comes enforced isolation. You are not allowed to run your business. And people do not come near you. Only the old can approach the bereaved. And so his business died shortly after his wife.
The house is sweet – albeit it would give Aggie whatsername a fit of the vapours. No leccy and no running water but I have a toilet in the corner of my room which I can sit on and flush with a jug of water. It is a bit pongy, being, as it is, just an open hole, in a porcelain basin, to the sewer. But at least I do not need to worry about my appalling lack of skill in directing my pee in a long drop. Padding around clutching an oil lamp is positively atmospheric. Having said which, despite the flame, you can see almost bugger all. When I blow it out I am alone with the darkness and the pong of paraffin. And agonising acid stomach. It is the bane of my life. And I have no pillow. I have all the clothes Ii have with me plus my towel rolled up instead. But I am still almost flat . This is bad. I sit up. I crunch antacids by the handful. I empty a packet of ten. I consider the article I read that said that women often experience a heart attack as a burning pain in the chest and think it is indigestion. I consider whether I might be having a heart attack and have another couple of antacids. I then remember something that popped up online when I last had electricity, to say nothing of wifi, that said that taking too many antacids can lead to a stroke. I wonder which would give me a better chance – marooned here, as I am, in the middle of absolutely nowhere. My stress at this makes my heart race slightly. To be fair it sounds perfectly strong and even. Eventually I fall asleep. And I am writing this, so neither stroke nor heart attack struck. Phew.
Saturday 19th
I get a lovely wash in a bucket of hot water – not IN but with, you realise. Today is medical day and I set off on a bike with my Big Box of Medicine. There are already people there, of course. Usually the earlier they arrive, the healthier they are. We create areas – one for jiggers, one for deworming and one for ringworm. We set up basins of heavily disinfectanty water, I make up bottles of coconut and teatree oil (for ringworm) and off we go. I have bought needles for jigger removing and a couple of experts set to. My group is ever growing so I get stuck in among the dozens of old ladies and men with sore everything, headaches, ‘rashes’ and ‘ulsas’, for which read acid indigestion. My favourites are the lady who ‘feels sick when I think of eating vegetables’, the lady who has suffered loss of appetite and can only eat twice a day and the lady who was ‘threatened by a cow’. We have to look up the word in my dictionary as even Julius does not know the english. I think the whole ghastly experience probably loses something in translation from luhya to swahili to english. Anyway, from 11am till around 7pm in the glorious outdoors ouside Julius house, I see 53 people, we deworm a further 24, we dejigger about 15 and treat a dozen or so for ringworm, three of whom are so bad they need the systemic meds. Those who had jiggers removed get shoes and the remaining shoes are given to the most needy barefoot amongst those who come.
There are also some properly poorly people. There is a thin woman who has had the raging trots for two months, a vomiting girl with a temperature, a genuinely fluey lady with a temperature and an old lady with appalling shingles. “Rashes” she says, wincing as she lifts her blouse. I expect the usual scabby, flakey, pimply, clusters. But she reveals the kind of shingles that would persuade one to believe Noel Coward, that if they ever meet in the middle she will die. I dispatch a pikipiki to the nearest town to get Acyclovir. And plough on. Jane has “pain in the whole body. Only that “, a fat woman has trouble squatting and there is a bewildering array of ailments described with fluttering hands, waving arms, extraordinary grimaces and noises described variously as ‘whrrrrr’ ‘ eee eee eee’, ‘eeeeee – shaaaa’, “waaa waa waa!” and ‘kakakakakakakakakaka’ which keep things entertaining.
Meanwhilewe have collected a group of young drunks demanding dawa and an impressive audience of locals. “They have come to see the celebrity” says Julius. Ah how I remember what thet felt like … Opening school fetes, autograph signing sessions alongside Mike Smith, requests for photos …
This is not quite the same thing. More “see whitey give away free stuff”. Of course word spreads and the queue grows rather than diminishes. Julius grows harassed, what with the drunk boys and the hangers on and the children, not unexpectedly, howling as the clumps of jiggers arre dug out of their tiny feet. Then a boy sneaks in to steal shoes and Julius goes completely banzai, picks up a stick and chases him up the path belting him when he can. There is a palpable ripple of approval.I am unsure as to what to do.
We pack up around seven. Telling latecomers to arrive tomorrow.
I am still trying to find any chemist that has acyclovir and have to order diclofenac gel, antacids,, antifungal and expectorant cough mixture in industrial quantities. Having said which, everyone has got some of HTC’s miracle cod liver oil, or mulltivitamins, and those who need it get calcium and glucosamine sulphate. So everyone should be perking up considerably.
We go back to my lodgings and eat the best ugali I have ever tasted. Although, to be fair, to say that you ‘taste’ ugali is a little like saying you ‘feel’ air. Fearing a return of my stroke / heart attack dilemma of last night I try drinking black tea instead of milky coffee.
And i have an entirely undisturbed night of sleep. Except for the relentless drumming which goes right through the night and into the morning. Turns out to be a particularly bothersome variety of Godbotherers. Grrrrr.
Pix to come when the wifi connection can stand it
